Epigraph: Our English friend described the poet as giving to his birds and flowers a delighted attention that seemed quite inconsistent with the gloomy and grotesque character of his writings. A favourite cat, too, enjoyed his friendly patronage, and often when he was engaged in composition it seated itself on his shoulder, purring as if in complacent approval of the work proceeding under its supervision.
Mrs Whitman, quoted in Edgar Allan Poe, John Henry Ingram, New York, 1965