Mrs. Clemm, on the other hand, was a large, coarsely formed woman, and it seemed impossible that she could be the mother of so delicate and graceful a girl.  She was very faithful and hardworking, however, and sincerely devoted to Poe as well as to her daughter.  She had the business ability to manage Poe’s small income in the best way, and made for him a home that would have been extremely happy had it not been for poverty and other misfortunes.

While Poe lived in Baltimore he would go out to walk nearly every day with the editor of the Saturday Visiter; but he sometimes walked alone or with Virginia.

After a time the young poet and story-writer decided to go to Richmond, his early home.  He had many friends there, who welcomed him back, and a good position was offered him.  The Southern Literary Messenger had been started by a Mr. White, and Poe was made assistant editor.

He had become very much attached to Mrs. Clemm and Virginia while in Baltimore, and now wished to marry Virginia.  She was but fourteen years of age,—­indeed, not quite fourteen,—­and Mrs. Clemm’s friends thought the girl too young to marry.  But Poe gained the mother’s consent, and he and Virginia were united in May, 1836.

Virginia was Poe’s ideal of womanhood, and we find her figuring as the model for nearly all the heroines of his poems.  In a letter after the death of both Virginia and her poet husband, Mrs. Clemm wrote, “She was an excellent linguist and a perfect musician, and she was very beautiful.  How often has Eddie said, ’I see no one so beautiful as my sweet little wife.’” Poe undertook her education as soon as they were married, and was very proud of her brilliant accomplishments.

As she was the source of his greatest happiness, her loss was the occasion of his greatest sorrow.  A year after their marriage she burst a blood vessel while singing.  The following extract from a letter of Poe’s to a friend will explain how this misfortune affected him.

“You say,” he writes, “’Can you hint to me what was the terrible evil which caused the irregularities so profoundly lamented?’ Yes, I can do more than hint.  This ‘evil’ was the greatest which can befall a man.  Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood vessel in singing.  Her life was despaired of.  I took leave of her forever, and underwent all the agonies of her death.  She recovered partially and I again hoped.  At the end of a year the blood vessel broke again.  I went through precisely the same scene.—­Then again—­again—­and even once again, at varying intervals.  Each time I felt all the agonies of her death—­and at each accession of her disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity.”