Duncan Lodge, now an industrial home, was then a stately mansion, shaded by magnificent trees.  Here Poe spent much of his time, and one evening in this friendly home he recited “The Raven” with such artistic effect that his auditors induced him to give it as a public reading at the Exchange Hotel.  Unfortunately, it was in midsummer, and both literary Richmond and gay Richmond were at seashore and mountain, and there were few to listen to the poem read as only its author could read it.  Later in the same hall he gave, with gratifying success, his lecture on “The Poetic Principle.”

In early September, with some friends, he spent a Sunday in the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point.  At the request of one of the party he recited “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “Ulalume,” saying that the last stanza of “Ulalume” might not be intelligible to them, as it was not to him and for that reason had not been published.  Even if he had known what it meant, he objected to furnishing it with a note of explanation, quoting Dr. Johnson’s remark about a book, that it was “as obscure as an explanatory note.”

Miss Susan Ingram, an old friend of Poe, and one of the party at Old Point, tells of a visit he made at her home in Norfolk following the day at Point Comfort.  Noting the odor of orris root, he said that he liked it because it recalled to him his boyhood, when his adopted mother kept orris root in her bureau drawers, and whenever they were opened the fragrance would fill the room.

Near old St. John’s in Richmond was the home of Mrs. Shelton, who, as Elmira Royster, was the youthful sweetheart from whom Poe took a tender and despairing farewell when he entered the University of Virginia.  Here he spent many pleasant evenings, writing to Mrs. Clemm with enthusiasm of his renewed acquaintance with his former lady-love.

Next to the last evening that Poe spent in Richmond he called on Susan Talley, afterward Mrs. Weiss, with whom he discussed “The Raven,” pointing out various defects which he might have remedied had he supposed that the world would capture that midnight bird and hang it up in the golden cage of a “Collection of Best Poems.”  He was haunted by the “ghost” which “each separate dying ember wrought” upon the floor, and had never been able to explain satisfactorily to himself how and why, his head should have been “reclining on the cushion’s velvet lining” when the topside would have been more convenient for any purpose except that of rhyme.  But it cannot be demanded of a poet that he should explain himself to anybody, least of all to himself.  To his view, the shadow of the raven upon the floor was the most glaring of its impossibilities.  “Not if you suppose a transom with the light shining through from an outer hall,” replied the ingenious Susan.

When Poe left the Talley home he went to Duncan Lodge, a short distance away, and spent the night.  The next night he was at Sadler’s Old Market Hotel, leaving early in the morning for Philadelphia, but stopping in Baltimore, where came to him the tragic, mysterious end of all things.