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SARAH HELEN WHITMAN

From the portrait in the Hay Library, Brown University. Painted in 1869 by
John N. Arnold

 
POR’S HELEN

BY
CAROLINE TICKNOR

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1916
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Copyright, 1916, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

 

Published September, 1916

 
TO
THE MEMORY OF

CHARLOTTE F. DAILEY

WHO MINISTERED WITH LOVING CARE TO
MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS
AND GUARDED FAITHFULLY THE LITERARY HERITAGE
PLACED IN HER KEEPING

THIS VOLUME

IS INSCRIBED
PREFACE
q’: TER the lapse of half a century, Poe

still remains the one romantic figure in

the field of American letters—a figure
in whose dramatic personality the public in-
terest centres so persistently as almost to obscure
his literary claims.

And those that were linked with him by ties
of love, friendship, or even hate have thereby
gained their lasting titles to literary immortality;
titles to which Poe’s tributes to their merits, set
forth in the pages of his “Literati,” would never
have insured them.

Pre-eminent among the literary women who
were closely associated with the poet stands
Sarah Helen Whitman, presenting a mystical,
poetic figure, quite as romantic as his own,
whose claims to literary immortality should rest
securely upon her own poetic contributions.

The story of her brief engagement to Poe (the
year before his death) has often been recounted,
but her own story, so closely identified with that
of the important men and women of her time,
has, until now, remained untold.

For nearly forty years the literary correspond-
ence, from which the substance of this volume is
derived, has been preserved in the Providence

[ vii ]
 

PREFACE

 

home, where Mrs. Whitman spent her last days.
Following her sister’s death in 1877 she ac-
cepted the invitation of her friend, Mrs. Albert
Dailey, to make her home with her, and there
she passed the last months of her life, carrying
on her extensive correspondence and preparing
for the press a new edition of her poems.

Believing that a memoir of herself would soon
be written, Mrs. Whitman, who had preserved
the correspondence of a lifetime, busied herself
arranging, classifying, and even annotating the
letters which seemed to her to possess vital in-
terest, as did those especially relating to her as-
sociation with Poe and his biographers. At her
request, C. Fiske Harris and Doctor William
Channing became her literary executors, and the
latter, who was a lifelong friend, wrote the preface
to the collected poems published after her death
in 1878.

Subsequently, Doctor Channing made over
Mrs. Whitman’s correspondence to Miss Char-
lotte F. Dailey, in whose keeping, as literary
executrix, and that of her sister, Mrs. Henry R.
Chace, it has remained until to-day; Miss Dailey’s
recent death leaving Mrs. Chace, by whose kind
permission the following material is used, in
sole charge of the manuscripts and letters.

While there is much of charm and interest in
Mrs. Whitman’s correspondence that has not
been made public, the substance of the material
relating to the Poe episode has been already

[ vii ]
 

PREFACE

 

chronicled. In her endeavor to do justice to Poe’s
memory, Mrs. Whitman gave freely to his biog-
raphers, on both sides of the water, details of
her experience and copies of the important
letters relative to her romance with the poet.
Thus, owing to her zeal in this direction, a
goodly portion of her material relative to Poe is
widely scattered throughout the pages of a half-
dozen biographies. And this species of courtesy
was, after Mrs. Whitman’s death, extended by
Miss Dailey to the late Professor Harrison, to
whom she gave the privilege of using certain ex-
tracts from her collection in his biography of
Poe.

Poe’s love-letters (now kindly loaned by Mrs.
Chace, for reproduction), which have been, from
time to time, quoted in more or less fragmentary
form by Poe’s biographers, were for the first time
printed in full during the Poe centenary cele-
brations in 1909. At this time a very limited
edition was issued (through the courtesy of Miss
Dailey and Mrs. Chace) under the auspices of
the University of Virginia.

Poe’s letters to Mrs. Whitman, unique among
productions of their kind, must remain in the
permanent niche which they have won among
the world’s classic love-letters. In the present
volume they are for the first time fitted into their
proper place in the romance of these two poets,
who loved to make love in poetic form. Among
Mrs. Whitman’s own letters, hitherto unpub-

[ ix ]
 

PREFACE

 

lished, those of Mrs. Clemm, and many others
of that day, will be found much that vividly re-
flects contemporary life and that casts new light
upon the ever-interesting subject of the true
Edgar Allan Poe.

C. T.
CHAPTER

ds

Eds
Il.
IV.
F.
FI.
VII.
VII.

IX.

AT,
ATT,
XIII.
XIV.
XV.

CONTENTS

Sarah Helen Whitman

Mrs. Whitman’s Early Life
Friendship with Curtis and Hay
The Romance of “ The Raven”’
Poe’s Love-Letters

Poe’s Love-Letters (continued)
Poe’s Love-Letters (concluded)

The Broken Engagement and Poe’s
Death

Mrs. Whitman’s Sonnets to Poe
Clemm-Whitman Correspondence
Mrs. Whitman’s Letters

Poe’s Women Friends

Rival Biographers

Stéphane Mallarmé

Mrs. Whitman’s Last Days

PAGE

20

42

77
97

118
140
144
172
205
231
259

280
ILLUSTRATIONS

Sarah Helen Whitman Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Nicholas Power

John Winslow Whitman

Edgar Allan Poe

Home of Mrs. Whitman, Providence
Robert Stanard

Fac-simile of letter written by Poe to Mrs.
Whitman

Mrs. Nicholas Power

Fac-simile of original manuscript of Mrs.
Whitman’s poem “ Arcturus”

Mrs. Whitman as “ Pallas”
Drawing for “The Raven”

Home of the Dailey family, Providence, where
Mrs. Whitman died

Io
14
44
54
go

116

120

128
200

260

282
Poe’s Helen

CHAPTER I
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN

ee ELEN of a thousand dreams,” wrote

Edgar Allan Poe to the woman who

was most closely allied to him by in-
tellectual and spiritual ties. Others lavished
their affection upon this fascinating, morbid
genius, but Sarah Helen Whitman loved him
and comprehended that genius. With a clear,
searching vision she perceived his pitiful weak-
nesses and temperamental failings, which,
though they loomed up darkly, never obscured
from her the true, fine attributes of the real
man.

She saw where he in weakness failed, where
he from prejudice, or passion, erred sadly;
she deplored his faults and shortcomings, but
her gaze rested steadfastly on a great spirit
groping toward the light, a man of brilliant
intellect, splendid imagination and marvellous
power of expression. Herself a poet, she thor-
oughly appreciated his poetic gift; a critic,

[3]

ao
 

POE'S HELEN

 

she could measure his keen insight into lit-
erary values; a mistress of English style, she
recognized in his creative touch the master-
hand. ey ane

Having once comprehended the man in his
entirety, Mrs. Whitman would never allow
the thought of any one phase of his conduct
to alter her estimate of him, or to detract
from that which she regarded as his just de-
sert.

Poe accorded her the loveliest of his poetic
tributes and the most ardent of love-letters,
he begged her hand in marriage, withdrew all
claim to her small patrimony, and pledged
himself to honorable deportment and _ self-
denial. Then he failed miserably, proving
himself incapable of living up to the standard
imposed and forcing her to sever the tie be-
tween them. Following her dismissal, Poe
withdrew in anger and humiliation, not hes-
itating in his chagrin to utter words of cruel
bravado and biting criticism.

A woman of less fine caliber would have
exhibited some trace of resentment, or would
doubtless have joined the chorus of Poe’s de-
tractors, but not so Mrs. Whitman, who
cherished only sympathy for all his eccentric-
ities; and when Poe’s critics poured forth un-
just and bitter denunciations, it was she who
came forward with simple dignity, and in her
little volume, entitled ‘‘Edgar:Poe and His

[2]
 

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN

 

Critics,” publicly defended the object of their
attack.

It was most fitting that the figure of this
woman of “‘a thousand dreams” should first
have dawned upon the poet’s sight as she stood
in the moonlight which rested on her garden,
for she was above all else a woman of poetry
and moonlight. Yet with all her graces and
fantastic moods, she possessed a logical, well-
balanced mind, her judgment was keen and free
from bias, and her critical faculties excellent.

On the occasion of his first glimpse of Mrs.
Whitman, Poe had visited Providence to de-
liver a poem before the Lyceum. Restless near
midnight he had wandered forth from his
hotel and had strolled past her home, where
she had stepped from the doorway to breathe
the night air and the perfume of the garden.
This incident, which at the time made a vivid
impression on his mind, he afterward im-
mortalized in one of his most exquisite poems,

entitled ““To Helen.”

I saw thee once—once only—years ago:

I must not say how many—but not many.

It was a July midnight; and from out

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery silken veil of light,

With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,

Upon the upturn’d faces of a thousand

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,

[3]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe,
Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses

That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death—

Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses

That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank

I saw thee half reclining; while the moon

Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,

And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses ?

Poe pictures the vanishing of this ‘“en-
chanted garden,” which left him alone in the
darkness retaining only the vision of the lady’s
eyes, which were no doubt exceedingly expres-
Ssive:

The pearly lustre of the moon went out:

The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,

Were seen no more: the very roses’ odours
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.

All—all expired save thee—save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes—

Save but the soul of thine uplifted eyes.

They are my ministers—yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle—
My duty to be saved by their bright light,

[4]
 

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN

 

And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),

Had Mrs. Whitman failed to respond to
this poetic tribute when the manuscript was
sent her by its author, the romance might have
ended there, but Fate had willed it otherwise.

Poe’s vision of her in the garden (or looking
out upon it), took place in the summer of
1845, at which time she was forty-two years
old. Her meeting with Poe did not take place_

until thre ater, when she-was forty-
five and he t irty-nine. “Their birthdays were
identical, both occurring upon January 19.

A pen-porerait of Mrs. Whitman drawn by
her friend, Miss Sarah S. Jacobs, may well
supplement the interesting portraits painted
by Thompson and Arnold, which hang to-day
respectively in the Atheneum and Hay Li-
brary in Providence.

“As she came flitting into the room and
gave you her small, nervous hand, you saw
a slight figure, a pale, eager face of fine spir-
itual expression and irregular features, the
dreamy look of deep-set eyes that gazed over
and beyond, but never at you. Her move-
ments were very rapid, and she seemed to
flutter like a bird, so that her friends asserted
that she was in the process of transformation —
either to or from the condition of a lapwing.

[5]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

“Her spell was on you from the moment
she appeared (and she generally kept you
waiting a little), but when she spoke, her em-
pire was assured. She was wise, she was witty,
she was interested in the things which we call
‘the topics of the day,’ making them fresh
and fair.

“But it was not her imagination that chiefly
bound her friends to this brilliant woman.
Her qualities of heart were as engaging as
her intellectual gifts were impressive. No
one could be long with her without being
aware of her quick, generous sympathy, her
sweet unworldly nature, her ready recognition
of whatever feeble talent, or inferior worth
another possessed.”

-» Mrs. Whitman seems to have retained to

the end of her life her personal attractiveness,
and at the time of her death, at seventy-five
years, it was said of her:

“The freshness of her spirit and the charm
of her presence were not lost in the vicissitudes
of a life of strange and romantic experience.
No one ever associated with her the idea of
age, and she is represented as lying beautiful
as a bride in death, her brown hair scarcely

_touched with gray.”

Mrs. Whitman doubtless possessed some-

thing of that magnetic quality which was

at the age of seventy found suitors almost as

[6]

| exerted by certain famous Frenchwomen, who
 

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN

 

ardent as they had been half a century earlier.
Throughout her life Mrs. Whitman had a suc-
cession of adorers, and her hand was sought
in marriage, even in her latest years, by men
who had long given her their devoted allegiance.

Her home in Providence was a_ literary
centre where the intellectual spirits of her time
were accustomed to gather, and from the femi-
nine as well as the masculine circle which she
drew about her, she evoked extraordinary de-
votion.

Her correspondence, carried on to her sevy-
enty-fifth year, was a voluminous one, and
embraced the names of George William Curtis,
John Hay, Horace Greeley, and many others.
From each she had the faculty of drawing the
best, and to each she was able to give that of
which the subject seemed most in need.

It is a sad injustice to the memory of one
of this country’s most gifted women to allow
her to go down to posterity as merely a charm-
ing personage to whom Poe was engaged for
a brief time. She was a woman of rare poetic
gifts and vivid personality, and her title to
fame should rest securely on her own work,
and on the vital influence which she exerted
upon all who came in contact with her.

Without a complete knowledge of Poe’s
association with Mrs. Whitman, it is impos-
sible to comprehend, not only the last phase
of his career, but also Poe himself. For in the

[7]
 

POR’S HELEN

realization that this woman understood him
as no one else had done, he poured out his
heart to her in a series of truly remarkable
love-letters, revealing his hopes, his fears, his
hates and aspirations. He taught her to know
him at his best, and she, in turn, filled with
this knowledge, endeavored with unceasing
loyalty throughout her life to tell the world
the best about him, believing, as did Haw-
thorne, that a man is “‘most truly himself ”
when at his “very best.”

[8]
CHAPTER II
MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE
G isee HELEN WHITMAN, who claimed

descent from an ancient Celtic-Norman
stock to which she believed Poe’s lineage

was also to be traced, was born in Providence,
Rhode Island, January 19 (Poe’s birthday),
1803. She was the second of three children born
to Anna Marsh and Nicholas Power, and first
saw the light in the home of her grandfather,
Captain Nicholas Power, on the corner of South
Main and Transit Streets. Here the family lived
until the grandfather’s death, in 1808, when
they moved “over the bridge,” to the corner of
Snow and Westminster Streets; later they re-
moved to the “Grinnell House,” and subse-
quently occupied what was called the “Angell
Tavern.” Here their garden extended to the
water, and from this place the children were
rowed across the cove to Mr. Noyes’s school.
In 1813, Mrs. Whitman’s younger sister,
Susan Anna, was born, and shortly after this
her father, who possessed a roving disposition,
departed for North Carolina, whence he sailed
for the West Indies. The War of 1812 then
being in progress, his vessel was captured by
the British, and he was held a prisoner until

[9]
 

POE’S HELEN

1815, when peace was declared, at which time
Nicholas Power failed to return to the bosom
of his family, but continued his seafaring career.
The early life of the young poet was shadowed
by the anxiety occasioned by her father’s long
absence, which continued for years after his re-
lease by the British. He was constantly expected
home, but did not put in an appearance until
nineteen years had elapsed and he had long
been given up by his expectant household. His
eventual return proved even more of a shock to
his family than had been his original disappear-
ance, and was characterized by his eccentric
daughter Anna in the following couplet:

Mr. Nicholas Power left home in a sailing vessel bound
for St. Kitts,

When he returned, he frightened his family out of their
wits.

In 1816 the Power family removed to the
house which will always remain especially iden-
tified with them, situated at the corner of Bene-
fit and Church Streets, where they lived for
over forty years, and where Poe’s brief romance
took place. The fact that this house was painted
red, distressed Sarah Helen, who was, however,
somewhat consoled by the handsome woodwork
of the interior, and by the lovely garden in the
rear, immortalized by Poe.

From her girlhood days this garden was a
constant source of joy to Sarah Helen Power,

[ 10 ]
 

NICHOLAS POWER

From a miniature by Malbone in the Providence Atheneum
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE

 

who had a passion for flowers, later expressed
in some of her most admirable verse; she did
not like attending school, much preferring to
read novels, and to share in the social activities
of her elder sister Rebecca.

For a short time she visited her aunt, Mrs.
Bogert, on Long Island, New York, and this
relative sent her to a school kept by John A.
Griscom, a Quaker; during this period she
met many cultivated people and came in
touch with a much wider social circle than
she had previously enjoyed. On her return
to Providence she attended Miss Sterry’s
school for a brief time. Already she was amus-
ing herself by writing humorous rhymes about
the admirers of her sister Rebecca, some of
whom began to turn their attention toward
the younger sister; among these was a young
lawyer named John Winslow Whitman, who
upon a certain occasion, when the young people
were having a frolic, shook the young poetess
by the shoulders, exclaiming: “You hussy,
you wrote those verses!” This tribute to her
poetic gifts pleased the young woman ex-
ceedingly, and from this time she began to
regard the young lawyer with especial interest.

In 1821 Rebecca Power married William
E. Staples, and in 1824 the engagement of
Sarah Helen to John Winslow Whitman was
announced. He was the third son of Judge
Kilborne Whitman, of Pembroke, Massachu-

[1 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

setts, and had graduated from Brown Univer-
sity in 1818; he began his practise of law at
Barnstable, but later took up his profession
in Boston. His marriage to Sarah Helen Power
took place on July 10, 1828, at the house of the
bride’s uncle, Cornelius J. Bogert, at Jamaica,
Long Island, at whose home the bride had, in
earlier years, spent many happy days.

The honeymoon was passed partly at the
home of the Bogerts on Long Island, and partly
with Mrs. Whitman’s aunt, Mrs. William
Blodget, in Providence, in whose large and valu-
able library the niece had improved her oppor-
tunities to become better acquainted with the
classics and with French and German literature.
Mrs. Blodget gave the bridal couple a wedding
reception in Providence before they left to take
up their residence in Boston.

Mrs. Whitman’s taste for poetry was frowned
upon by certain relatives, and her cousin,
Susan Warner, author of “The Wide, Wide
World,” was, in later years, anxious for her re-
generation. These relatives sent her reproving
letters, penned in precise copperplate, in which
they expressed the hope that she “did not read
much poetry, as it was almost as pernicious as
novel-reading.” And they were also greatly
distressed at her religious state of mind, which
they feared was far from orthodox.

Their admonitions, however, had small effect
upon Mrs. Whitman, who doubtless viewed her

[ 12 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE

 

Cousin Susan’s “Wide, Wide World ”’ as a sadly
restricted universe.

In 1829 Mrs. Whitman’s first published
poem appeared; it was entitled “‘Retrospec-
tion,” and was signed “Helen,” the name
which she always preferred. At this time Mrs.
Sarah J. Hale, editor of the Ladies’ Magazine,
in which this poem was printed, became inter-
ested in her work, and asked her for contribu-
tions.

For the next two or three years the married
life of the young couple was rather an anxious
one, as they were very restricted in their means
and as Mr. Whitman was not possessed of
practical business qualities. He nevertheless
gained some recognition in his profession, and
was also much interested in an invention, to
reduce the price of steel by a cheaper method
of production, which he hoped would prove
an immediate road to fortune. During a visit
to Providence he contracted a cold from which
he never wholly recovered, and in 1833 his
death took place while on a visit to his father’s
‘home at Pembroke.

