I always fancied that Edgar Allan Poe revisited the
earth as Stephen Crane, trying again, succeeding
again, failing again, and dying ten years sooner
than he did on the other occasion of his stay on
earth.
"When your letter came I had just returned from
Dover, where I stayed four days to see Crane off
for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread of
hope that he might recover, but to me he looked like
a man already dead. When he spoke, or, rather,
whispered, there was all the accustomed humor in
his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to
the Schwarzwald in a few weeks, when he was getting
better, and that we would take some convalescent
rambles together. As his wife was listening
he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to that,' but he
smiled at me, and winked slowly, as much as to say:
'You damned humbug, you know I'll take no more
rambles in this world.' Then, as if the train of
thought suggested what was looked on before as the
crisis of his illness, he murmured: 'Robert, when
you come to the hedge--that we must all go over--
it isn't bad. You feel sleepy--and--you don't
care. Just a little dreamy curiosity--which world
you're really in--that's all.'
"To-morrow, Saturday, the 9th, I go again to
Dover to meet his body. He will rest for a little
while in England, a country that was always good
to him, then to America, and his journey will be
ended.
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