"Mr. Graham," he exclaimed, "to see those you love better than your own soul in want, and, in spite of working like mad, to be powerless to raise them out of it, is hell!"
A second time the exquisite child-wife slipped quickly, noiselessly, to his side and with the same easy grace leaned over and touched his brow with her lips, but this time instead of moving away, remained hanging over the back of his chair, her fair hand gently toying with the ringlets on his brow. He was calm in an instant.
"I mean, of course, such a condition would be intolerable provided it should ever exist," he added.
As the visitor stepped from the cottage door into the chill of the bright November night, and made his way down the little path of flagstones--irregularly shaped and clumsily laid down, so that mossy turf which was still green, appeared between them--he felt that he was stepping back into a flat, stale and unprofitable world from one of the enchanted regions, "out of space, out of time," of Poe's own creation.
He had indeed, had a revelation of harmonious home-life such as he had not guessed existed in a work-a-day world--of the music, the poetry of living. He had had a glimpse into the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
The next morning found Mr. Graham still under the spell of the evening with the Poes. He caught himself impatiently watching the clock, for the man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to confer with him in regard to the magazine. He could hear him coming (stepping briskly and whistling a "Moore's Melody") before the rap upon the door announced him. He came in with the bright, alert air of a man ready for action for which he has appetite. His rarely heard laugh rang out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview. His manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never seen him so genial, so gay. The mantle of dreamer and poet had suddenly dropped from him, but the new mood had a charm all its own.
When business had been dispatched and they sat on to finish their cigars, Mr. Graham reiterated his expressions of pleasure in his visit of the evening before.
"You gave me food for thought, Mr. Poe," said he. "I've been pondering on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true happiness. It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I've met with for some time. I've determined to adopt it, and to, at least endeavor, to practice it."