meant, he objected to furnishing it with a note of explanation,
quoting Dr. Johnson's remark about a book, that it was "as obscure as
an explanatory note."

Miss Susan Ingram, an old friend of Poe, and one of the party at Old
Point, tells of a visit he made at her home in Norfolk following the
day at Point Comfort. Noting the odor of orris root, he said that he
liked it because it recalled to him his boyhood, when his adopted
mother kept orris root in her bureau drawers, and whenever they were
opened the fragrance would fill the room.

Near old St. John's in Richmond was the home of Mrs. Shelton, who, as
Elmira Royster, was the youthful sweetheart from whom Poe took a
tender and despairing farewell when he entered the University of
Virginia. Here he spent many pleasant evenings, writing to Mrs. Clemm
with enthusiasm of his renewed acquaintance with his former lady-love.

Next to the last evening that Poe spent in Richmond he called on Susan
Talley, afterward Mrs. Weiss, with whom he discussed "The Raven,"
pointing out various defects which he might have remedied had he
supposed that the world would capture that midnight bird and hang it
up in the golden cage of a "Collection of Best Poems." He was haunted
by the "ghost" which "each separate dying ember wrought" upon the
floor, and had never been able to explain satisfactorily to himself
how and why, his head should have been "reclining on the cushion's
velvet lining" when the topside would have been more convenient for
any purpose except that of rhyme. But it cannot be demanded of a poet
that he should explain himself to anybody, least of all to himself. To
his view, the shadow of the raven upon the floor was the most glaring
of its impossibilities. "Not if you suppose a transom with the light