* * * * *

In the fall he was entered at Mr. Clarke's school. The school-room, with
its white-washed walls and the sun pouring in, unrestricted, through the
commonplace, big, bare windows, was very different from the great,
gloomy Gothic room at old Stoke-Newington--so full of mystery and
suggestion--but Edgar found it a pleasant place in which to be upon that
cool fresh morning in late September, when he made its acquaintance. He
felt full of mental activity and ready to go to work with a will upon
his Latin, his French and his mathematics. Since his return from
England, in June, he had become acquainted with most of the boys who
were to be his school-fellows, and he took at once to the school-master,
Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin--a middle-aged bachelor of
Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a
big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of
what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick
wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous
aspirations.

It had been Master Clarke's suggestion that his new pupil, who was known
as Edgar Allan, should put his own name upon the school register. Edgar,
looking questioningly up into Mr. Allan's face, was glad to read
approval there, and with a thrill of pride he wrote upon the book, in
the small, clear hand that had become characteristic of him:

"Edgar Allan Poe."

He was proud of his name and proud of his father, of whom he remembered
nothing, but in whose veins, he knew, had run patriot blood, and who had
had the independence to risk all for love of the beautiful mother of