Thus closed the first part of Mrs. Whitman’s
career, and the young widow returned to make
her home with her mother and sister in Provi-
dence. Here she continued her literary work,
making occasional visits to her late husband’s
relatives in Boston.

In 1838 the portrait of Mrs. Whitman,

[ 13 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

which now hangs in the Atheneum in Provi-
dence, was painted by Giovanni Thompson.
It shows her in her widow’s cap with pink
strings, and gives an excellent idea of her
personal attractiveness at thirty-five years
of age. An exquisite miniature of her father
Nicholas Power, painted by Malbone, is also
in possession of the Atheneum, and one may
trace considerable likeness between the daugh-
ter and the debonair and adventurous seafaring
man.

Among Mrs. Whitman’s literary productions
at this time may be mentioned a prize poem
which she read at the opening of Shakespeare’s
Hall, in Providence, on November 27, 1838.

It was between 1830 and 1850 that the

Transcendentalists flourished in New England,
and the subjects of theology, revelation, and in-
spiration were the chief themes discussed.
By entering into the transcendental spirit a
man was made ‘“‘a citizen of the world of
souls.” Transcendentalism was a form of pure
idealism, the insistence upon the power of
‘thought and will, and upon the exaltation of
the life of the spirit above all material or
physical demands. The persistent search for
the things of the spirit at this time brought
about an awakened interest in spiritualism.

Mrs. Whitman and her immediate circle were
intensely absorbed in this experimental field,
eagerly discussed the results attained by vari-

[ 14 ]
 

JOHN WINSLOW WHITMAN
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE

 

ous mediums, and corresponded with each
other in regard to their individual beliefs.
James Freeman Clarke, Horace Greeley, and
many others of prominence in the intellectual
world, busied themselves with spiritualistic
research.

Mrs. Whitman, whose mysterious and elusive
qualities made her seem rather of the spirit
than the material world, was by temperament
particularly fitted for this transcendental epoch.
Yet she could be blithe and merry as well
as a lady of dreams, and on occasion she could
command a fund of sarcasm. In the matter
of clothes she was entirely unconventional,
dressing in a style all her own; she loved silken
draperies, lace scarfs, and floating veils, and
was always shod in dainty slippers. She in-
variably carried a fan to shield her eyes from
any glare, and her pleasant rooms were never
pervaded by anything but a subdued light.

In 1851 she furnished the New York Tribune
with articles on spiritualism, which were ex-
tensively copied, and among those who corre-
sponded with her on this subject were Epes
Sargent, S. W. Eveleth, S. B. Brittan, Horatio
Greenough, Horace H. Day, and Horace
Greeley. The latter, in writing her upon this
topic, suggested that he “would be pleased
if Mrs. Whitman could find him a medium to
take care of his children, and to accompany
the family to Westchester,” declaring: “I am

[15 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

willing to believe, but the evidence seems to
evade.”

Horace H. Day, who had sought Mrs.
Whitman’s acquaintance in connection with
‘this mutual interest, remained to the end of
his life one of her warmest friends, and her
visits to England and France were the result
of generous invitations from him. In return
she wrote two poems for his household, entitled
“Christmas Eve” and “Santa Claus.”

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, the actress, was
among Mrs. Whitman’s friends who entered
into the discussion of spiritualism, and urged
her to contribute articles to Sargent’s Maga-
zine, a periodical with which Mrs. Mowatt’s
husband was associated. This lady began her
public career by giving readings, and later
wrote a play, entitled “Fashion,” the success
of which inspired her to go upon the stage.
After only one rehearsal Mrs. Mowatt appeared
in “The Lady of Lyons,” and at the end of
the performance received such an ovation as to
assure her that she had chosen the right pro-
fession. Her correspondence with Mrs. Whit-
man extended over a number of years, and her
residence in Richmond brought: her in touch
with many of Poe’s friends.

The New England of 1840-50 was the New
England of changing ideals. The antislavery
leaders were at their height of enthusiasm, re-
formers of every school were breaking through

[ 16 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE

 

old bonds; prophecies regarding the end of the
world were rife, Brook Farm was setting its
unique standard and registering its famous ex-
periments, and on all sides supporters of the
kingdom of the mind and spirit were putting
forth suggestions for the extension of those
dominions. In Boston, Parker and Channing
were names to conjure with, and Emerson was
lecturing to delighted audiences.

Margaret Fuller was conducting her famous
# Conversations,” and freely discussing the vari-
ous topics which were enthralling the atten-
tion of her contemporaries. She, too, was
questioning the problem of spiritualism, and
exclaiming: “I am perplexed about the spirits
—that seem to come a great way to teach so
little!” In 1838 she was teaching school in
Providence, where for a time she touched the
little circle that clustered about Mrs. Whit-
man. Although friendly in their relations
these two women were temperamentally op-
posed to one another, and seldom found their
points of view or their ideas in harmony.
Miss Fuller was a woman of compelling power,
while Mrs. Whitman was a woman of unusual
charm.

Among the latter’s enthusiastic admirers was
the Honorable Wilkins Updike,* whose corre-
spondence extended over many years. He al-
ways insisted that she would marry him even-

* Author of “History of the Narragansett Church.”

[ 17 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

tually, and looked forward to the time when
his persistence would conquer all objections on
the lady’s part.

Mrs. Whitman’s health, which was always
frail, was a constant source of anxiety to her
family. During her entire life she suffered from
heart-trouble, and felt herself upon the verge of
a departure from those whom she loved, and
throughout her correspondence one finds fre-
quent references to her belief that she is about
to take leave of her friends.

Her principal anxiety was in connection
with her eccentric sister Anna, who was dur-
ing her entire life guarded and protected by
mother and sister. After the death of Mrs.
Power, in 1860, the elder daughter assumed
the whole responsibility of the younger, who
was ten years her junior, and to whose tyran-
nical domination she unselfishly adapted her
life. In the home at 39 Benevolent Street, to
which they moved after the mother’s death,
Anna was the sole arbitress, and if she was
not in the mood for the admission of visitors,
none were allowed to enter. Anna seldom ap-
peared when there was company, but enjoyed
sitting near by, concealed in a closet or ad-
joining room, where she could hear the con-
versation that was taking place. Fearing that
should her sister survive her she would not
have sufficient means of support, Mrs. Whit-
man during her last years scrimped herself

[ 18 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S EARLY LIFE

 

pitifully in order to save all that was possible
for Anna’s future. In the end, Anna passed
away one year before the sister who had ren-
dered her such untiring devotion.

[ 19 ]
CHAPTER III
FRIENDSHIP WITH CURTIS AND HAY

} | \HE réle of literary mentor was one in
which Mrs. Whitman excelled; she could
inspire the young writer to do his best,

touch gently upon his faults, and point out
with admirable discernment the pathway to
his higher capabilities. Among her letters from
literary friends may be found many feeling trib-
utes from those to whom she furnished both
aid and inspiration.

George William Curtis, whose subsequent
achievements in the world of letters are too
well-known to demand further comment, early
enjoyed her sympathetic companionship and
thoughtful criticism; he confided to her, in
a series of long letters, his literary hopes
and aspirations, and throughout their lifelong
friendship accorded the same deference to her
literary judgment that he exhibited when he
submitted to her the question: ‘Is ‘Trumps’.
worth publishing ?”

His correspondence with Mrs. Whitman
opened when he was in the early twenties,
just after his return from Brook Farm, and
continued with great regularity up to the
time of his departure for Europe in 1846. It

[ 20 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

was later renewed at frequent intervals, and
ended only with Mrs. Whitman’s death, when,
in 1878, Curtis wrote a feeling appreciation
of her, in Harper’s Magazine, in the September
“Easy Chair.”

The early communications of Curtis, in
which he poured out his heart about poetry
and nature, are admirable examples of the
“literary letter” in all its old-time elegance
and elaboration. A few extracts from these
reveal not only the thoughtful, poetic nature
of the young man, but also reflect clearly Mrs.
Whitman’s own mental attitude, and the qual-
ity of intellectual stimulus which she was able
to bestow.

The first letter from Curtis is dated Con-
cord, April 9, 1845, and in it the writer begs
Mrs. Whitman for more explicit criticism of
his own literary work and offers his own theory
concerning poetry and the poets.

My Dear Mrs. WHITMAN:

May I say a few words about poetry and
Poets to you, hoping so to provoke from you
a closer criticism upon my verses than you
have yet given me. Is not the Orpheus & E.
complete without the Introduction and close?
I do not remember that I asked you this,
and if so, would it not increase the unity
of impression if I should separate it from them.
It has occurred to me that it might be so. Is

[ 21 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

the poetical power shown in the conception
and general effect of what you heard, as well
as in the melody and illustration?

Is not “The Poet” more perfect than the
Orpheus as a work of art? Does not the pre-
ponderance of thought make it less poetical,
or is the thought subdued sufficiently under
that veil?

And do you feel after this lapse of time
when the novelty of the impression has worn
off, that from what you heard there could be
gathered a book which should be no unworthy
offering upon that altar, where the greatest
of men are Priests?

It was a great delight to me to find in
you the insight into the poetical part of poetry,
which I find in so very few persons. That you
could realize, as I had so long done without
sympathy, that the charm of a Poem, was
not the thought nor the melody, but a subtle
poetical perception, which gives the char-
acter to the thought, and which from the
nature of things is melodious, and so in its
natural expression constitutes poetry,—shall
I say that the poetical sense is so rare among
men, so much rarer than the intellectual,
that the most approved of the poems of the
great Masters are not the most poetical? that
“As you like it” is less thoughtful but more
purely poetical than “Hamlet,” and that Tenny-
son is more truly a poet than Wordsworth ?

[ 22 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

And to the perfect Poet belongs this fine-
ness of perception and of equal necessity,
faculty of expression. The prose Poets of
whom we hear are men who have the first
but not the second, and therefore they are
the true audience of the Poet and his only
Critics, as men who have a delicate apprecia-
tion of form and color, are unworking Painters
and so constitute the only valuable spectators
of pictures. They cannot be called Painters,
nor can the first-class be called Poets.

Byron had the faculty but not the percep-
tion. He did not see things poetically. With
Shelley, I think more and more, Poetry was
an elegant and passionate pursuit. He was
too much a Scholar. This is seen in the forms
his poems took. The principal ones are moulded
in the antique Grecian style. With Keats,
Poetry was an intense life. It was a vital,
golden fire, that burned him up. Wordsworth is a
man of thought, who gives it a rhythmical form.

Milton would have been more purely a
Poet, if he had been a Catholic, rather than
an ultra Protestant. There is a severity in
his poetry, which makes him the favorite of
Intellectual men,—but is a little too hard—
not oriental enough to satisfy poetical men.

In Shakespeare was the wonderful blend-
ing—the delicate harmony—but his sonnets
would have been credential enough to his
fit audience.

[ 23 ]
>

 

POE’S HELEN

 

Because in this sphere, man the intellect,
rules, therefore that declares upon all things.
Those books are eternal, those Poets Olympian
whom it crowns. But it is a singular fantasy
of Nature, that the Intellect is always too
intellectual to rightly estimate the value of
Poetry, which is the higher language of this
sphere. Music, so imperfect here, foreshadows
a state more refined and delicate. It is a wom-
anly accomplishment, because it is sentiment,
and the Instinct declares its nature, when it
celebrates heaven as the state where glorified
souls chant around the Throne. Poetry is the
adaption of music to an Intellectual sphere.
But it must therefore be revealed through souls
too fine to be measured justly by the Intellect.

I hope that you will guess my thought
from these fragmentary hints and will answer
it and my questions as speedily as you will—
Direct simply to me, Concord, Massachusetts.

Yours truly
G. W. Curtis.

Throughout his correspondence Curtis dwells
much upon his intense admiration for Keats
and Shelley, in regard to whose work he carries
on long discussions with Mrs. Whitman, urg-
ing her to write an essay upon Keats, to match
one which she had written on Shelley. This
production had brought upon her the dis-
pleasure of one of the most influential families

[ 24 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

in Providence, who regarded Shelley as an
atheist, and any defender of his work as one
who had fallen from grace.

In his subsequent letters Curtis describes
his association with the literary circle in Con-
cord which embraced Hawthorne, Emerson,
Thoreau, and others. He writes on June 22,
1845, touching upon an article on Emerson

which Mrs. Whitman had just published:

“T have delayed writing until I should have
returned from a trip to Wachusett mountain,
and until I had read your article. The first
I have done, the second not yet. Knowing that
Mr. Emerson had it, I spoke to him of it,
regretting that I had not seen it first to cor-
rect some errors of which I had been advised.
He was very curious to know the Author, for
he said though it was headed ‘By a Disciple’
it was evidently written from a purely inde-
pendent point, and he seemed to do such ex-
cellent Justice to it, although he said it had
the usual vice of kindness, which he says of
all reviews of himself, that when he told me
he thought he ought to know who wrote it,
I ventured to tell him. I hope I have not done
wrong. Henry Thoreau also said it was not
by a Disciple i in any ordinary sense. It is his
copy which is here, and he wishes me to make
it as perfect as I can. This week I shall see it,
and will then write you.

[ 25 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

“T went to Wachusett with Mr. Hawthorne
and Mr. Bradford. It has long lured me from
its post in the Western horizon. And as I
climbed the green sides, I felt as an artist
must feel, who first treads the ground of Italy.
The verses which follow may express to you
something of the feeling I had, although they
are very unworthy.”

Curtis here introduces one of the many
poems which he was in the habit of sending
to Mrs. Whitman for criticism. This one,
inspired by the beauty of Mount Wachusett,
opens with the lines:

Thou, bathing in the Summer air
That graceful line of virgin green,
How often I beheld thee there,

And knelt to thee a native queen.

In his next letter he expresses his apprecia-
tion of her article on Emerson:

“T read with great delight your article. It
is the best I have seen upon Mr. Emerson.
I might say that it finds more of a System of
Philosophy than I think he is conscious of,
although, after all you only indicate the central
thought which animates his writings, and say
such good things of Philosophy that it loses
that very rigid outline which marks it in the
Schools. I am glad that you treat him as a

[ 26 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

Prophet rather than Poet. My feeling about
the latter is very strong, and yet few con-
temporaries write verses which I love so much.
I wish you might have seen Mr. Emerson
and Mr. Hawthorne for the last year, casually
and at all times, as I have done, that I might
know if you would not at last say, the wise
Emerson, the poetic Hawthorne. I am going
to show some of my verses to the latter. |
do not care to do so to the former. And I do
it with some trembling as I did to you, for I
feel that he knows what is Poetry, and what
is poetical,—what is the power of the Poet—

and what the force of talented imitation.

“The volume of verses by W. W. Lord,
only warns me the more to wait until | am
riper for deciding, before I venture to publish.
I trust what you say implicitly and yet I
waver, why is this? ...

“Do you observe how in speaking of men of
genius, we incline to measure them by the
standard of entire genius, forgetting that
every such man has but a ray, and makes
beautiful only what. that ray shines upon?
I have been very much amused by several
persons saying that Ellery Channing could
not be a true Poet, because he went to Eu-
rope and left his wife as he did. They thought
of the great perfect man, whom we choose to
call Poet, and who is supposed to fill all the
supposed duties of life as well as he sings.

[or]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

While Ellery is a selfish, indolent person
(though a good deal more and better) who
certainly does write good Poetry. It is a ter-
rible situation for them. They have hitherto
-perhaps thought him a Poet, but the true
Poet? would he have done so—Aut Cesar aut
nihil. Good night.”

He writes in October of nature and the
thoughts which the autumn awakens in his
mind, and closes with a reference to his having
now shown his early poems to Hawthorne:

“T hope your long silence portends no ill-
ness, at which you hinted in your last letter
to me, which I received just as I was on the
wing for the White hills, and answered only
by a few songs, or has the Autumn which
lies round the horizon like a beautifully hued
serpent crushing the flower of Summer, fas-
cinated you to silence with its soft, calm
eyes? This seems the prime of the season, for
the trees are yet full of leaves and thickness
and the mass of various color is solid,—before
this month is over the woods will grow sere
and wan, and so the splendid result of the
year becomes its mausoleum. . . .

“Through the Summer Mr. Hawthorne had
the Orpheus the smaller long poem, and some
of the smaller verses. It was most grateful to
me to hear him say what he did, for I have

[ 28 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

great faith in his perception. ‘The Poet’ I
did not show him. The Orpheus he thinks
may be corrected and improved by correction,
which I felt when you suggested something of
the same sort before. I will do that during
the Autumn or Winter.

“Concord loses very much to me in his
final departure, which takes place to-morrow
Friday. He is a fountain of deep, still water,
where the stars may be seen at noon.

“Mr. Emerson is writing lectures upon
Plato, Goethe, Swedenborg, Montaigne, and
Shakespeare.

“JT have been most of the day with Ellery
Channing, whom I like very much. If I was
to remain here through the winter I should
know him much better than I ever have for
I have seen him very little since I have lived
here.

“TI am not afraid of silence in my friends,
so you shall write only when you care and
can.”

Continuing his correspondence from New
York Curtis discusses the phases of city life
which contrast so vividly with those which
lie close to nature; his views sometimes differ
from those of Mrs. Whitman in regard to their
mutual friends, and also on literary subjects;
especially do they disagree in their attitude
toward certain productions of Margaret Fuller,

[ 29 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

while Curtis does not share in Mrs. Whitman’s
admiration for Poe’s work. He writes from
New York in January, 1846, six months before
his departure for Europe:

“You will have seen from my last letter
that I did not sympathise with Miss Fuller’s
view of Cromwell, but I thought her review of
Longfellow one of the best things that I ever
saw of hers. How is it that we differ so much,
for you say while those on Cromwell were
among her best, those upon Longfellow were
among the worst. She seemed to me to give
him with great fenderness and consideration
and due appreciation his just place. She did
not abruptly say, ‘you are no Poet,’ but having
expressed her views of Poetry and ,the Poet
measured him by it. He failed by that as he
has long ago by mine and by that of his best
friends, and most calculated to appreciate
him. . . . His verses are pleasing to me, but
T see a thousand old Teutons looking through
his eyes and giving them the light they have.
Very many seem translations from the Ger-
man, the imagery and the circumstances are
not his own, but are pleasant to him from as-
sociation and study. Miss Fuller’s criticism
of imagery I think unjust. It is overflowing
another and drowning him in her Individual-
ity, but in the main I should say with her,
that Mr. Longfellow is an elegant scholar, a

[ 30 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

man of good taste and delicate mind, who is
fluent and sweet, but writes from a vein of
sentiment which is not sound, and is too
little inspired to write anything important.”

