 The family had been forced to give up a mansion he had built in Cambridge, although they were leasing a respectable but not grand house in 1849.He was in debt to a number of friends, as his salary and meager lecture earnings could not cover his expenses.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow attested to his macabre streak in an anecdote relating how at one dinner at the Webster home, the host amazed his guests by lowering the lights, fitting a noose around his own neck, and lolling his head forward, tongue protruding, over a bowl of blazing chemicals, to give a ghastly imitation of a man being hanged.