Does this throw any light upon Poe's pitiful appeal, "Urge me to do what is right"? Was this why the marriage was kept secret--to give time for a proper breaking off of the match with Elizabeth White? And it is certain, from all accounts, that Poe now, at once, plunged into the dissipation which was, according to general report, the occasion of Mr. White's prohibition of his attentions to his daughter. It was she to whom the lines, "_To Eliza_," now included in Poe's poems, were addressed.
When I was a girl I more than once heard of Eliza White and her love affair with Edgar Poe. "She was the sweetest girl that I ever knew," said a lady who had been her schoolmate; "a slender, graceful blonde, with deep blue eyes, who reminded you of the Watteau Shepherdesses upon fans. She was a great student, and very bright and intelligent. She was said to be engaged to Poe, but they never appeared anywhere together. It was soon broken off on account of his dissipation. I don't think she ever got over it. She had many admirers, but is still unmarried."
Recently I read an article written by Mrs. Holmes Cumming, of Louisville, Kentucky, in which she spoke of persons and places that she had seen in Richmond associated with Poe. Among others, she met with a niece of Eliza White, who, when a child, had often seen Poe at the latter's home. She remembered having at a party seen him dancing with Eliza, and how every one remarked what a handsome couple they were. She had never seen any one enjoy dancing more than Poe did; not but that he was very dignified, but you could see in his whole manner and expression how he enjoyed it." Perhaps it was because he had "little Eliza" for a partner.
Previous to Poe's first marriage, he had boarded with a Mrs. Poore on Bank street, facing the Capitol square, and with whose son-in-law, Mr. Thomas W. Cleland, he held friendly relations. A few weeks after his first marriage (which was still kept secret) he removed to the establishment of a Mrs. Yarrington, in the same neighborhood, where, being joined by Mrs. Clemm and Virginia, they lived together as formerly, he--as he informed Mr. George Poe--paying out of his slender salary nine dollars a week for their joint board. This continued until May of the next year, when the public marriage of Poe and Virginia took place.