FORDHAM MANOR 153 



age of seventeen he entered the University of Virginia, where he 

 excelled in the languages and in athletics. He took high honors in 

 Latin and French. But he fell into heavy gambling debts, and at 

 the end of the first year Mr. Allan withdrew him from college 

 and put him to work in his counting house. 



Poe determined to make his own fortune, and he ran away 

 to Boston where he soon issued his first book, Tamerlane and other 

 Poems. Poor and friendless, he now enlisted in the army. He 

 must have been an efficient soldier, for he was promoted to sergeant- 

 general. Thru the influence of Mr. Allan, he was allowed to 

 enter West Point; but not being able to stay long under restraint, 

 he deliberately gave such ground for offence that he was court- 

 martialed and dismissed. 



He now turned to literature for a livelihood. By winning a 

 prize of $100 for a short story, he gained the admiration of John 

 Kennedy, the novelist, who rescued him from poverty by securing 

 for him magazine hack work. He brought about an enormous in- 

 crease in subscription for every periodical with which he was 

 connected, but his excesses kept him in the throes of poverty and 

 wretchedness. 



At this time he was living with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and 

 her daughter, Virginia, in Baltimore, but he soon moved to Rich- 

 mond, where he married his young cousin in 1835. 



His indulgence in opium and intoxicants increased, and he 

 was often plunged into dire penury. In 1838, he removed to New 

 York, but he met with little success, and he had to keep up an in- 

 cessant struggle to keep the wolf from the door. In 1841 his wife 

 ruptured a blood vessel, and the next six years were full of misery 

 and agony. For the sake of his wife's rapidly failing health, he 

 removed, in the summer of 1845, to "the Little Dutch Cottage in 

 Fordham." 



Poe's devotion to his wife was steadfast. There is a tender 

 letter dated June 12th, 1846, addressed to "My Dear Heart — My 

 Dear Virginia." "Keep up your heart," he wrote, "in all hopeful- 

 ness, and trust yet a little longer. On my last great disappoint- 

 ment I should have lost courage but for you — my little darling wife. 

 You are my greatest and only stimulus now, to battle with this un- 

 congenial, unsatisfactory and ungrateful life." 



In 1848 Poe became betrothed to Mrs. Whitman, but the en- 

 gagement was broken off on the eve of the wedding. In June, 