It may be of interest at this point to insert
a paragraph written upon this topic by Mrs.
Whitman to Ida Russell, another of her lit-
erary protégées (to whom Whittier at one
time paid his addresses).

“T last night read to Eleanor,* Mrs. W. S.
Burgess, Miss Fuller’s notice of Carlyle’s
Cromwell. We thought it very spirited and
unaffected both in thought and style. Her
remarks on Longfellow, however just in the
main, were in manner and spirit most un-
gracious. She writes well on many subjects
but she is too short-sighted to ‘scourge the
magpies from Parnassus.’ I have known her
more than once to mistake a nightingale for
a magpie— Witness her judgment and con-
demnation of poor Keats—a sentence which
in compliance with the highest authorities
she would now doubtless, gladly reverse.”

In this letter to Miss Russell Mrs. Whitman
discusses Poe’s criticism of Miss Barrett, and
quotes his view of Shelley, showing her in-
terest at this time in his critical work. That

*Mrs. Burgess was aunt to George W. Curtis.

[ 31 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

she has also discussed the same subject with
Curtis is evident from his next statement:

“You speak of Poe’s article upon Miss
Barrett. I should much like to see anything
really good of his. With the exception of his
volume of Poems I know nothing of him save
a tale in one of the Reviews a month ago,
which was only like an offensive odor. There
seems to be a vein of something in him, but
if of gold he is laboring through many baser
veins, and may at last reach it. In one of the
foreign reviews I found a recent article upon
Miss B. It was on the whole, just, although I
am struck with the utter want of sympathy
between Critics and their prey. This Review
disposed of the lady as a jockey disposes of
horses. And yet I love to have those whom I
love pass through this coldest ordeal and show
that they have something for it.”

In February the European plan begins to
take form, and Curtis questions whether his.
friend Burrill will consent to accompany him
at a date earlier than had been previously
suggested:

“What should surprise me the other day
like a bird flying into the midst of the Winter
silence, but a proposition from Ellery Chan-
ning for us to accompany himself and George

[-42.. |]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

Bradford to Italy in May, and there pass a
year! I thought at once that I could not go, as
a Lover looks coldly upon the Mistress whom
he adores, but I found that the direct proposal
had kindled the long dormant spark into a
flame, and that sooner or later it would elevate
me to that soft celestial atmosphere, which
spiritually and physically belongs to Italy.
Burrill leans upon his hand and thinks intently
about it. He wants to postpone, to study the
language more thoroughly, to read the his-
tory of the country, until every stone and
tower shall tell readily what it is and has been.
But I seldom think about things— A proposi-
tion comes to my mind and is ripened into ac-
tion without any influence wilfully upon my
part, like a nest egg hatched by the sun and
not by the parental warmth. So this idea of
Italy lies cooking, and what the issue will be
is not at all certain. I think it very doubtful
if we go in the Spring. If we do not, we shall
lose our party which is so pleasant to my fancy,
but we shall gain a better knowledge of the
language than we have now. If I went I should
regard it as a preparation for going again here-
after, and yet I feel as if I should be very un-
willing to come home again when once there.

“Since Ellery’s letter came I have been
reading Saddle books and Italian travel. Shel-
ley’s letters from Italy please me very much.
They are so full of delicate appreciation of the

[ 33 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

country and all its influences. He was so finely
wrought that it seems the air must have passed
into his frame and mingled many a golden
secret with his being, which no tongue can
utter and no coarser nature feel. There was a
spiritual voluptuousness in his nature which
Italy alone could satisfy, and which constituted
in him, so much of his Poetical feeling and
fancy. The same thing was in Keats, but in
him more fiery and intense.”

When June arrives the final plans for de-
parture have been arranged and Curtis, who is
making a last visit to Concord, writes almost
regretfully of the step which he is about to
take, but which he feels will be an important
mile-stone in his future life:

“The landscape is so gentle and beautiful
here, and I am so pleasantly situated with
some old Brook Farm friends, hearty, homely
and quiet people, that I am sorry my Summer
is not to be passed here. Already I feel how
sorry I shall be when I must really say Good-
bye and separate from all I know, for even
Burrill will not go with me, but has the best
reasons for remaining in America. It will be a
crisis in my life in various ways, and I have a
singular curiosity about the influence of Europe
upon myself. In the afternoons here, I have a
good time reading Roman history, Niebuhr

[ 34 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

and Arnold are both such generous, wise, and
sincere men and Scholars, that I am borne
swiftly along as on the charmed waters of a
romance. Yet I am very glad I have had no
thought of preparing to go, for I see very
clearly, I should never have gone in that case.
Association and art, and an indefinable in-
dividuality of external Nature constitute my
charm for Italy, and with a general reading
one has all the material ready. As the time
comes, it seems to me as if I looked more
closely almost more tenderly upon our country
here, the landscape I mean. Nature is such a
splendid mute bride, whose lips we constantly
watch expecting to see them overflow with
music, with melodious explanations of all that
her beauty has hinted and nourished.

“You ask me to send you some poems but
I have been idle. I have not caught many
beautiful fancies that have flickered before me
and which perhaps shone over treasure. But I
look forward to a leisure abroad when these
can all be resolved into form. In July I shall
be in Providence and then I will read you what
little I have written.”

On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, he writes
of the beautiful June weather and the tranquil
New England atmosphere, which he is about
to relinquish; he picks up a volume of Whit-
tier’s poems which he says he generally has

[35 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

by him on Sundays, and, after closing it, pens
a final message from Concord:

“There is a Saxon purity (about Whittier)
and the sadness of a strong man, without the
least affectation, a strong man to whom life
was filled with rich shadow, rather than a
wide flowing sweet sunlight, which makes it
in many respects the best volume of American
Poetry. Did you know that Ida Russell is very
intimate with Whittier, so that J have some-
times heard that they were engaged. She
pointed him out to me once, in an Anti-Slavery
Convention. He is a thin man with a sad
almost sharp face, and dark hair. He moved
silently and lonelily among the crowd and
seemed like a strain of his Poetry impersonized.
Mr. Hawthorne told me that he came to see
him once, and he was much pleased with his
quiet manner. I have written to ask Mr. H.
to go to Monadnock mountain with me this
week, but I am afraid his duties, for he is a
Custom house officer, will not permit.

“Here I am at the end of my paper, and yet
I could say a great deal more. I wish we were
sitting together on some shady bank of the
Seekonk, and gliding down the sunny hours,
with conversation as simple and natural as its
course, not so anxious for thought as gentle
union with the feeling and the silence of the
day. The Sabbath feeling, I shall not have in

[ 36 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

Italy, that will be one of the great changes or
the great losses. I shall go from Concord by
the first of July and be in Providence a week
or two afterwards. If you can, write, if not,
farewell until I see you.”

In a note written just before his departure
for Europe, he thanks Mrs. Whitman for all
that she has been to him, and assures her that
her strong words of encouragement have been
the first to shed light upon his literary path.
He concludes:

“Good-bye, for that is all that I have to
say, I owe you more than I can say.... I
shall write you from Italy, which sounds like
a promise to address you from Paradise and
the other world. Sometimes write me, Aunt
E. will tell you how to address them. Farewell
and may all good angels bless you.”

John Hay, who during his years at Brown
University ranked among the brightest of the
college men, entered with enthusiasm into
the intellectual circle which Mrs. Whitman
drew about her, and was deeply gratified by
the interest which she took in his early poems.

These he submitted in deep humility, regard-
ing her with a kind of sacred awe, and in his
letters addressing her as “ Mrs. Whitman,” in
order to avoid seeming presumptuous. His ac-

[ 37]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

quaintance with her did not begin until toward
the close of his college days and he later pro-
tested: “If I had had the honor of knowing
you earlier, I would have had less to regret in
my collegiate course.” Hay dreamed at this
time, that the career of the poet might be his,
and turned reluctantly away from its allure-
ments to the prosaic life of a Western town.
After his departure from Providence, for the
uncongenial atmosphere of Warsaw, Illinois, he
sent back letters filled with regret for the life
which he had relinquished and with expres-
sions of gratitude for the inspiration which
he had derived from his friends in Rhode
Island.
He writes on August 30, 1856:

Warsaw, ILLINOIS.
Mrs. WHITMAN:

You must have wondered at the time that
has elapsed between my promise and its ful-
fillment, if, indeed you ever gave the subject
a thought, and have doubtless placed me in
the category of those afflicted with the moral
malady whose influence is so universal on
College Hill, and dismissed me at once with
the consideration that insincerity is the nor-
mal condition of the student’s mind and that
my disorder has been heightened by a sudden
removal to a region whose moral atmosphere
was never remarkable for purity. . . .

[ 38 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

I very much fear that if I remain in the
West, I will entirely lose all the aspirations I
formerly cherished and see them fading with
effortless apathy. Under the influence of the
Beotian atmosphere around me my spirit will
be subdued to what it works in and my res-
idence in the East will remain in memory an
oasis in the desolate stretch of a material life.
So before the evil days come on I cling more
and more eagerly to the ties which connect
me with Providence and civilization, and only
hope those whose genius I have long admired
and whose characters I lately learned to love,
may not entirely cast me off but sometimes
reach me a hand in the darkness, to raise and
console. All the benefit would of course be
confined to one party unless my friends belong
to the class whom Theodore Parker mentioned,
as ‘having more joy in delighting than delight
in enjoying.’ If it would not be taxing your
kindness too far I would be glad to send you
other verses which I may hereafter write and
beg the favor of your criticism upon them.

Very sincerely,
Joun Hay.

The poems sent for her perusal were en-
titled: “Last Night,” ‘In the Mist,” and
another containing the refrain, “Is it well,
Is it well, The living are mazed and the dead
cannot tell.”

[ 39 ]
 

POER’S HELEN

 

In a subsequent letter he says:

“Tt may seem a little to you to give a few
words of generous praise to a moody boy or
to send to an exile in the West, stray glimpses
of the world he has left forever. But it is much
to me that I once had the honor of writing
lines which you thought it worth while to
flatter.

“On returning from a hunting excursion
into the wilds of Missouri I found the papers
you had sent awaiting me, and for several
weeks I read repeatedly those beautiful de-
scriptions trying to lay the foundations of
mountains in my own soul and retouching
with the colors of your fancy the picture of
Niagara which was fading from memory. I
have been very near to the valley of the shad-
ow—lI felt the deprivation keenly in the Fall
when the woods were blazing with the Au-
tumnal transfiguration and the nights slept
tranced in the love of the harvest moon. I am
now as well as usual. It is unpleasant to give
up my dreams, but is it not necessary ? I would
be very grateful to anyone who would prove
it is not. Yet in spite of all the encroaching in-
fluences of barbarism I still think of Providence
with unabated affection and sigh for New
England as a Peri for Paradise.”

Nora Perry, whose poem beginning:

Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied the young man’s heart within,

[ 40 ]
 

CURTIS AND HAY

 

first captured her public, was another member
of this Providence coterie, and a close friend
of Mrs. Whitman’s, to whom she doubtless
owed much in the field of letters. To Miss
Perry, John Hay also wrote of his aspirations
in the realm of poetry, enclosing verses for her
inspection and exclaiming: “How glad I am
that the world is learning to love Mrs. Whit-
man as much as those who have sat at the feet
of the revered Priestess.”

This early enthusiasm was never wholly ob-
literated, and Hay’s biographer says of him:
“Long afterward, when he appeared to
strangers an accomplished man of the world, or
when he staggered under the burdens of states-
manship, he heard again, and thrilled to hear,
the poetic voices which captivated his youth.
So, at certain seasons, dwellers on the Breton
coast hear the pealing of the bells of the city
which the waves submerged long, long ago.”

[ 41 ]
CHAPTER IV
THE ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

date in the history of Poe was that of

January 29, 1845. Prior to that time his
reputation had been purely local, but hence-
forth it was destined to become world-wide.

The success of “The Raven”’ first made him
popular as a poet, and promptly resulted in a
new collection of his verses. Poe’s theory here
set forth, that the death of a beautiful woman
was the saddest and most poetical of all themes
was repeatedly exemplified by him. “Annabel
Lee,” ‘Lenore,’ “The Sleeper,” ‘‘Ulalume,”
and “To One in Paradise,” all testify to his
fondness for this theme.

“The Raven” was the instrument of fate
which brought about Poe’s romance with Mrs.
Whitman, on whose imagination this poem
made a deep impression, producing eventually
a response from her pen.

This response did not come until the winter
of 1848, when Mrs. Whitman complied with the
request of her friend Miss Lynch (afterward
Mrs. Botta) to send a contribution to her
“Valentine” party. A similar request had been
already complied with during the previous
year when Mrs. Whitman had forwarded some

[ 42 ]

[: has been said that the most memorable
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

sprightly verses which were read at one of
the literary gatherings presided over by this
clever hostess, whose drawing-room was prob-
ably the nearest approach to the French salon
ever achieved on this side of the water.

On this occasion Miss Lynch had written
in regard to her prospective party:

“T still have my Saturday Evenings and
they are often very pleasant, both the eve-
nings and the company. There is sufficient in-
fusion of new comers to keep them fresh, and
enough of the regular corps to preserve very
much of the same character. They cannot be
called literary meetings so much as Social,
though there are frequently a good many
literary friends there. Last year on the eve-
ning of Valentine’s Day, which came on Satur-
day, I had a Valentine party; that is there
were valentines written for all present, mostly
original, and in general merely complimentary
verses. The best of them were selected and
read, and some of them were afterwards pub-
lished. I am going to have another this year,
and now to come to the point—l wish to know
if you will not help me.’

Miss Lynch enumerates some of the guests
whom she expects to be present, among whom
may be mentioned: N. P. Willis, Horace Gree-
ley, Miss Sedgwick, Morris (who wrote ‘‘ Wood-
man, Spare that Tree’), Grace Greenwood,
Bayard Taylor, Hart, the sculptor, Cassius

[ 43 |
 

POPS HELEN

 

M. Clay, W. H. Furness, Margaret Fuller, and
Charles A. Dana.

In this letter the name of Poe is not referred
to, although he frequently attended these liter-
ary evenings; his wife, who was in failing health,
seldom accompanied him.

Mrs. Whitman’s compliance with her friend’s
request called forth a second appeal the fol-
lowing year, and on this occasion a poem ad-
dressed to Edgar A. Poe was composed and
forwarded to Miss Lynch.

Although at this time Poe had never met
Mrs. Whitman, he was already keenly inter-
ested in her poetical work and in reports of
her fascinating personality; moreover, he still
cherished his romantic vision of her as she
had appeared to him by moonlight.

On her part, Mrs. Whitman had for some
time been exceedingly interested in the work
of Poe, which had from the first appealed
strongly to her imagination, and to her fond-
ness for the mysterious and_ psychological.
Her own poetical work strongly reflects his
‘influence,.and suggests that native similarity
in their points of view, which Mrs. Whitman
ascribed to their descent from a common an-
cestor. Moreover, prior to the Valentine party,
Miss Lynch and others had made it plain to
Mrs. Whitman that the eccentric genius, whose
work she admired, was eagerly seeking her
acquaintance. And an article by Poe on Eliza-

[ 44 ]
 

 

 

 

EDGAR ALLAN POE

From a daguerreotype

 
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

beth Barrett, whose work he had been one of
the first to extol, had been sent to Mrs. Whit-
man at his request. It was therefore not strange
that she should have sat down to pen her
response to “The Raven” with more than
usual enthusiasm, thinking it not unlikely
that Poe would be among her friend’s guests
on February 14.

At the head of the famous valentine which
was addressed ‘‘To Edgar Allan Poe,” Mrs.
Whitman quoted the lines from Young’s “ Re-
venge.”

A Raven true as ever flapped his heavy wing against
the window of the sick, and croaked, ‘‘ Despair.”

The verses follow:

Oh! thou grim and ancient Raven,
From the Night’s Plutonic shore,
Oft in dreams, thy ghastly pinions
Wave and flutter round my door—
Oft thy shadow dims the moonlight
Sleeping on my chamber floor.

Romeo talks of “White doves trooping,
Amid crows athwart the night”;

But to see thy dark wing swooping
Down the silvery path of light,

Amid swans and dovelets stooping,
Were, to me, a nobler sight.

Oft amid the twilight glooming
Round some grim ancestral tower
In the lurid distance looming,

I can see thy pinions lower,—

[ 45 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Hear thy sullen storm-cry booming
Thro’ the lonely midnight hour.

Oft this work-day world forgetting,
From its turmoil curtained snug,
By the sparkling embers sitting
On the richly broidered rug,
Something round about me flitting
Glimmers like a “Golden Bug.”

Dreamily its path I follow,

In a “bee line” to the moon
Till, into some dreamy hollow
Of the midnight sinking soon,
Lo! he glides away before me
And I lose the golden boon.

Oft like Proserpine I wander

On the Night’s Plutonic Shore
Hoping, fearing, while I ponder
On thy loved and lost Lenore,
Till thy voice like distant thunder
Sounds across the distant moor.

From thy wing, one purple feather
Wafted o’er my chamber floor

Like a shadow o’er the heather,
Charms my vagrant fancy more
Than all the flowers I used to gather
On “Tdalia’s velvet shore.”

Then, Oh! Grim and Ghastly Raven!
Wilt thou to my heart and ear

Be a Raven true as ever

Flapped his wings and croaked “Despair”?
Not a bird that roams the forest

Shall our lofty eyrie share.

Providence, R. I., Feb. 14, 1848.
[ 46 ]
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

In writing to thank Mrs. Whitman for the
valentine Miss Lynch declares: ‘‘The verses
are very happy and I am greatly indebted
to you... . Poe I have seen nothing of for
more than a year past.”

Later, she forwards an enthusiastic descrip-
tion of the party, which went off with great
éclat, the poem to Poe having received partic-
ular appreciation. Miss Lynch hesitates in re-
gard to giving the poem out for publication on
account of Poe’s unpopularity at that time.
She writes: “I really do not think it would
be any advantage to you to publish the valen-
tine to Poe. Not because it is not beautiful
in itself, but there is deeply rooted prejudice
against him which I trust he will overcome.
... I earnestly request you not to mention
this because I have no quarrel with Poe, and
admire his genius as much as any one can.”

Mrs. Whitman says of the valentine party:

“The poem ‘To the Raven’ was one of a
large number written by my sister and myself
at the request of Miss Lynch, for a party given
by her that year to the artists and literary
people of New York. Among the best of the
Valentines furnished by us was one to ‘A
City Pigeon,’ Willis, and another ‘To the
Raven.’ Mr. Poe having lost favor with many
of the Literati was not, it seems, among the
invited guests on that evening as we had sup-
posed he would have been; but the anonymous

[ 47 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

MS. verses were sent him by Miss Lynch
through Mrs. Osgood.

“He recognized the handwriting having two
or three years before been shown by Miss
Lynch some MS. verses I had sent her for the
editor of the Democratic Review.”

Mrs. Whitman’s valentine was eventually
published in the Home Journal, and on March
28, 1848, Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood wrote
to its author:

“T see by the Home Journal that your beau-
tiful invocation has reached ‘The Raven’ in
his eyrie and I suppose, ere this, he has swooped
upon your little dove-cot in Providence. May
Providence protect you if he has! for his
croak is the most eloquent imaginable. He is
in truth ‘A glorious devil, with large heart
and brain.’ Do write to me and tell me what
you are doing in the literary way and how
your health is now. As for me I have a ter-
rible racking cough which is killing me by
inches, and there are not many inches left

now.”

That the poem was read and highly ap-
preciated by Poe is evinced by a communica-
tion written by him to his friend Miss Anna
Blackwell in June of the same year, in which
he says:

[ 48 ]
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

My Dear Miss BiackwEL_:

I fear you have been thinking everything
ill of me, and especially that I lack common
courtesy—since your letter of three weeks ago
remains unanswered. s

After discussing the publication of her book
of poems, he adds:

If there is any service I can render you,
critically or otherwise, after issue of your book
or before, command me without scruple.

I would be gratified if you would reply to
this note. How happens it that you have flown
away to Providence? or is this a Providential
escape? Do you know Mrs. Whitman? I feel
deep interest in her poetry and character. I
have never seen her but once. Anne Lynch,
however, told me many things about the
romance of her character which singularly in-
terested me and excited my curiosity. Her
poetry is, beyond question, poetry—instinct
with genius. Can you not tell me something
about her—anything—everything you know—
and keep my secret—that is to say, let no one
know that I have asked you to do so? May I
trust you? I can—and will.

Believe me truly your friend
Epoar A. Poe.

Not long after the receipt of this letter Miss
Blackwell visited Mrs. Whitman, and while at
her house encountered Miss Maria McIntosh,

| 49 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

whose literary work was well known at that
time. It was a bright moonlight night, and dur-
ing the conversation which ensued, the latter
lady began to discourse about Poe to Mrs.
Whitman, remarking: “On such a night as this,
one month ago, I met Mr. Poe for the first time
at the house of a gentleman in Fordham and
his whole talk was of you.”

Upon hearing this statement Miss Black-
well, with the true feminine relish for the
romantic, could not refrain from admitting
that she had in her possession a letter from
the gentleman in question in which the same
admiration was expressed. Having once
launched the dangerous subject it was useless
to attempt to comply with Poe’s plea for
secrecy, and the next step was the presenta-
tion to Mrs. Whitman of the letter itself.

That Miss Blackwell was not friendly toward
Poe is later asserted by Mrs. Whitman, who
writes:

“Miss Blackwell was a fine French scholar
and translated some of George Sand’s early
novels. She passed the summer of 1848 in
Providence and told me many things of Poe
before I knew him. She was of an austere,
hard nature and did not seem to feel any
special interest in Poe. She went to the country
(near the home of Poe) for her health and
seemed charmed with the neatness and order
of the (Poe) household. She was not very

| se |
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

gracious to me after she found that Poe was
‘infatuated’ about me. And said many things
to prejudice me against him. Nothing worse
however than that he was utterly improvident
and incapable of taking care of himself. But
a most agreeable and high-bred gentleman
nevertheless.”

The succeeding link in the chain, according
to Mrs. Whitman’s statement, was forged by
herself in August of this year. Up to this time
she had in no way acknowledged any of the
various clippings or communications which had
been sent her by Poe, and the result was that
he, sensitive in regard to her unresponsiveness,
had relinquished his efforts to get into com-
munication with her; he had gone, early in
the summer, to Richmond, where he was in-
tent upon bending all his energies toward the
establishment of a literary journal, which he
hoped would prove superior to all others pub-
lished in this country.

Many conflicting statements have been put
forth regarding Poe’s stay in Richmond at
this time, but Mrs. Whitman firmly believed
that he then renewed his acquaintance with
Mrs. Shelton, a widow, with whom he had
been in love many years before, while living
with his guardian, Mr. Allan.

The death of his young wife in surroundings
of much misery, and his own forlorn condition,
had left Poe in a position where he was partic-

[ 41]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

ularly susceptible to sympathy and kindness,
and was probably not averse to the thought of
a comfortable home and freedom from finan-
cial worry. Whether or not he had actually
paid his addresses to Mrs. Shelton at this
time, it is not unlikely that he was on the
point of doing so when he received the long-
awaited missive from Mrs. Whitman. Her
response came in the form of a couple of verses
which took up a refrain from his poem, “To
Helen,” and emphasized the words, “‘Beauty
which is Hope.”

A low bewildering melody

Is murmuring in my ear—

Tones such as in the twilight wood
The aspen thrills to hear

When Faunus slumbers on the hill
And all entrancéd boughs are still.

The jasmine twines her snowy stars
Into a fairer wreath—

The lily through my lattice bars
Exhales a sweeter breath—

And, gazing on night’s starry cope,

I dwell with “Beauty which is Hope.”

On receipt of this communication Poe imme-
diately left Richmond for New York where he
obtained a letter of introduction to Mrs. Whit-
man from his friend Miss Maria McIntosh,
and was soon on his way to Providence.

Shortly before taking this trip, however,
Poe took the precaution to send a communica-

[ 52 ]
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

tion under an assumed name in order to as-
certain whether Mrs. Whitman was then in
Providence.

This note was presumably the request of an
autograph-hunter for that lady’s autograph,
and read as follows:

New York—Sep. 8, ’48
Dear Mapam—

Being engaged in making a collection of
autographs of the most distinguished American
authors, I am, of course, anxious to procure
your own, and if you would so far honor me
as to reply, however briefly to this note, I
would take it as a very great favor,

Res’y.
Yr. mo. od. st.
Epwarp 8S. T. Grey.
Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman.

The writing in this letter is unlike Poe’s
other penmanship, and was undoubtedly al-
tered to suit his purpose.

That the note called forth a satisfactory
response was proved by Poe’s prompt appear-
ance in Providence armed with the letter of
introduction from Miss McIntosh, which read: ©

Dear Mrs. WHITMAN,
This letter will be handed to you by Mr.
Edgar A. Poe. He is already so well known to

[ 53 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

you that anything more than the announce-
ment of his name would be an impertinence
from me. I feel much obliged to Mr. Poe for
permitting me thus to associate myself with
an incident so agreeable to both of you, as I
feel persuaded your first meeting will prove.
Your friend Dr. Channing is well, though
much disappointed at not receiving the prom-
ised letter from you.
With sentiments of esteem believe me,
dear Mrs. Whitman,
Yrs. very truly
M. J. McInrosu.
New York
Sept. 15th, 48.

Following the presentation of this letter of
introduction came the romantic courtship, the
spirit of which is doubtless best expressed in
those love-letters in which Poe poured out
his feelings.

The introduction to Mrs. Whitman has
been characterized by Professor Harrison as
opening the way for “a new canto in the elegy
of his (Poe’s) restless existence, accentuated
in every stanza by pitiful and desperate epi-
sodes due to broken resolutions.”

The number of Poe’s visits to Providence
may not be accurately chronicled, but Mrs.
Whitman has made a note of at least five so-
journs of which the order and events are not

[ 54 ]
YOINICIAOAd ‘NPWLIHM ‘SHW 40 IWOH

 

 

 

 
 

ROMANCE OF “THE RAVEN”

 

exactly known, and which culminated in the
broken engagement, a conclusion which seemed

to Mrs. Whitman’s friends the only one pos-
sible.

[55 ]
CHAPTER V
POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

O* these remarkable productions, Pro-

fessor Harrison has said:

“One must turn to the most glow-
ing letters of Abelard and Eloise, or to the
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ for the fire,
the urgency, and the consuming thirst to be
loved that burn and glow in Poe’s letters of
this period, a period of new-risen hope, a resur-
rection from a dead self, of rebirth into an
existence that began to shimmer with the new
leaves and new light of a dawning spring after
the autumnal blasts and blight of the months
just gone by.

“The eager, tremulous, stormy joy of these
new weeks and months is prophetic of the new
Poe that was about to be born, or that might
have been born, had not Disaster intervened
here, as at every important crisis moment of
the poet’s life, and cried ‘Halt!’ ”

The date of Poe’s first love-letter to Mrs.
Whitman, October 1, 1848, testifies to the
rapidity of his courtship, for hardly a fort-
night had intervened between it and the
letter of introduction penned by Miss McIntosh,
in New York. His siege laid to the heart had

[ 56 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

been swift, impetuous and overwhelming, and
though he had as yet elicited no satisfying
response from Mrs. Whitman, it is evident
that he had made a vivid impression upon
her, and that she was deeply stirred by his
magnetic personality.

In reference to the opening of the corre-
spondence Mrs. Whitman said subsequently:

“He endeavored to persuade me that I
could lift his life out of the torpor of despair
which was enshrouding it, and give an in-
spiration to his genius of which it had as yet
exhibited no token. But notwithstanding the
eloquence with which he urged his wishes and
his hopes, I knew too well that I could not
hope to exercise over him the power which he
ascribed, I was moreover wholly dependent on
my mother and her life was bound up in mine.
In parting from him I told him that I would
write him and tell him much that I could not
then say to him. It was in reply to this letter
of mine that I received the first of his letters.”

ForDHAM,
Sunday night, Oct. 1, 1848.

I have pressed your letter again and again
to my lips, sweetest Helen—bathing it in tears
of joy, or of a “divine despair.”” But I—who so
lately, in your own presence, vaunted the
“power of words’—of what avail are mere
words to me now? Could I believe in the ef-

[ 57 ]
 

POR’S HELEN

 

ficiency of prayers to the God of Heaven, I
would kneel—humbly kneel—at this the most
earnest epoch of my life—kneel in entreaty
for words—but for words that should disclose

‘to you—that might enable me to lay bare to
you my whole heart. All thoughts—all pas-
sions seem now merged in the one consuming
desire—the mere wish to make you compre-
hend—to make you see that for which there
is no human voice—the unutterable fervor of
my love for you—for so well do I know your
poet-nature, oh Helen, Helen! that I feel sure
if you could but look down into the depths of
my soul with your pure spiritual eyes you could
not refuse to speak to me that, alas! you still
resolutely leave unspoken—you would love
me if only for the greatness of my love. Is it
not something in this cold, dreary world, to
be loved?— Oh, if I could but burn into your
spirit the deep and true meaning which I
attach to those three syllables underlined !—
but, alas! the effort is all in vain and “I live
and die unheard.”

‘When I spoke to you of what ‘I felt, saying
that I loved now for the first time, I did not
hope you would believe or even understand
me: but if, throughout some long dark summer
night, I could have held you close, close to
my heart and whispered to you the strange
secrets of its passionate history, then indeed
you would have seen that I have been far from

[ 58 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

attempting to deceive you in this respect. I
could have shown you that it was not, and
could never have been in the power of any
other than yourself to have moved me as I
am now moved—to oppress me with this in-
effable emotion—to surround and bathe me
in this electric light, illumining and enkindling
my whole nature—filling my soul with glory,
with wonder, and with awe. During our walk
in the cemetery I said to you while the bitter,
bitter tears sprang to my eyes—“ Helen I love
now—now for the first time and only time.”
I said this, I repeat, in no hope, that you could
believe me, but because I could not help feel-
ing how unequal were the heart riches we
might offer each to each:—I, for the first
time giving my all, at once, and forever, even
while the words of your poem were yet ringing
in my ears:

Oh then, beloved, I think on thee

And on that life so strangely fair,
Ere yet one cloud of Memory

Hath gathered in Hope’s golden hair.

I think on thee and that lone grave
On the green hillside far away—

I see the wilding flowers that wave
Around thee as the night winds sway;

And still, though only clouds remain
On life’s horizon, cold and drear,

The dream of youth returns again
With the sweet promise of the year.

[ 59 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Ah Helen, these lines are indeed beautiful,
beautiful—but their very beauty was cruelty
to me. There seemed, too, so very especial a
purpose in what you did.

I have already told you that some few
casual words spoken of you * [three words
marked over and illegible] by Miss Lynch,
were the first in which I heard you mentioned.
She described you, in some measure, per-
sonally. She alluded to what she called your
“eccentricities” and hinted at your sorrows.
Her description of the former strangely ar-
rested,—her allusion to the latter enchained
and riveted, my attention. She had referred
to thoughts, sentiments, traits, moods which
I knew to be my own, but which, until that
moment, I had believed to be my own solely
—unshared by any human being. A profound
sympathy took immediate possession of my
soul. I cannot better explain to you what I
felt than by saying that your unknown heart
seemed to pass into my bosom—there to dwell
forever—while mine, I thought, was trans-
lated into your own. From that hour I loved
you. Yes, I now feel it was then—on that
evening of sweet dreams—that the very first
dawn of human love burst upon the icy night
of my spirit. Since that period I have never
seen or heard your name without a shiver,
half of delight, half of anxiety. The impression,

* Explanatory notes by Charlotte F. Dailey.
[ 60 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

left, however, upon my mind by Miss Lynch
(whether through my own fault or her design
I knew not) was that you were a wife now and
a most happy one,—and it is only within the
‘last few months that I have been undeceived
in this respect. For this reason I shunned your
presence and even the city in which you lived—
You may remember that once, when I passed
through Providence with Mrs. Osgood [1845,
in Mrs. Whitman’s handwriting], I positively
‘refused to accompany her to your house, and
even provoked her into a quarrel by the ob-
stinacy and seeming unreasonableness of my
refusal. I dared neither go nor say why I could
not. I dared not speak of you—much less see you.

In regard to this visit to Providence Mrs.
Whitman subsequently writes:

“The night to which he alludes, when he
passed through Providence with Mrs. Osgood,
was I believe the night when he first saw me
and recognized me through her description.

“I was not ‘wandering in a garden of roses’
as Dr. Griswold has seen fit to describe me,
but standing on the side-walk or in the open
doorway of the house on that sultry ‘July
evening’ when the poet saw me and ‘dreamed
a dream’ about me which afterwards crystalized
into immortal verse.”

Poe’s letter continues:

“For years your name never passed my

[ 61 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious
thirst, all that was uttered in my presence
respecting you. The merest whisper that con-
cerned you awoke in me a shuddering sixth
sense, vaguely compounded of fear, ecstatic
happiness, and a wild, inexplicable sentiment
that resembled nothing so nearly as conscious
guilt. —Judge, then, with what wondering,
unbelieving joy I received your well-known
MS., the Valentine which first gave me to
see that you knew me to exist. The idea of
what men call Fate lost then for the first
time, in my eyes, its character of futility. I
felt that nothing hereafter was to be doubted,
and lost myself for many weeks, in one con-
tinuous, delicious dream, where all was a
vivid yet indistinct bliss. Immediately after
reading the Valentine, I wished to contrive
some mode of acknowledging—without wound-
ing you by seeming directly to acknowledge my
sense—oh my keen—my profound—my exulting
—my ecstatic sense of the honor you had con-
ferred upon me. To accomplish, as I wished it,
precisely what I wished, seemed impossible,
however; and I was on the point of abandoning
the idea, when my eyes fell upon a volume of
my own poems; and then the lines I had
written in my passionate boyhood* to the first
purely ideal love of my soul—to Helen Stanard

*Mrs. Whitman drew a line in the margin against this pas-

sage.
[ 62 ]
 

POER’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

of whom I told you—flashed upon my recol-
lection. I turned to them. They expressed all—
all that I would have said to you so fully,—so
accurately—and so conclusively, that a thrill
of intense superstition ran at once through
my frame. Read the verses and then take into
consideration the peculiar need I had, at the
moment, for just so seemingly unattainable a
mode of communicating with you as they
afforded. Think of the absolute appositeness
with which they fulfilled that need—express-
ing not only all that I would have said of your
person, but all that of which I most wished
to assure you, in the lines commencing ‘On
desperate seas long wont to roam.’ Think, too,
of the rare agreement of name—Helen and
not the far more usual Ellen—think of all those
coincidences, and you will no longer wonder
that, to one accustomed as I am to the Cal-
culus of Probabilities, they wore an air of
positive miracle. There was but one difficulty
—I did not wish to copy the lines of my own
MS. nor did I wish you to trace them to my
volume of poems, I hoped to leave at least
something of doubt on your mind as to how,
why, and especially whence they came. And
now, when on accidentally turning the leaf,
I found even this difficulty obviated, by the
poem happening to be the last in the book,
thus having no letter-press on its reverse—I
yielded at once to an overwhelming sense of

[ 63 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Fatality. From that hour I have never been
able to shake from my soul the belief that my
destiny, for good or for evil, either here or
hereafter, is in some measure interwoven with
your own.” *

The poem “To Helen” probably written
while Poe was awaiting his commission as a
cadet, is one of his earliest, as well as most
charming lyrics:

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are holy Land! ‘

Poe’s letter to Mrs. Whitman continues: “Of
course, I did not expect on your part any ac-
knowledgement of the printed lines ‘To Helen,’
and yet, without confessing it even to myself, I

* Mrs. Whitman drew a line in the margin against this pas-

sage.
[ 64 ]
 

POE'S LOVE-LETTERS

 

experienced an undefinable sorrow in your
silence. At length, when I thought you had time
fully to forget me (if indeed you ever really re-
membered) I sent you the anonymous lines in
MS. I wrote them, first, through a pining,
burning desire to communicate with you in
some way—even if you remained in ignorance
of your correspondent. The mere thought that
your dear fingers would press—your sweet
eyes dwell upon characters which I had penned.
—characters which had welled out upon the
paper from the depths of so devout a love—
filled my soul with rapture which seemed then
all sufficient for my human nature. It then ap-
peared to me that merely this one thought in-
volved so much of bliss that here on earth I
could have no right ever to repine—no room
for discontent.—If ever, then, I dared to picture
for myself a richer happiness, it was always
connected with your image in Heaven. But
there was yet another idea which impelled
me to send you those lines:—I said to myself—
The sentiment—the holy passion which glows
within my spirit for her, is of Heaven, heavenly,
and has no taint of earth. Thus there must
lie, in the recesses of her own pure bosom, at
least the germ of a reciprocal love; and if this
be indeed so, she will need no earthly clew—
she will instinctively feel who is her corre-
spondent. In this case, then, I may hope for
some faint token, at least, giving me to under-

[ 65 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

stand that the source of the poem is known
and its sentiments comprehended even if dis-
approved. Oh God—how long—how long I
waited in vain—hoping against Hope—until at
length I became possessed with a spirit far
sterner—far more reckless than Despair.—l
explained to you, but without detailing the
vital influence they wrought upon my for-
tune—through singular additional yet seem-
ingly trivial fatalities by which you happened
to address your lines to Fordham in place of
New York—by which my aunt happened to
get notice of their being in the West Farms
Post-Ofiice—and by which it Happened that,
of all my set of the Home Journal, I failed
in receiving only that individual number which
contained your published verses; but I have
not yet told you that your MS. lines reached
me in Richmond on the very day in which I
was about to depart on a tour and an enter-
prise which would have changed my very
nature—fearfully altered my very soul—steeped
me in a stern, cold, and debasing, although
brilliantly gigantic ambition—and borne me
‘far, far away,’ and forever from you, sweet,
sweet Helen, and from this divine dream of
your love.”

Around the above paragraph has been waged
a controversy, as has been previously suggested,
which even to-day remains unsettled.

The first debatable point is whether Poe

[ 66 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

was in Richmond at this exact time, as Mrs.
Whitman, who placed implicit faith in his
statements to her, always maintained, in the
face of certain biographers, and of Mrs. Clemm,
who insisted that “her Eddie” was ‘not in
Richmond at this period.” Subsequent investi-
gation has, however, proved that Poe was then
in Richmond in accordance with his assurance
to Mrs. Whitman.

The second debatable point is Poe’s state-
ment that, when he received Mrs. Whitman’s
manuscript lines, he was about to “embark
upon an enterprise” that would have “borne
him forever” from her. This enterprise was
believed by Mrs. Whitman (as has been
stated) to have been a renewal of his as-
sociation with Mrs. Shelton, his early sweet-
heart.

Many investigators assert, however, that
Poe did not see Mrs. Shelton at this time, and
that she herself so declared, after his death.
The conclusion therefore drawn by some
biographers is that the “enterprise” was not
matrimonial, but was either some business
project or else the duel in which he had been
on the point of engaging.

Mr. J. R. Thompson’s account of this affair
was forwarded to Mrs. Whitman by a corre-
spondent who had interviewed this gentleman,
but in the light of careful scrutiny it seems to
be only partially correct.

[ 67 ]
 

POR’S HELEN.

 

This writer asserts:

“One day in 1848, Poe came into Mr.
Thompson’s office in a state of great excite-
ment, sat down and wrote a challenge, of
which he requested Thompson to be the
bearer. In answer to his friend’s remonstrances
Poe handed him a paragraph cut from the
Examiner, then edited by Mr. Daniel, in which
was published an account of Poe’s reported
marriage with Mrs. Whitman making some
invidious comments upon the lady’s temerity.
Poe said he did not mind what was said of him
but her name should not be dragged in. Daniel
should not speak of her, and fight him he would !

“Thompson refused point blank to carry
the challenge to the delinquent editor, at
which Poe declared that he would go and
cane him on the instant.

“Thompson informed him that as Daniel
went armed the chances were that he would
be shot before he could chastise his opponent.
But in spite of this warning Poe proceeded
to interview Daniel, who succeeded in moli-
fying his wrath and so no violence ensued;
the paragraph was amicably explained and
Poe announced to Thompson that he was
going to Providence to be married to Mrs.
Whitman.”

In reviewing this account in the light of
further research it becomes evident that Poe
was not likely to have talked of a “marriage”

[ 68 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

with Mrs. Whitman before the receipt of her
first encouraging communication; and those
that have referred to the files of the Examiner
say that while a printed reference to the Poe-
Whitman marriage did appear there, it was
not until some time after the date of the chal-
lenge.

The most plausible explanation of the af-
fair seems to be that Poe, whose enthusiasms
were apt to be discussed freely, especially
when he was a little exhilarated, may have
discoursed to various friends upon his admira-
tion for Mrs. Whitman; it is likely that his re-
marks reached Daniel, who, having been as-
sociated with the Whitman family, no doubt
publicly aired his opinion regarding Poe’s in-
terest in that direction; it is known that Poe
had already had some business disagreement
with Daniel, and it is probable that the com-
bination of circumstances enraged Poe to the
point of his sudden outburst.

Moreover, it is quite evident that it was not
the receipt of any verses from Mrs. Whitman
which prevented the duel, but the mollifying
response of Daniel, so that it seems very ab-
surd to suggest that this could have been the
“enterprise” referred to.

The most likely explanation seems to be
that, without having seen Mrs. Shelton at this
time, Poe had had his attention drawn to the
advantages of renewing the old association and

[ 69 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

was seriously thinking of doing so, just at the
time when Mrs. Whitman’s communication
reached him.

Yet Mrs. Whitman’s version of the matter
as written to Stoddard after the publication
of an article by him in Harper’s Magazine, may
be worth repeating. And after its perusal the
reader can decide who told the truth, Mrs.
Whitman, Mrs. Shelton, or Poe? She writes:

“Mr. Poe received these lines’”’ (the ones
sent by her) “in Richmond where he had gone,
as he afterward told me, in the hope of ob-
taining subscribers for a magazine to be called
the ‘Stylus,’ intending if successful to make a
tour of the southern states before returning
north. *e
“During this visit to Richmond Mr. Poe
had called on Mrs. Shelton, formerly Miss
Royster, a lady whom he had admired in his
youth while he was still under the guardian-
ship of Mr. Allan, who had exerted his author-
ity to break off the intimacy.

“He told me that having been received by
Mrs. Shelton with great kindness he was urged
by one of their ‘mutual friends’ to renew his
addresses to her. He confessed that he might
have followed this advice had he not received
the anonymous stanzas which brought him at
once back to New York.”

Did Mrs. Whitman forget what had been
told her by Poe? Did Mrs. Shelton forget

[ 70 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

when she renewed her acquaintance with Poe,
or did Poe tell the story wrongly?

Poe’s love-letter next sets forth his first
impressions of Mrs. Whitman:

“‘And now, in the most simple words at
my command, let me paint to you the impres-
sion made upon me by your personal presence.
As you entered the room, pale, timid, hesitat-
ing, and evidently oppressed at heart; as your
eyes rested appealingly, for one brief moment,
upon mine, I felt, for the first time in my life,
and tremblingly acknowledged, the existence of
spiritual influences altogether out of the reach
of my reason. I saw that you were Helen—
my Helen—the Helen of a thousand dreams
—she whose visionary lips had so often lin-
gered upon my own in the divine trance of
passion—she whom the great Giver of all
Good preordained to be mine—mine only—
if not now, alas! then at least hereafter and
forever in the Heavens. You spoke falteringly
and seemed scarcely conscious of what you
said. I heard no words—only the soft voice,
more familiar to me than my own, and more
melodious than the songs of the angels. Your
hand rested in mine, and my whole soul shook
with a tremulous ecstasy. And then but for
very shame but for fear of grieving or op-
pressing you—I would have fallen at your
feet in as pure—in as real a worship as was
ever offered to Idol or to God. And when, after-

[vr
 

POE’S HELEN

 

wards, on those two successive evenings of
all—Heavenly delights, you passed to and fro
about the room—now sitting by my side, now
far away, now standing with your hand resting
on the back of my chair, while the preternat-
ural thrill of your touch vibrated even through
the senseless wood into my heart—while you
moved thus restlessly about the room—as if
a deep Sorrow or more profound Joy haunted
your bosom—my brain reeled beneath the
intoxicating spell of your presence [and it
was with no human senses that I either saw
or heard you. It was my soul only that dis-
tinguished you there]. I grew faint with the
luxury of your voice and blind with the volup-
tuous lustre of your eyes.

“Let me quote to you a passage from your
letter:

“*You will, perhaps, attempt to convince me
that my person is agreeable to you—that my
countenance interests you;—but in this respect
I am so variable that I should inevitably disap-
point you if you hoped to find in me to-morrow
the same aspect which one knew to-day. And
again, although my reverence for your intel-
lect and my admiration of your genius make
me feel like a child in your presence, you are
not perhaps aware that I am many years
older than yourself. I fear you do not know it,
and that if you had known it you would not
have felt for me as you do.’

| 72]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

“To all this what shall I say—except that the
heavenly candor with which you speak op-
presses my heart with so rich a burden of love
that my eyes overflow with sweet tears. You
are mistaken, Helen, very far mistaken about
this matter of age. I am older than you; and
if illness and sorrow have made you seem
older than you are—is not all this the best of
reasons for my loving you the more? Cannot
my patient cares—my watchful earnest de-
votion—cannot the magic which lies in such
devotion as I feel for you, win back for you
much—oh, very much of the freshness of your
youth? But grant that what you urge were
even true. Do you not feel in that inmost
heart of hearts that the ‘soul-love’ of which
the world speaks so often and so idly is, in
this instance at least, but the veriest the most
absolute of realities? Do you not—I ask of
your reason, darling, not less than of your
heart—do you not perceive that it is my
diviner nature—my spiritual being—which
burns and pants to commingle with your own?
Has the soul age, Helen? Can immortality
regard Time? Can that which began never
and shall never end, consider a few wretched
years of incarnate life? Ah, I could weep—I
could almost be angry with you for the wrong
you offer to the purity—to the sacred reality
of my affection. And how am I to answer
what you say of your personal appearance?

[7
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Have I not seen you, Helen? Have I not heard
the more than melody of your voice? Has not
my heart ceased to throb beneath the magic
of your smile? Have I not held your hand in
mine and looked steadily into your soul through
the crystal Heaven of your eyes? Have I done
all these things ?—or do I dream?—or am I
mad? Were you indeed all that your fancy,
enfeebled and perverted by illness, tempts you
to suppose that you are, still, life of my
life! I could but love you—but worship you
the more; it would be so glorious a happiness
to prove to you what I feel! But as it is, what
can I—what am I to say? who ever spoke of
you without emotion—without praise who
ever saw you and did not love? But now a
deadly terror oppresses me; for I clearly see
that these objections—so groundless—so futile
when urged to one whose nature must be so
well known to you as mine is—can scarcely
be meant earnestly; and I tremble lest they
but serve to mask others, more real, and which
you hesitate—perhaps in pity—to confide to
me. Alas! I too distinctly perceive also,
that in no instance have you permitted your-
self to say that you love me. You are aware,
sweet Helen, that on my part there are in-
superable reasons forbidding me to urge upon
you my love. Were I not poor—had not my
late errors and reckless excesses justly lowered
me in the esteem of the good—were I wealthy,

[ 74 ]
—

 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

or could I offer you worldly honors—ah then—
then—how proud would I be to persevere—to
—to plead—to pray—to beseech you for your
love—in the deepest humility—at your feet—
at your feet, Helen, with floods of passionate
tears.

“‘ And now let me copy here one other passage
from your letter—‘I find that I cannot now
tell you all that I promised. I can only say to
you’”: [Here follow four lines of her letter
obliterated, and two lines of his letter ob-
literated.—C. F. D.*] “may God forever shield
you from the agony which these your words
occasion me! You will never, never know—you
can never picture to yourself the hopeless, ray-
less despair with which I now trace these words.
Alas Helen! my soul !—what is it that I have
been saying to you!—to what madness have I
been urging you? I who am nothing to you—
you who have a dear mother and sister to be
blessed by your life and love. But ah, darling!
if I am selfish, yet believe me that I truly,
truly love you, and that is the most spirit-
ual of love that I speak, even if I speak it
from the depths of the most passionate of
hearts. Think—oh, think for me, Helen, and
for” [The remainder of this page is cut off,
and begins again upon the back.—C. F. D.*]
“comfort you—soothe you—tranquilize you.
My love—my faith should instil into your bosom

* Note by Charlotte F. Dailey.

[95 J
 

POE’S HELEN

 

a preternatural calm. You would rest from
care—from all worldly agitation. You would
get better and finally well. And if not, Helen,
if not—if you died—then at least I would
clasp your dear hand in death, and willingly—
oh, joyfully—joyfully—joyfully—go down with
you into the night of the grave.

“Write me soon—soon—ah soon—but not
much. Be not weary or agitate yourself for
my sake. Say to me those coveted words which
would turn Earth into Heaven.” [The rest of
the page is missing.—C. F. D.*]

In reference to this impassioned communica-
tion Mrs. Whitman asserted:

““My answer to his letter, in which I gave
him more explicitly the reasons for my refusal,
drew from him the second letter in which he
promises never again to ask me to be his wife.”

* Note by Charlotte F. Dailey.

[ 76 ]
CHAPTER VI

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS
(CONTINUED)

OE’S second love-letter to Mrs. Whit-
man was dated October 18, 1848. He
wrote:

In pressing my last letter between your
dear hands, there passed into your spirit a
sense of the love that glowed within those
pages: you say this, and I feel that indeed it
must have been so:—but, in receiving the
paper upon which your eyes now rest, did
no shadow steal over you from the Sorrow
within me? Oh, God! how I curse the im-
potence of the pen—the inexorable distance
between us! I am pining to speak to you—
Helen—to you in person—to be near you
while I speak—gently to press your hand in
mine to look into your soul through your
_eyes and thus to be sure that my voice passes
into your heart. Only thus could I hope to
make you understand what I feel; and even
thus I should not hope to make you do so;
for it is only Love which can comprehend
Love—and alas! you do not love me. Bear
with me! have patience with me! for indeed
my heart is broken; and let me struggle as I

[77 ]
 

POR’S HELEN

 

will, I cannot write you the calm, cold language
of a world which I loathe—of a world in which
I have no interest—of a world which is not
mine. I repeat to you that my heart is broken
—that I have no farther object in life—that
I have absolutely no wish but to die. These are
hackneyed phrases; but they will not now
impress you as such—for you must and do
know the passionate agony with which I
write them. “You do not love me”’—in this
brief sentence lies all I can conceive of de-
spair. I have no resource—no hope; Pride itself
fails me now. You do not love me; or you
could not have imposed upon me the torture
of eight days silence—of eight days terrible
suspense. You do not love me—or, responding
to my prayers you would have said to me—
“Edgar I do.” Ah, Helen, the emotion which
now consumes me teaches me too well the
nature of the impulses of love! Of what avail
to me in my deadly grief, are your enthusiastic
words of mere admiration? Alas! Alas!—I
have been loved, and a relentless Memory
contrasts what you say with the unheeded
unvalued words of others. But ah—again, and
most especially—you do not love me, or you
would have felt too thorough a sympathy with
the sensitiveness of my nature, to have so
wounded me as you have done with this ter-
rible passage of your letter: “‘ How often I have
heard men and women say of you—‘He has

[ 78 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

great intellectual power, but no principle—
no moral sense.’” Is it possible that such ex-
pressions as these could have been repeated
to me—to me—by one whom I loved—ah,
whom I love—by one at whose feet I knelt—I
still kneel—in deeper worship than ever man
offered to God ?—And you proceed to ask me
why such opinions exist. You will feel remorse
for the question, Helen, when I say to you
that, until the moment when those horrible
words first met my eye, I would not have
believed it possible that any such opinions
could have existed at all:—but that they do
exist breaks my heart and is separating us
forever. I love you too truly ever to have
offered you my hand—ever to have sought
your love—had.I known my name to be so
stained as your expressions imply. Oh God!
what shall I say to you Helen, dear Helen !—
let me call you now by that sweet name, if I
may never so call you again.—It is altogether
in vain that I tax my Memory or my Con-
science. There is no oath that seems to me so
sacred as that sworn by the all-divine love I
bear you.—By this love, then and by the God
who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my
soul is incapable of dishonor—that, with the
exception of occasional follies and excesses
which I bitterly lament, but to which I have
been driven by intolerable sorrow, and which
are hourly committed by others without at-

[ 79 J
 

POE’S HELEN

 

tracting any notice whatever—I can call to
mind no act of my life which would bring a
blush to my cheek—or to yours. If I have
erred at all in this regard, it has been on the
side of what the world would call a Quixotic
sense of the honorable—of the chivalrous.
The indulgence of this sense has been the
true voluptuousness of my life. It was for this
species of luxury that, in my early youth, I
deliberately threw away from me a large for-
tune, rather than endure a trivial wrong. It
was for this that at a later period, I did vio-
lence to my own heart, and married, for an-
other’s happiness, where I knew that no pos-
sibility of my own existed. Ah, how profound
is my love for you, since it forces me into these
egotisms for which you will inevitably despise
me! Nevertheless, I must now speak to you
the truth or nothing. It was mere indulgence,
then, of the sense to which I refer, that, at one
dark epoch of my late life, for the sake of one
who, deceiving and betraying, still loved me
much, I sacrificed what seemed in the eyes of
men my honor, rather than abandon what
was honor in hers and in my own.—But, alas!
for nearly three years I have been ill, poor,
living out of the world; and thus, as I now
painfully see, have afforded opportunity to
my enemies—and especially to one, the most
malignant and pertinacious of all friends.—
[The next line is entirely obliterated.—C. F. D.]

[ 80 ]
 

POR’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

to slander me, in private society, without my
knowledge, and thus with impunity. Although
much, however, may (and I now see must)
have been said to my discredit, during my
retirement, those few who, knowing me well,
have been steadfastly my friends, permitted
nothing to reach my ears—unless in one in-
stance, where the malignity of the accuser
hurried her beyond her usual caution, and
thus the accusation was of such a character
that I could appeal to a court of justice for
redress. The tools employed in this instance
were Mr. Hiram Fuller, Mr. T. D. English.
I replied to the charge fully, in a public news-
paper—afterward suing the Mirror (in which
the scandal appeared) obtaining a verdict and
obtaining such an amount as, for the time,
completely to break up that journal. And you
ask me, why men so misjudge me—why I have
enemies. If your knowledge of my character
and of my career does not afford you an answer
to the query, at least it does not become me
to suggest the answer. Let it suffice that I
have had the audacity to remain poor that
I might preserve my independence—that, never-
theless, 1 in letters, to a certain extent and in
certain regard I have been successful—that I
have been a critic—an unscrupulously honest
and in many cases a bitter one—that I have
been uniformly attacked where I attacked at
all—those who stood highest in power and in-

[ 81 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

fluence—and that, whether in literature or in
society, I have seldom refrained from express-
ing, either directly or indirectly the pure con-
tempt with which the pretensions of ignorance,
arrogance, or hostility inspire me.—And you who
know all this—you ask me why I have enemies.
Ah, Helen, I have a hundred friends for every
individual enemy—but has it never occurred
to you that you do not live among my friends?
Miss Lynch, Miss Fuller, Miss Blackwell,
Mrs. Ellet—neither these nor any within their
influence, are my friends. Had you read my
criticisms generally, you would see, too, how
and why it is that the Channings—the Emer-
son and Hudson coterie—the Longfellow clique,
one and all—the cabal of the N. American
Review—you would see why all these, whom
you know best, know me least and are my
enemies. Do you not remember with how deep
a sigh I said to you in Providence—“ My heart
is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends
are not my own.” But the cruel sentence in
your letter would not—could not so deeply
have wounded me, had my soul first been
strengthened by those assurances of your love,
which I so wildly—so vainly—and, I now
feel, so presumptuously entreated. That our
souls are one, every line which you have ever
written asserts—but our hearts do not beat
in unison. Tell me, darling! to your heart has
any angel ever whispered that the very noblest

[ 82 ]
 

POER’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

lines in all human poetry are these—hackneyed
though they be!

I know not—I ask not if guilt’s in thy heart:—
I but know that I Jove thee whatever thou art.

When I first read your letter I could do
nothing but shed tears, while I repeated again
and again, those glorious, those all-compre-
hensive verses, till I could scarcely hear my
own voice for the passionate throbbings of
my heart.

Forgive me, best and only beloved Helen,
if there be bitterness in my tone. Towards you
there is no room in my soul for any other
sentiment than devotion—it is Fate only I
accuse: it is my own unhappy nature which
wins me as the true love of no woman whom
by any possibility I could love.

I heard something, a day or two ago,
which, had your last letter never reached me,
might not irreparably have disturbed the rela-
tions between us, but which, as it is, withers
forever all the dear hopes upspringing in my
bosom. A few words will explain to you what
I mean. Not long after the receipt of your
Valentine I learned, for the first time, that
you were free—unmarried. I will not pretend
to express to you what is absolutely inexpres-
sible—that wild—long-enduring thrill of joy
which pervaded my whole being on hearing
that it was not impossible I might one day call

[ 83 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

you by the sacred title, wife: but there was
one alloy to this happiness—I dreaded to find
you in worldly circumstances superior to my
own. Let me speak freely to you now, Helen,
for perhaps, I may never thus be permitted
to speak to you again—Let me speak openly—
fearlessly—trusting to the generosity of your
own spirit for a true interpretation of my
own. I repeat, then, that I dreaded to find you
in worldly circumstances superior to mine.
So great was my fear that you were rich, or
at least possessed of some property which
might cause you to seem rich in the eyes of
one so poor as I had always permitted myself
to be—that, on the day I refer to, I had not
the courage to ask my informant any ques-
tions concerning you. I feel that you will
have difficulty in comprehending me; but the
horror with which, during my sojourn in the
‘world, I have seen affection made the subject
of barter: had, long since—long before my
marriage—inspired me with the resolution
that, under no circumstances, would I marry
where ‘“‘interest,” as the world terms it, could
be suspected as, on my part, the object of the
marriage. As far as this point concerned your-
self, however, I was relieved the next day,
by an assurance that you were wholly de-
pendent upon your mother. May I—dare I
add—can you believe me when I say that this
assurance was doubly grateful to me by the

[ 84]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

additional one that you were in ill health and
had suffered more from domestic trouble than
falls usually to the lot of woman? and even
if your faith in my nature is not too greatly
tasked by such an assertion, can you forbear
thinking me unkind, selfish, or ungenerous?
You cannot: but oh! the sweet dreams which
absorbed me at once! dear dreams of a de-
votional care for you that end only with life—
of a tender, cherishing, patient, solicitude
which should bring you back, at length to
health and to happiness—a care—a solicitude
—which should find its glorious reward in
winning me, after long years, that which I
could feel to be your Jove ! without well under-
standing why. I had been led to fancy you
ambitious: perhaps the fancy arose from your
lines:

Not a bird that roams the forest
Shall our lofty eyrie share!

but my very soul glowed with ambition for
your sake, although I have always condemned
it for my own. It was then only—then when
I thought of you—that I dwelt exultingly
upon what I felt that I could accomplish in
Letters and in Literary Influence—in the
widest and noblest field of human ambition.
“Twill erect,” I said, “a prouder throne than
any on which mere monarch ever sat; and on
this throne she—she shall be my queen.”” When

[ 85 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

I saw you, incase I touched your
gentle hand—when I heard your soft voice,
and perceived how greatly I had misconceived
your womanly nature—these triumphant visions
melted sweetly away in the sunshine of a love
ineffable; and I suffered my imagination to
stray with you, and with the few who love
us both, to the banks of some quiet river, in
some lovely valley of our land. Here, not too
far secluded from the world, we exercised the
taste controlled by no conventionalities, but
the sworn slave of a Natural Art, in the build-
ing for ourselves a cottage which no human be-
ing could ever pass without an ejaculation of
wonder at its strange, weird, and incompre-
hensible, yet most simple beauty. Oh, the
sweet and gorgeous, but not often rare flow-
ers in which we half buried it !—the grandeur
of the little-distant magnolias and tulip-trees
which stood guarding it—the luxurious velvet
of its lawn—the lustre of the rivulet that ran
by the very door—the tasteful yet quiet com-
fort of the interior—the music—the books—
the unostentatious pictures—and, above all,
the love—the love that threw an unfading
glory over the whole! Ah, Helen! my heart is,
indeed, breaking and I must now put an end
to these divine dreams. Alas! all is now a
dream; for I have lately heard that of you
which (taken in connection with your letter
and with that of which your letter does not

[ 86 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

assure me) puts it forever out of my power to
ask you—again to ask you—to become my
wife. That many persons in your presence,
have declared me wanting in honor, appeals
irresistibly to an instinct of my nature—an
instinct which I feel to be honor, let the dis-
honorable say what they may, and forbids
me, under such circumstances, to insult you
with my love:—but that you are quite inde-
pendent in your worldly position (as I have
just heard)—in a word that you are compara-
tively rich while I am poor, opens between us
a gulf—a gulf, alas! which the Sorrow and the
slander of the world have rendered forever im-
passable by me.

I have not yet been able to procure all
the criticisms, etc., of which you spoke, but
will forward them by express, in a day or two.
Meantime I enclose the lines by Miss Fuller;
and “The Domain of Arnheim,” which happens
to be at hand, and which, moreover, expresses
much of my soul——It was about the toth. of
Sep., I think, that your sweet MS. verses
reached me in Richmond. I lectured in Lowell
on the roth. of July. Your first letter was re-
ceived by me at Fordham on the evening of
Saturday Sep. 30. I was in Providence, or its
neighborhood, during the Monday you men-
tion. In the morning I revisited the cemetery—
at 6 p. Mm. I left the city in the Stonington
train for N. Y. I cannot explain to you—

[ 87 ]
 

PORS HELEN

 

since I cannot myself comprehend—the feeling
which urged me not to see you again before
going—not to bid you a second time farewell.
I had a sad foreboding at heart. In the seclu-
sion of the cemetery you sat by my side—on
the very spot where my arm first tremblingly
encircled your waist.
Epcar.

“Very soon after Poe’s letter of Oct. 18,
1848,” wrote Mrs. Whitman, “and before I had
replied to it, he came again to Providence.
During this visit he told me much of his earlier
life—much of his intimate history—and I be-
came more and more deeply interested in him.
He seemed to connect me strangely with his
memories of Helen Stanard and often declared
to me that he had known and loved me ages ago.

“The name of Helen had a strange charm
for him from an incident that happened in
his boyhood. The mother of one of his school-
mates, who had spoken a few kind words to
the imaginative child, died suddenly and
left a sweet and sorrowful memory in his
heart that seems never to have faded.

i “TI believe that the spirit of her who bore
this beloved name, has always hovered around
him, and that it was in some way, through her
influence that he was drawn to me. You may
think this fanciful, but many strange incidents
suggestive of such psychal influences occurred

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POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

to me at that period of my life. One evening,
just after dusk, I went into a room dimly
lighted by a coal fire. Poe was sitting dreamily
musing by the fire-side. In a corner of the
room hung an unframed picture painted on
a very dark background. It was sketched for
me many years ago by Giovanni Thompson,
who married a sister of Mrs. Ritchie. As I
entered the room Poe started up and said
“Helen, I have had such strange dreams since
I have been sitting here that I can hardly
believe myself awake! Your picture in this
dim light looked so like the face of Robert
Stanard that it startled me. You remember that
he was the schoolmate of whom I have spoken
to you, the son of Mrs. Helen Stanard whom
I loved so well. I never noticed the resemblance
before, but when you see him, as you one day
will, you will see how strikingly this picture re-
sembles him.’

“Hanging as it did, in deep shadow the face
might well have startled one on suddenly
turning toward it, as something strange and
fantastic, but the fact of the resemblance
deeply impressed me in connection with my
remembrance of the weird fantasies in some
of his stories.*

*Tt is impossible to ascertain how great the resemblance was
which existed between Mrs. Whitman and Poe’s schoolmate,
but the portrait of Robert Stanard presented in the volume
shows a certain marked similarity of feature.

[ 89 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

“During this visit I promised him that
I would write to him fully and definitely at
Lowell, where he was going at the invitation
of friends to deliver a lecture, having been
invited to do so by persons who had heard
him while he was in that city in the preceding
June, or July. There was great excitement
just then over the pending presidential election
and the time was unfavorable to the pro-
jected arrangements for a lecture.”

Mrs. Whitman delayed writing to Poe at
Lowell. dreading to say the word which would
separate them forever, and yet not being able to
make up her mind to give him the desired an-
swer. At last, she sent him an indecisive note
to which he replied by the statement that he
should be in Providence the following evening.
On arriving, there, however, he did not see Mrs.
Whitman, but, instead, journeyed on to Boston
in a state of extreme depression which resulted
in an attempt to commit suicide by taking a
heavy dose of laudanum.

This drug merely made him ill, and as soon
as he was able to throw off its effect, he re-
turned again to Providence, and on the morning
of his arrival called on Mrs. Whitman; she was
not prepared to see him at so early an hour, and
sent him word that she would meet him at noon
at the Athenzum, which was a favorite resort of
hers.

There Poe and Mrs. Whitman subsequently

[ 90 ]
 

ROBERT STANARD

Reproduced by permission of W.G. Stanard
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

spent considerable time together, and the build-
ing contains various reminders of them. Mrs.
Whitman’s portrait by Thompson hangs upon
the walls, and among the fine examples of Mal-
bone’s work may be seen the beautiful min-
iature of Nicholas Power, Mrs. Whitman’s
father.

Among the Athenzum’s other treasures is a
volume of Colton’s American Review, for 1847,
the December number of which contains the
anonymous poem “Ulalume,” with Edgar Allan
Poe’s signature attached. It is said that Mrs.
Whitman, who was at the time of the incident
engaged to Poe, asked him one day when they
were together in the Athenzeum, if he had read
this poem, and if he knew the author? He sur-
prised her by acknowledging that he had writ-
ten it, and then taking up the library copy of
the magazine he signed his name at the end of
the poem.

In response to Mrs. Whitman’s suggestion
that he meet her at the Athenzum, on the oc-
casion in question, Poe writes that he is ill and
unable to keep such an appointment:

Dearest HELEN:

I have no engagement, but am very ill—
so much so that I must go home, if possible—
but if you say “‘stay,”. I will try to do so. If
you cannot see me—write me one word to say
that you do love me and that under all cir-

[ 91 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

cumstances, you will be mine. Remember that
these coveted words you have never yet spoken
—and, nevertheless, I have not reproached
you. It was not in my power to be here on
Saturday as I proposed, or I would undoubt-
edly have kept my promise. If you can see me,
even for a few moments do so—but if not
write—or send some message which will com-
fort me.
Tuesday Nov. 7.
Epcar Por To S. H. W.
76 Benefit St.—Providence.

As a result of his having taken the dose of
laudanum, Poe remained for some days in a very
excitable state, and it was during the remainder
of this stay in Providence that the scenes took
place which Mrs. Whitman describes as follows:

“In an interview with Mr. Poe some three
or four weeks previous to his lecture before
the Lyceum, he had vehemently urged me to
an immediate marriage. As an additional
reason for delaying a marriage which, under
any circumstances, seemed to all my friends
full of evil portents, I read to him some pas-
sages from a letter which I had recently re-
ceived from one of his New York associates.
He seemed deeply pained and wounded by the
result of our interview, and left me abruptly
saying that if we met again, it would be as
strangers. He did not return to New York,

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POE'S LOVE-LETTERS

 

but passed the evening in the bar-room of his
hotel.”

Mrs. Whitman then explains that although
far from being in a normal condition on the
following morning, he was persuaded to have
his picture taken at that time, which doubtless
accounted for the look of dissipation depicted
on his countenance in the daguerreotype then
produced.

She goes on to say:

“A gentleman by the name of MacFarlane,
who had been very kind to him during the
night and who had become greatly interested
in him, persuaded him to go with him in the
morning to the office of Masury and Hart-
shorn where the daguerreotype of which I
have spoken so often was taken. Poe was
moody and silent while there. Soon after he
left the office he came alone to my mother’s
house in a state of wild and delirious excite-
ment calling upon me to save him from some
terrible impending doom. The tones of his
voice were appalling and rang through the
house. Never have I heard anything so awful,
awful even to sublimity.

“Tt was long before I could nerve myself to
see him. My mother was so much moved by
his suffering that she urged me to soothe him
by promising all that he might require of me.

“‘After he had been in the house (my mother
was with him) more than two hours, I entered

{93 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

the room. He hailed me as an angel sent to
save him from perdition, and once when my
mother requested me to have a cup of coffee
prepared for him, he clung to my dress so
frantically as to tear away a piece of the muslin
I wore. In the afternoon he grew more com-
posed and my mother sent for Dr. A. H. Okie
(the same who wrote the paragraphs I sent
from the Providence Journal signed ‘Medicus,’
in reply to Fairfield’s epileptic theory) who
advised his being taken to the house of his
friend W. J. Pabodie where he was most kindly
cared for.

“Of course gossip held high carnival over
these facts, which were told doubtless with
every variety of sensational embellishment and
illustration.”

Poe’s next letter is written on November 14,
1848, just after leaving Providence, at which
time he had obtained Mrs. Whitman’s con-
sent to a conditional engagement:

My Dearest HELEN:

So kind, so true, so generous (—so un-
moved by all that would have moved one who
had been less an angel—beloved of my heart,
of my imagination, of my intellect, life of my
life, soul of my soul)—dear, dearest Helen,
how shall I ever thank you as I ought—I am
calm and tranquil and but for a strange shadow
of coming evil which haunts me I should be

[ 94 ]
 

POE'S LOVE-LETTERS

 

happy. That I am not supremely happy, even
when I feel your dear love at my heart terri-
fies me. What can this mean? Perhaps, how-
ever, it is only the necessary reaction after
such terrible excitements.

It is five o’clock and the boat is just being
made fast at the wharf. I shall start in the train
that leaves New York at 7 for Fordham. I
write this to show you that I have not dared
to break my promise to you. And now, dearest
Helen, be true to me.

[A postscript was originally affixed to this
letter in which Poe made grateful acknowl-
edgment of Mr. William J. Pabodie’s kind-
ness to him during his recent illness in Prov-
idence. Mr. Pabodie borrowed the letter after
Mrs. Whitman had made a transcript of the
above portion of it and afterward told her
that he had either lost or mislaid it.]

Poe’s next communication was penned on
November 22:

Wednesday Morning

My Dearest HELEN—Last Monday I re-
ceived your note, dated Friday, and promising
that on Tuesday I should get a long letter
from you. It has not yet reached me, but I
presume will be at the P. O. when I send this
in— In the mean time I write these few words
to thank you from the depths of my heart,

[95 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

for the dear expressions of your note—expres-
sion of tenderness so wholly undeserved by
me—and to assure you of my safety and
health. The terrible excitement under which I
suffered, has subsided, and I am as calm as I
well could be, remembering what is past.
Still the Shadow of Evil haunts me, and al-
though tranquil, I am unhappy. I dread the
Future—and you alone can reassure me. I
have so much to say to you, but must wait
until I hear from you. My mother was de-
lighted with your wish to be remembered and
begs me to express the pleasure it gave her.
Forever your own,
EpcarR.

[ 96 J
CHAPTER VII

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS
(CONCLUDED)

N his next letter Poe pours out his heart
I to his betrothed upon the subject of
Mrs. Ellet, who seems to have deserved
all the charges brought against her. During
Poe’s life she never ceased to vent her animos-
ity upon him, and after his death she con-
tinued to exercise her ingenuity in undermin-
ing his reputation. For some time, she exerted
considerable influence over Griswold, but hav-
ing lost her ascendancy over him she turned
against him and did everything in her power
to injure him and make his last days miserable,
inflicting upon him the retribution which, his
record seems to prove, was only too well earned.
In Poe’s sixth letter, which was written to
Mrs. Whitman on Friday, November 24, he
exclaims:

“In a little more than a fortnight, dearest
Helen, I shall once again clasp you to my
heart: until then I forbear to agitate you by
speaking of my wishes—of my hopes, and
especially of my fears. You say that all de-
pends on my own firmness. If this be so, all
is safe—for the terrible agony known only to

[ 97 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

my God and to myself—seems to have passed
my soul through fire and purified it from all
that is weak. Henceforward I am strong:—
this those who love me shall see—as well as
those who have so relentlessly endeavored to
ruin me. It needed only some such trial as I
have just undergone, to make me what I was
born to be, by making me conscious of my
own strength.—But all does not depend, dear
Helen, upon my firmness—all depends upon
the sincerity of your love.

