In November he writes again: “I sat up last night until twelve, reading ‘Poems & Poets’; some of the boys came down to my room and we had a literary coffee party. They became finally interested in Edgar Poe--probably because they could not understand him.” My brother always had a great admiration for Edgar Allan Poe, and would chant “The Raven” and “Ulalume” in a strange, rather weird, monotonous tone. He especially delighted in the reference to “the Dank Tarn of Auber” and the following lines: “I knew not the month was October, I knew not the day of the year,--” Poe’s rhythm and curious, suggestive, melancholy quality of perfection affected strongly his imagination, and he placed him high in rank amongst the poets of his time. One can picture the young men, strong and vigorous, wrestling and boxing together in Theodore Roosevelt’s room, and then putting aside their athletic contests, making their coffee with gay nonchalance, and settling down to a night of poetry, led in the paths of literature by the blue-eyed young “Berserker,” as my mother used to call Theodore in those college days. During the summer of 1877 my father accompanied my sister Anna to Bar Harbor on one of her annual excursions to that picturesque part of the Maine coast, where they visited Mr. George Minot and his sisters. He writes to my mother in his usual vein of delightful interest in people, books, and nature, and seems more vigorous than ever, for he describes wonderful walks over the mountains and speaks of having achieved a reputation as a mountain-climber. How little any of the family who adored him realized that from a strain engendered by that climbing the seed of serious trouble had been sown in that splendid mechanism, and that in a few short months the vigorous and still young man of forty-six was to lay down that useful life which had been given so ardently and unselfishly for the good of his city and the joy and benefit of his family. At this time, however, when Theodore went back to college as a sophomore, there was no apprehension about my father’s health, and the first term of the college year was passed in his usual happy activities.