In this letter, written as simply and as unreservedly as that of a child to its mother, we see Poe himself--Poe in his real nature. Not the poet, with his studied affectation of gloom and sadness; not the critic, severe in his judgment of all that did not agree with his standard of literary excellence, and not even the society man, wearing the mask of cold and proud reserve--but Poe himself; Poe the man, shut in from the eyes of the world in the privacy of his home life and the companionship of his own family. Who could recognize in this gentle, kindly and tender man, with his playful mood and his affectionate consideration for those whom he loved--even for _Catalina_--the "morbid and enigmatical" being that the world chooses to imagine him--the gloomy wanderer amid "the ghoul-haunted regions of Weir," the despairing soul forever brooding over the memory of his lost Lenore? And how readily he yields himself to the enjoyment of the moment; how cheerful he is in a situation which would depress any other man--a stranger in a strange city, just making a new start in life, with "four dollars and a half" to begin with! Surely there is something most pathetic in all this as we see it from Poe's own unconscious pen; with the purchase of the twenty-five-cent umbrella to shield "Sissy" from the rain, the two buttons and the skein of thread, and, ever mindful of Sissy's comfort, the tin pan for the stove. The picture is invaluable as enabling us to understand the true characters of Poe and his wife and the peculiar relations existing between them--Virginia, trustful, loving and happy, and Poe, all kindness and protective tenderness for his little "Sissy." We look upon it as a life-like photograph, clear and distinct in every line; Poe with the traces of care and anxiety for the time swept away from his face, and Virginia--as she is described at this time--a woman grown, but "looking not more than fourteen," plump and smiling, with her bright, black eyes and full pouting lips. It is Poe himself who reveals her character as no other has done, when he says that, though "delighted" with her new experience and situation, she yet "had a hearty cry," childlike, missing her mother and her cat.