“You allude to having been ‘tortured by re-
ports which have all since been explained to
your entire satisfaction.’ On this point my
mind is fully made up. I will rest neither by
night nor by day until I bring those who have
slandered me into the light of day—until I
expose them, and their motives to the public
eye. I have the means and I will ruthlessly
employ them. On one point let me caution
you, dear Helen. No sooner will Mrs. Ellet
hear of my proposals to yourself, than she

will set in operation every conceivable chican-
ery to frustrate me:—and, if you are not pre-
pared for her arts, she will infallibly succeed—
for her whole study, throughout life, has been
the gratification of her malignity by such
means as any other human being would die
rather than adopt. You will be sure to receive
anonymous letters as skilfully contrived as
to deceive the most sagacious. You will be

[ 98 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

called on, possibly, by persons whom you
never heard of, but whom she has instigated
to call and vilify me—without their being
aware of the influence she has exercised. I do
not know any one with a more acute intellect
about such matters as Mrs. Osgood—yet even
she was for a long time completely blinded by
the arts of this fiend, and simply because of her
generous heart could not conceive how any
woman could stoop to machinations at which
the most degraded of the fiends would shudder.
I will give you here but one instance of her
baseness and I feel that will suffice. When, in
the heat of passion—stung to madness by her
inconceivable perfidy and by the grossness of
the injury which her jealousy prompted her
to inflict upon all of us—upon both families—
I permitted myself to say what I should not
have said—I had no sooner uttered the words,
than I felt their dishonor. I felt, too that,
although she must be damningly conscious of
her own baseness, she would still have a right
to reproach me for having betrayed, under
any circumstances, her confidence. Full of
these thoughts, and terrified almost to death
lest I should again, in a moment of madness,
be similarly tempted, I went immediately to
my secretary—(when these two ladies* went
away)—made a package of her letters, ad-
dressed them to her, and with my own hand
* Miss Lynch and Margaret Fuller.

[ 99 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

left them at her door. Now Helen, you cannot
be prepared for the diabolic malignity which
followed. Instead of feeling that I had done
all I could to repair an unpremeditated wrong—
instead of feeling that almost any other person
would have retained the letters to make good
(if occasion required) the assertion that I pos-
sessed them—instead of this, she urged her
brothers and brother-in-law to demand of me
the letters. The position in which she thus
placed me you may imagine. Is it any wonder
that I was driven mad by the intolerable sense
of wrong? If you value your happiness, Helen,
beware of this woman. She did not cease her
persecutions here. My poor Virginia who was
continually tortured (although never deceived) |
by her anonymous letters, on her death-bed
declared that Mrs. Ellet had been her mur-
derer. Have I not the right to hate this fiend
and caution you against her? You will now
comprehend what I mean in saying that the
only one thing for which I found it impossible
to forgive Mrs. Osgood was her reception of
Mrs. Ellet.”

In reference to this episode which caused
the breaking off of Poe’s association with Mrs.
Osgood, Mrs. Whitman says: “Certain benevo-
lent ladies, friends of the invalid wife, were in
the habit of visiting the cottage in Fordham
and ministering to the comfort of the family.
One of these ladies chanced to see there an

[ 100 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

open letter written by Mrs. Osgood which was
thought to be of a compromising character.
She called on Mrs. Osgood, remonstrated with
her on her imprudence, prevailed upon her to
break off the correspondence, and obtained
her consent that a committee of ladies should
demand in her behalf the return of the letters.
Margaret Fuller, the late Countess D’Ossolli,
was I believe one of the ladies who undertook
the commission, and Miss Anna C. Lynch,
now Mrs. Botta, was another; it was from her
that I received the account J am giving you,
but the instigator of the movement was a ‘dis-
tinguished lady of South Carolina’ (Mrs. Ellet).

“The ladies preceded to Fordham and pre-
sented their credentials. Whereupon the poor
Raven driven to desperation ruffled his black
plumes and denounced the fair ambassadresses
as busybodies adding injury to insult by saying
that Mrs. Ellet had better look to her own
letters. Now this was very indiscreet and
very reprehensible and nobody knew this
better than himself.”

Mrs. Whitman pronounces the story which
had been circulated, of Poe’s borrowing money
from the same lady and refusing to pay until
forced by the lady’s brother, absolutely “i
credible.” There was, she thinks, something
for which Poe reproached himself, and which
may have given rise to the “perfidious story.”

Mrs. Whitman in a subsequent communica-

[ ror ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

tion describes Mrs. Ellet, “‘whose name,” she
says, “you will find in the Encyclopedia of
Literature, and in Poe’s ‘Literati,’ which
though apparently correct in its estimates of
her intellectual efforts apparently betrays the
hostility and resentment of the writer... .
The lady is, or was rather unpopular in New
York though she has some friends who speak
of her as enterprising and efficient in inaugurat-
ing public and private readings, for charitable
purposes. She commenced a correspondence
with me two or three years after Poe’s death.
It was in reference to matters in no way con-
nected with him, but it soon ceased.”
Undoubtedly Mrs. Ellet exercised consider-
able influence over Griswold at one period
when she persuaded him to allow her to oc-
cupy a desk in his office, where she might carry
on her literary work and collaborate with him;
it has been recorded, however, that after Gris-
wold had discovered her in the act of read-
ing over his private letters, he ordered her to
relinquish the post assigned her, as well as the
latch-key which had been put at her disposal.
That she afterward pursued Griswold with her
hatred has been frequently recorded, and it
was well known to the public of her day that
after Griswold’s marriage to his third wife, she
brought charges against him to prove that his
divorce from his second wife was illegal. Gris-
wold finally issued a printed pamphlet in which

[ 102 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

he denounced her and endeavored to justify
his own conduct.

Poe’s tribute to Mrs. Ellet in “The Literati,”
exhibits his attitude toward her, and probably
did something to increase her animosity toward
him. He wrote:

“She has been long before the public as an
author. . . . She first made her debut as the
writer of ‘Teresa Contarini,’ a five act tragedy,
which had considerable merit, but was with-
drawn after its first night’s representation at
the Park. . . . The ill success of the play had
little effect in repressing the ardor of the poetess,
who has since furnished numerous papers to
the magazines. . . . Her articles are for the
most part in the refacimento way, and although
no doubt composed in good faith, have the
disadvantage of looking as if hashed up for
just as much money as they will bring. The
charge of wholesale plagiarism, which has been
adduced against Mrs. Ellet, I confess that I
have not felt sufficient interest in her works to
investigate, and am therefore bound to be-
lieve it unfounded. . . . In person, short and
much inclined to embonpoint.”

Whatever may have been this lady’s manners,
or morals, and no matter how fiercely she may
have exercised her animosity toward Poe, it is
evident that his discouraging critique did not
dampen her enthusiasm for literary production;
for years she continued to produce voluminous

[ 103 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

works composed of eulogistic descriptions of
famous women of ancient and modern times;
among these books may be mentioned one
called “Queens of American Society,” in the
pages of which, it may be noticed, she did not
include those rivals in the literary world who
had aroused her enmity. In the course of an
introduction to one of these books she says:

“Should the perusal of my book inspire with
courage and resolution any woman who aspires
to overcome difficulties in the achievement of
honorable independence, or should it lead to
a higher general respect for the powers of
women among those destined for position in
the realm of art, my object will be accom-
plished.”

If one glances through a few pages devoted
to the consideration of all the noblest qualities
of womanhood, which Mrs. Ellet was prone to
attribute to her heroines, one can but wonder
that her own methods were not materially influ-
enced by this association. But judging from the
data which are extant, the author of “Queens
of Society”’ was far from queenly in her methods
of procedure.

An example of her literary integrity was
brought to public notice in 1868, when she sold
to the Harpers a story of Wesrern life entitled
“Mary Nealy”’; this, upon later examination,
proved to be an almost exact transcription of
a story entitled ‘Mary Spears,” which she had

[ 104 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

sold to the Putnams in 1853. This lady died
on June 3, 1877. |

Poe’s association with Margaret Fuller, who
was one of the group that visited him at Ford-
ham, was hardly a pleasing one, and her at-
tempt to break up his friendship with Mrs.
Osgood was keenly resented by him. Her in-
clination to be both aggressive and opinionated
did not commend itself to his fancy, and it is
recorded that on certain occasions when they
met in company the sparks flew between them.
Upon one special evening Poe came gallantly
into the conversational breach to rescue a
young author, whom Miss Fuller was annihilat-
ing with extreme scorn. Poe with a few strong
and pointed remarks, destroyed the effect of
the learned lady’s eloquence, much to her dis-
comfort, and probably to the secret satisfac-
tion of the assembled company, for some one
present whispered: ‘‘The Raven has perched
upon the casque of Pallas, and pulled all of
her feathers out of her cap.”

Poe, having recounted to Mrs. Whitman his
experience with his feminine persecutors, closes
his letter with a reference to the treatment that
he has received from Mrs. Whitman’s mother
and sister, who have made their opposition quite
plain to him:

Be careful of your health, dearest Helen, and
perhaps all will yet go well. Forgive me that

[ 105 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

I let these wrongs prey upon me—I did not so
bitterly feel them until they threatened to
deprive me of you. I confess too, that the in-
sults of your mother and sister still rankle at
my heart but for your dear sake I will endeavor
to be calm.

Your lines “To Arcturus” are truly beauti-
ful. I would retain the Vergilian words—omit-
ting the translation. The first note leave out :—
61 Cygni has been proved nearer than Arc-
turus and Alpha Lyre is presumably so.—
Bessel, also, has shown 6 other stars to be
nearer than the brighter one of this hemisphere
—There is obvious tautology in “pale candes-
cent.” To be candescent is to become white
with heat. Why not read— To blend with thine
its incandescent fire?”’ Forgive me sweet Helen,
for these very stupid and captious criticisms.
Take vengeance on my next poem. When
“Ulalume”’ * appears, cut it out and enclose
it:—newspapers seldom reach me. In last
Saturday’s Home Journal is a letter from M. C.
(who is it?) I enclose a passage which seems
to refer to my lines:

—the very roses’ odors
[Died in the arms of the adoring airs.]

The accusation will enable you to see how
groundless such accusations may be, even when

* This refers to a reprint of the poem which had been
first issued in 1847.

[ 106 ]
 

POE'S LOVE-LETTERS

 

seemingly best founded. Mrs. H.’s book was
published 3 months ago. You had my poem
about the first of June—was it not ?
Forever your own Epcar.

Remember me to Mr. Pabodie—Mrs. Bur-
gess and Mrs. Newcomb.

Fordham,

November 24th, 1848.

Poe’s reference to Mrs. Whitman’s poem,
“To Arcturus,” may be supplemented by the
author’s own account of it. Mrs. Whitman
wrote to her friend Davidson:

“The lines, as published in the Winnsboro’
paper, you will find in Graham’s Magazine
for 1850. As you may infer from the poem,
Poe regarded this star with peculiar interest.
One evening in the autumn of 1848, just as he
was leaving the city for his home near New
York, he said something to me about Arcturus
which I promised to remember in looking at it.

“An hour or two after he left the city certain
reports were communicated to my family in
relation to him which augmented almost to
a frenzy my mother’s opposition to the rela-
tion then subsisting between us. Yet at part-
ing he had won from me a rash promise that
nothing I might hear to his discredit from
others should induce me to break the con-
ditional promise I had given him. During the
painful scenes which followed, which I would

[ 107 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

if possible banish forever from my remem-
brance, I chanced to look towards the western
horizon and saw there Arcturus shining re-
splendently through an opening in the clouds,
while of all the neighboring constellations, I
could see only Orpheus, in the head of the
serpent, still glimmering near with a pale and
sickly lustre.

“To my excited imagination everything at
that time seemed a portent or an omen. I had
been subjected to terrible mental conflicts,
and was but just recovering from a painful
and dangerous illness. That night, an hour
after midnight, I wrote, under a strange acces-
sion of prophetic exaltation, the lines ‘To
Arcturus’ ‘written in October.’ The words from
Virgil occurred to my mind, and were prefixed
to them; though why I should have then
thought them appropriate I cannot tell. I
only remember that as I repeated the Latin
words they had a sound so majestic so ex-
ultant so full of solemn and triumphant au-
gury that the remembrance of it, even now,
fills me with mystic joy. In the spring of 1850,
after Edgar’s death, I wrote the additional
lines and sent them to Graham’s Magazine,
where they were published under my signature
in the following June.”

[ 108 ]
 

POE'S LOVE-LETTERS

 

ARCTURUS
(Written in October.)

“Our star looks through the storm”

Star of resplendent front! thy glorious eye
Shines on me still from out yon clouded sky,—
Shines on me through the horrors of a night
More drear than ever fell o’er day so bright,—
Shines till the envious Serpent slinks away,
And pales and trembles at thy steadfast ray.

Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star! to be
So near me in this hour of agony ?—

So near,—so bright,—so glorious, that I seem

To lie entranced as in some wondrous dream,—

All earthly joys forgot,—all earthly fear,

Purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere:
Kindling within my soul a pure desire

To blend with thine its incandescent fire,—

To lose my very life in thine, and be

Soul of thy soul through all eternity.

1849.

The second poem “To Arcturus” (written
in April) opens with the stanza:

Again, imperial star! thy mystic beams

Pour their wild splendors on my waking dreams,
Piercing the blue depths of the vernal night

With opal shafts and flames of ruby light;

Filling the air with melodies, that come

Mournful and sweet, from the dark, sapphire dome,—
Weird sounds, that make the cheek with wonder pale,
As their wild symphonies o’er sweep the gale.

[ 109 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Two days after Poe’s previous letter he
forwarded the following communication to

Mrs. Whitman:

Sunday evening 26.

I wrote you yesterday, sweet Helen, but,
through my fear of being too late for the mail
omitted some things I wish to say. I fear too,
that my letter must have seemed cold—per-
haps even harsh or selfish—for I spoke nearly
altogether of my own griefs. Pardon me, my
Helen, if not for the love I bear you, at least
for the sorrows I have endured—more, I be-
lieve, than have often fallen to the lot of man.
How much have they been aggravated by my
own consciousness that, in too many instances,
they have arisen from my own culpable weak-
ness or childish folly !—my sole hope now, is in
you, Helen. As you are true to me or fail me,
so do I live or die.

I forgot to enclose your poem and do so
now. Why have you omitted the two forcible
lines—

While in its depths withdrawn, far, far away,
I see the dawn of a diviner day?

—is that dawn no longer perceptible?

Who wrote the verses signed “Mary,” I
am unable to say.

Can you solve the riddle of the poem en-
closed? It is from last Saturday’s Home Jour-
nal. Somebody sent it to me in MS.

[ 110 ]
 

POEB’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

Was I right, dearest Helen, in my first
impression of you ?—you know I have implicit
faith in first impressions. Was I right in the
idea I had adopted before seeing you—in the
idea that you were ambitious? If so, and if
you will have faith in me, I can and will satisfy
your wildest desires. It would be a glorious
triumph, Helen, for us—for you and me. I
dare not trust my schemes to a letter—nor,
indeed, have I room even to hint at them
here. When I see you I will explain all—as
far, at least, as I dare explain all my hopes
even to you.

Would it not be “glorious,” darling, to
establish in America, the sole unquestionable
aristocracy—that of intellect—to secure its
supremacy—to lead and control it? All this
I can do, Helen, and will—if you bid me—
and aid me.

I received yesterday a letter from Mr.
Dunnell. He says that they have ‘lost’ their
lecturer for the 6th. prox. and offers me that
night instead of the 13th. I have written him,
however, that I cannot be in Providence be-
fore the 13th.

My kindest regards to Mr. Pabodie.

Devotedly—

[To this letter Mrs. Whitman adds “‘signa-
ture and postscript cut out to give to James

T. Fields, 1865.]
{ 111 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

“P, S.—Preserve the printed lines. I send
the MS. —-Perhaps you may recognize it. As
one of the signs of the times I notice that
.Griswold has lately copied my Raven in his
Hartford Weekly Gazette—I enclose his edi-
torial comments so that you have quite a
budget of enclosures.”

[A second postscript follows.]

“P. S.—I open this letter, dearest love, to
ask you to mail me, as soon as possible, three
articles of mine which you will find among the
critical papers I gave you—viz: ‘The Philos-
ophy of Composition’-—Tale Writing—Nathl.
Hawthorne—and a review of Longfellow’s
poems. I wish to refer to them in writing my
lecture and can find no other copies. Do not
fail to send them dear—dear Helen, as soon
as you get this. Enclose them in a letter—so
that I may be sure to get them in season.

“Mrs. B’s ‘Ida Grey’ is in Graham for Au-
gust—45.”

Poe’s next letter to Mrs. Whitman bears
the date (added in her handwriting), of De-
cember 17, 1848.

Prior to this time, the impassioned court-
ship had progressed rapidly, and Poe’s dreams
of a speedy marriage seemed likely to be

[ 112 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

realized. Despite the opposition of her mother
and sister, a reluctant consent had been wrung
from Mrs. Whitman, who while acceding to
her tempestuous wooer yet realized the rash-
ness of her decision.

Among Mrs. Whitman’s papers was found
the request from Poe for the publication of
the bans of marriage between the two, which
read:

Will Dr. Crocker have the kindness to
publish the banns of matrimony between
Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman and myself, on
Sunday and on Monday. When we have de-
cided on the day of the marriage we will in-
form you, and will thank you to perform the
ceremony.

Respy yr. St
Epcar A. Por.

