In 1845 appeared the work on which Poe’s poetic fame most depends, that poem in which he wedded Despair to Harmony, “The Raven.” It marks the acme of his life, also; his star declined rapidly thereafter. His wife, who bore the hereditary taint of consumption, was in a decline; care and anxiety on that account, and his own ill health, took away his ability to write and he was without means of support. He was driven to ask loans from one or two friends, and by a fatality such as he sometimes made to drive his fictitious characters upon their worst expedients, he chose Dr. Griswold as one of them. “Can you not send me five dollars?” he pleaded with G.; “I am ill and Virginia is almost gone.” This and one or two other such letters Griswold published, in connection with his slanders on Poe’s character, to give his attack the cover of friendly sincerity. Something was published in New York papers regarding the distress of the Poes, and a lady friend (Mrs. Shew) visited them at Fordham. The worst was confirmed. “There was no clothing on the bed—which was only straw—but a snow-white spread 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, except as her husband held her hands and her mother her feet.” Mrs. Poe died January 30, 1847. Captain Mayne Reid, the novelist, who visited often at her house, thus describes her: “No one who remembers that dark-eyed, dark-haired daughter of the South; her face so exquisitely lovely; her gentle, graceful demeanor; no one who has ever spent an hour in her society but will endorse what I have said of this lady, who was the most delicate realization of the poet’s ideal.” Another said: “She had large, black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of complexion which was a perfect pallor. Her pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair gave her an unearthly look. One felt that she was almost a disrobed spirit.” After this Poe’s decline was rapid. He was ill for a long time, and never quite recovered his mental balance. In the autumn of this year he visited Mrs. Shew, his benefactress. She says that at this time, under the combined influence of her gentle urgency, a cup of tea and the sound of neighboring church bells, he wrote the first draft of “The Bells.” She adds: