I have at various times heard persons remark that in reading the life of a distinguished man they have desired to know some of the lesser details of his daily life--as, how did he dress? what did he eat? We have all been interested in learning that General Washington liked corn bread and fried bacon for breakfast; that Sir Walter Scott was fond of "oaten grills with milk," and that Wordsworth's favorite lunch was bread and raisins. As regards Poe, we must go back to his sister's account of what his morning meal consisted of while she was at Fordham--"a pretzel and two cups of strong coffee;" or, when there was no pretzel, the crusty part of a loaf with a bit of salt herring as a relish. Poe had the reputation of being a very moderate eater and of preferring simple viands, even at the luxurious tables of his friends. He was fond of fruit, and his sister said of buttermilk and curds, which they obtained from their rural neighbors. But we recall his enjoyment of the "elegant" tea-cakes at the Morrisons on Greenwich street and the fried eggs for breakfast. A lady who as a little girl knew Poe and his mother at this time said to a correspondent of the _New York Commercial Advertiser_: "We lived so near them that we saw them every day. They lived miserably, and in abject poverty. He was naturally improvident, and but for the neighbors they must have starved. My mother sent many a thing from her storeroom to their table. He was not a man who drank in the common acceptation of the term, but those were days when wine ran like water, and not to serve it would seem niggardly. I remember that one day 'Muddie,' as Mr. Poe called Mrs. Clemm, came to our house and asked us not to offer wine to Edgar, as his head was weak, but that he did not like to refuse it." As an illustration of the fascination which Poe possessed, even for strangers, is the following letter from Mr. John DeGalliford, of Chattanooga, Tenn., to this same New York correspondent: