Poe lay dying of consumption in the cottage at Fordham, that Catterina came to her highest glory. The description of that scene touches upon a human nerve of pity and compassion that must give the most callous a pang. Poe himself, harassed by poverty, pride and illness, had to witness the sufferings of his failing wife without ability to ease them. This is the description of a kind-hearted woman who saw them then:
"There was no clothing on the bed but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth."
Perhaps Philadelphia will some day do fitting honor to the memory of that ill-starred household that knew its best happiness in the little house on Brandywine street. Mr. Owens, who is a druggist, has whimsically set up in the front parlor one of the big scarlet papier-mache ravens that are used to advertise Red Raven Splits. But it seems to me that Philadelphia might go just a little further than that in honoring the house where "The Raven" may have been written.