On December 15 a contract was drawn up
in the interest of Mrs. Whitman’s mother and
sister, who, having failed to break up the
match, had doubtless insisted that some ar-
rangement should be made by which Poe
should be prevented from having any claim
upon the family income. In this paper Mrs.
Whitman relinquished her share of the estate
from the date of her intended marriage. The
document is as follows:

: [ 113 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Contract Concerning Marriage between Poe
and Mrs. Whitman

Providence Dec. 15, 1848

To Charles F. Tillinghast Administrator with
the will annexed of the estate of Ruth Marsh
late of Providence.

You are hereby required in conformity to
the provisions of the will of the above named
Ruth Marsh to pay to me the Subscriber the
Whole of the Estate of the said Ruth Marsh
now in your possession or control—the said
Estate consisting of Bank Stocks and Notes
as follows namely

Fifteen Shares of the Merchants Bank

Ten do Globe
Five do Blackstone Canal Bank
Six do Exchange

William H. Cooke’s Note for One Thousand

dollars.

Talman & Bucklin’s Note for Two Thousand

dollars.

Benjamin Allen: Notes for Eight Hundred &
Eighteen dollars.

Weston A. Fisher’s Note for Fifteen Hundred

dollars.

[ 114 ]
 

POE’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

All of which Notes are secured by Mortgage
of Real Estate. Anna Power.
Epcar A. Poe.

Signed this fifteenth day of December 1848
In presence of
Henry Martin
Wiuiam J. PaBopie.

Providence December 15, 1848

We Sarah Helen Whitman and Susan Anna
Power legatees named in the will of the with-
in named Ruth Marsh and to whom such part
of the principal or Interest of the Estate of
the said Ruth Marsh as shall remain undis-
posed of at the decease of our mother the
within named Anna Power is given hereby
unite in the preceding request of Anna Power
that the whole of the Estate of the said Ruth
Marsh now in his possession be transferred
to our said mother for her own use. And in
consideration of such conveyance to be made by
him we hereby release him the said Charles F.
Tillinghast from all claims and demands which
we have or may have on account of the said
Estate of the said Ruth Marsh.

In witness whereof we have hereto set our
Hands and Seals the fifteenth of day of Decem-

ber 1848. SaraH Heten Wurman [L. S.]

Susan ANNA PowER [L. S.]

In presence of HENry Martin.
[ 115 |
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Whereas a Marriage is intended between
the above named Sarah H. Whitman and the
Subscriber Edgar A. Poe.—I hereby approve
of and assent to the transfer of the property
in the manner proposed in the papers of which
the preceding are copies—

Providence, December 22, 1848.

Epcar A. Poe.
In presence of WiLt1aM J. PaBopiE.

At this point in the courtship the outlook
for the contracting parties can hardly be
pronounced a hopeful one. Poe was exceedingly
poor, and Mrs. Clemm, his Virginia’s mother,
was wholly dependent upon him, while visions
of his tragic struggle with poverty and sickness
prior to his young wife’s death, still haunted
him cruelly. His betrothed, who was about to
relinquish her modest income, was afflicted
with heart-disease, and shrank from undue
exertion and excitement. She dreaded “scenes,”
and suffered acutely from the opposition of
her mother and sister. Although naturally of
a romantic disposition, she had arrived at an
age when her emotions were not likely to
dominate her actions completely. And it is
doubtful if she ever really believed that the
marriage with Poe would take place.

Poe’s next letter shows that his recent ex-
perience with his prospective mother-in-law
still rankles in his heart. He writes:

[ 116 ]}
Dee. fl. ESR Now- tke Gil —
Vodndon , LPM.

um deo Heke, — Your Gthurs - b omy
cmattan 4 mn - hove pr bun reed, as
4 Jharlin & ply, im season fr Har afirmoorr
J cammch be we Prorvicenen wil Wedrerclon
maermarne | caval, ar J mail try auch yt vom
vl, afi I amnrur, ib 4 mare Mar proboblr
Hah J whale woh Vea yim util atout 2, Pk,
Kerp wp. Boo - fret wile go welt . hy mother
veuds bar dacnink love cornet veer vba wilt Ag-
Gorm gork fw vit a leut yor much bellr
Ham yan moter fruy Teckel me,
Remember me btn. P. a bebe mee

ee

Siypr—

FAC-SIMILE OF LETTER WRITTEN BY POE TO MRS. WHITMAN
 

POER’S LOVE-LETTERS

 

My Own Dearest Het—EN—Your letters—
to my mother and myself—have just been re-
ceived, and I hasten to reply, in season for this
afternoon’s mail. I cannot be in Providence
until Wednesday morning; and, as I must try
and get some sleep after I arrive, it is more
than probable that I shall not see you until
about 2 P.M. Keep up heart—for all will go
well. My mother sends her dearest love and
says she will return good for evil and treat
you much better than your mother has treated
me.

Remember me to Mr. P. and believe me

Ever your own
Epcar.

Thus ended Poe’s last love-letter to Mrs.
Whitman, written shortly before the breaking
off of the engagement.

That he fully expected that the wedding
ceremony was about to be performed is reg-
istered in a brief note to Mrs. Clemm, which
reads:

My Own Dear Motuer—We shall be mar-

ried on Monday, and will be at Fordham on
Tuesday, in the first train.

[ 117 ]
CHAPTER VIII

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT AND
POE’S DEATH

\ A 7 ITH the forwarding of the brief mes-
sage to Mrs. Clemm, “We shall be
married on Monday,” Poe seemed
very near that goal, the attainment of which
might have changed the whole trend of his
career. This marriage would have brought him
an intellectual mate, who would have striven
earnestly to aid him in the fulfilment of his
highest possibilities, for in this inspirational
quality Mrs. Whitman excelled.

While she could hold her faith in Poe’s re-
generation through her influence, Mrs. Whit-
man was willing to disregard the strenuous in-
terference of her family and friends, but with
the knowledge of Poe’s failure to keep his
pledge to her, came the conviction of the hope-
lessness of her endeavor to lift him from the
depths where he was sinking deeper and deeper. |
Anxiety for their financial welfare did not dis-
tress her, for she firmly believed that her own
life was very near its close; she felt that death
was soon to separate her from those whom she
loved, and was content to dedicate her failing
strength to the redemption of one whose mag-

[ 118 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

netic personality had awakened in her the
strongest emotion of her life.

In her own words, Mrs. Whitman has graph-
ically set forth the final interview with Poe, at
which her mother and Mr. Pabodie were pres-
ent; and Mr. Pabodie has also left on record his
account of the affair, in which he seems to have
played no unimportant part.

On this occasion Poe had come to Providence
to lecture upon “American Poetry” before the
Lyceum, where he was received by an audience
of two thousand persons, and it was during
this stay in the city that he succeeded in obtain-
ing Mrs. Whitman’s consent to an immediate
marriage. He stopped at the Earl House where,
according to Pabodie, he became acquainted
with a set of somewhat dissipated young men,
who repeatedly invited him to drink with them.
On the third or fourth night after his lecture he
came to Mrs. Whitman’s house in a state of
partial intoxication; he was not either excitable
or talkative but merely showed that he had been
drinking.

The following morning he was exceedingly
remorseful and was profuse in his apologies.
He wrote, upon that day, the note to Doctor
Crocker requesting him to publish the intended
marriage, intrusting this note to Pabodie, who
undoubtedly took charge of it with the convic-
tion strong in his mind that circumstances
would shortly arise to prevent its delivery.

[ 119 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

It has been stated that during the afternoon
of the day in question much pressure was
brought to bear on Mrs. Whitman to break
off the match, and it is probable that Pabodie,
‘ when he accompanied Poe to the lady’s house
on that second evening, was well assured that
no stone had been left unturned to convince
Mrs. Whitman of the folly of continuing the
engagement.

The scene which ensued has been often de-
scribed. Mrs. Whitman herself quite ill, and
worn out by worry and argument, returned to
Poe certain letters and papers, then dropping
upon a couch and placing a_ handkerchief
drenched in ether to her face she relapsed into
a semiconscious state.

Poe fell upon his knees beside her and con-
tinued his protestations, begging her to recon-
sider and to speak to him.

Finally in response to his appeals for a
reply, she murmured: ‘‘What can I say?”

“Say that you love me, Helen!”

She answered: “I love you,” these being the
last words that she ever addressed to him.

In the meantime Mrs. Power had taken the
situation into her own hands, and while her
daughter lay half fainting upon the lounge, she
freely expressed her mind to Poe, not mincing
her words or sparing her opponent because of
his literary genius. The exact substance of her
remarks has never been divulged, but it is re-

[ 120 ]}
 

MRS. NICHOLAS POWER
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

corded that at their close she reminded Poe
that the New York train left at a not-far-dis-
tant hour.

Then Poe, turning to his friend Pabodie, ex-
claimed:

“Mr. Pabodie you hear how I am insulted,”
and, taking the other’s arm, quickly left the
house.

“Poe returned to New York that evening,”
wrote Mrs. Whitman subsequently, “in the
Stonington Express train, accompanied to the
cars by Mr. Pabodie, who with my mother was
present at our last interview.

“Of course the incident caused a great deal
of gossip and the wildest and most exaggerated
stories were in circulation concerning the break-
ing of the engagement and his reported expul-
sion from the house.

“‘Three weeks after his return to Fordham he
wrote me a letter filled with expressions of
wounded feeling and bitter indignation against
my family (to whom he probably attributed
these exaggerated and injurious stories) and
entreated me by the love that had subsisted be-
tween us to write him at once to assure him that
I, at least, had not authorized their circulation.

“Dreading that an answer to this letter might
lead to a renewal of the harrowing scenes I had
passed through I did not reply to it.

“T was utterly hopeless of my power to sus-
tain or comfort him. I longed to assure him of

{ 121 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

my unalterable interest in his welfare and happi-
ness but I dared not incur the consequences of
further direct communication with him.”

Of Poe’s last letter to Mrs. Whitman only a
' fragment is presented in the collection issued
by the University of Virginia, but it is certain
that Mrs. Whitman gave Ingram an almost com-
plete copy, which he inserted in his “Memoir”
with but a few omissions.

This letter which follows, was received in
January and must have been the communication
which Poe enclosed in a letter to his friend, Mrs.
Richmond, asking her first to read it and then
to forward it to Mrs. Whitman.

“No amount of provocation shall induce me
to speak ill of you, even in my own defense.
If to shield myself from calumny, however un-
deserved, or however unendurable, I find need
of resorting to explanations that might con-
demn or pain you, most solemnly do I assure
you that I will patiently endure such calumny,
rather than avail myself of any such means of
-refuting it. You will see, then, that so far I
am at your mercy—but in making you such
assurances, have I not a right to ask of you
some forbearance in return? ... That you
have in any way countenanced this pitiable
falsehood, I do not and cannot believe—some
person, equally your enemy and mine, has been
its author—but what I beg of you is, to write
me at once a few lines in explanation—you

F roe -]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

know, of course, that by reference either to
Mr. Pabodie or . . . I can disprove the facts
stated, in the most satisfactory manner—but
there can be no need of disproving what I feel
confident was never asserted by you—your
simple disavowal is all that I wish. You will, of
course, write me immediately on receipt of this.
. . . Heaven knows that I would shrink from
wounding or grieving you! I blame no one but
your mother. Mr. Pabodie will tell you all. May
Heaven shield you from all ill! . . . Let my let-
ters and acts speak for themselves. It has been
my intention to say simply that our marriage
was postponed simply on account of your ill
health. Have you really said or done anything
which can preclude our placing the rupture on
such footing? If not, I shall persist in the state-
ment and thus the unhappy matter will die
quietly away.”

In the letter to “Annie” (Mrs. Richmond),
to whom this was enclosed, Poe writes that he
has been deeply wounded by the cruel state-
ments about himself which she had quoted in
a previous letter to him as purporting to come
from Mrs. Whitman and her friends. He says
that it is inevitable that ‘“‘her friends” should
speak ill of him but evidently doubts that Mrs.
Whitman herself has done so. His excitable
nature is stirred by what has been repeated,
and he desires to prove to “Annie” that Mrs.
Whitman has not been disloyal to him; this he

[ 123 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

presumably thinks will be conclusively settled
by his allowing her to see both his own letter
and the looked-for reply.

Viewed in the light of the knowledge of Poe’s
impulsive and excitable temperament this letter
to “Annie” does not carry the weight or sig-
nify the disloyalty on his part to Mrs. Whit-
man that some critics seem to have assigned it.
The tone of bravado which he assumes in the
same letter in assuring ‘‘Annie” of his present
happiness and his greatly increased literary
success, is suggestive of a mood of violent re-
action from his late suffering and chagrin. And
the resentment which rankles deeply breaks
forth in his closing lines:

“Rest assured, ‘Annie,’ from this day forth
I shun the pestilential society of literary women.
They are a heartless, unnatural, venomous,
dishonorable set, with no guiding principle but
inordinate self-esteem. Mrs. Osgood is the only
exception I know. . . . I have had a distress-
ing headache for the last two weeks.”

It is easy to imagine that this letter and vari-
ous others which first came to Mrs. Whitman’s
knowledge long after Poe’s death should have
grieved her exceedingly.

Her reasons for not replying to Poe’s letter
were no doubt reinforced by the action of her
mother and sister, who probably did every-
thing in their power to prevent the reopening of
the Poe correspondence. It is certain, however,

[ 124 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

that Mrs. Whitman was in her heart troubled
by the thought that she had vouchsafed no
answer to Poe’s last appeal, and her subsequent
publication of the verses, entitled ‘Our Island
‘of Dreams,” indicates clearly that she was de-
sirous that Poe should know that she still truly
cared for him.

In a second communication written by Poe
to “Annie” a few weeks after the former one,
he remarks: “I have got no answer yet from
Mrs. Whitman. . . . My opinion is that her
mother has intercepted the letter and will never
give it to her... .”

A month later Poe says in the course of an-
other letter to “Annie”: “I wish you would
write to your relation in Providence and ascer-
tain for me who slandered me as you say—I
wish to prove the falsity of what has been said
(for I find that it will not do to permit such
reports to go unpunished), and especially, ob-
tain for me some details upon which I can
Riva

The failure of Poe to receive the looked-for
response from Mrs. Whitman probably con-
tinued to rankle keenly in his heart, and he
doubtless allowed himself to voice his resent-
ment in occasional bitter remarks, some of
which were bound to make their way back to
Providence through the instrumentality of ever-
alert friends. One of these was Mrs. Locke,
who having previously fallen out with Poe,

[ 125 ]
 

POR’S HELEN

 

endeavored to retaliate through Mrs. Whitman.
Of this lady Mrs. Whitman writes to a friend:

“Tn the spring of 1849 Mrs. Locke wrote to
me expressing an earnest wish to make my ac-
quaintance. I received many urgent invita-
tions to visit her. I promised to spend a few
day's with her in May, fixing the day. I went
and liked her and her husband very much.
After I had spent a few days with her I began
to suspect that she hoped to pique the ‘Raven’
by exhibiting me as her guest or perhaps bring
about a reconciliation with him through my
means. At any rate she told me as an induce-
ment for me to prolong my stay a day or so
after the time fixed for my departure, that she
had taken care that he should hear of my visit
and she had reason to think he would be in
Lowell during the time appointed for my stay.
My heart thrilled at the thought of seeing him
again but I could not accept her request.

“We passed each other on the road. I did not
know it until a letter from Mrs. Locke informed
me of the fact. If you were not such a sceptic as
to spiritual or magnetic phenomena I could tell
you of a strange incident which happened as the
two trains rushed past each other between Bos-
ton and Lowell.”

In writing to Mrs. Clemm of Mrs. Locke
Mrs. Whitman says:

“Her object in seeking my acquaintance was
unquestionably to prevent my renewal of my

[ 126 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

correspondence with Mr. Poe, by whom she
conceived herself to have been deeply wronged.
During the summer of 1849, I received many
letters from her in which there were frequent
allusions to the subject that so deeply engrossed
her feelings. I saw, however, that she was too
much under the influence of wounded pride to
exercise a calm judgment in the matter, and
said but little in reply to her representations.
After Mr. Poe’s death she wrote to me to say
that he had spoken disrespectfully of me to his
friends in Lowell. In reply I made no allusion
whatever to the paragraph in question. In her
next letter she repeated the assertion. I passed
it in silence as before. She then came to Provi-
dence and passed a night with me. On her at-
tempting to introduce the subject which she
had so often touched upon in her letters I in-
terrupted her by saying that I did not wish to
listen to any charges against one whose mem-
ory was dear and sacred to me,—that if false
they could not now be refuted,—if true, I could
understand and forgive them. . . .

“TI fear from her own confessions, that she
has sometimes used my name very unwarrantably
to endorse her own opinions of Mr. Poe’s char-
acter. In a letter to Mr. Willis, written about
the time of Edgar’s death, she ventured to do
so—citing me as authority for some impressions
which she entertained with regard to his moral
character. I wrote Miss Lynch at the time,

[ 127 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

requesting her to set Mr. Willis right on the
matter, but as some coolness then existed be-
tween Miss Lynch and myself I am ignorant
whether the request was ever complied with.”

Mrs. Whitman was still turning over in her
mind the possibility of addressing to Poe some
final response, which she felt he properly de-
served, when a demand reached her for a poem
from Israel Post, who was about to issue in
New York the first number of the American
Metropolitan Review.

Shortly before the breaking of the engagement
Poe had suggested that she send the lines “To
Arcturus” to the opening number of this period-
ical, for which she understood he was to furnish
book reviews; he had copied the lines in his
own handwriting for this purpose, but after the
severing of the relations the publication of this
poem seemed inappropriate and Mrs. Whitman
says of the incident:

“The editor wrote to remind me of my prom-
ise and to say that the magazine was just going
to press. I found in a hurried search among my
manuscripts and papers a copy of unpublished
“Stanzas for Music,’ written several years before
as an accompaniment to an Italian air for the
Guitar. Here was an indication of what Mac-
beth calls ‘fate and metaphysical aid.’ I saw
that Poe might interpret the last verse as a
response to the entreaty made me in the letter
which I had not dared to answer.

[ 128 ]
Ut Fann g
2 Written ux Betrler.
Rie HEE Lote Viton Bow Slvim, *

Sax of Mes bltscdent—front-( Plz ylorious eye
Peired ore One GULL fore. onl cheuclect shy

S Benes on One Whongh Wea. Fo 7 a pple

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FAC-SIMILE OF ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF MRS. WHITMAN'S
POEM “ARCTURUS”
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

“T sent the stanzas to Mr. Post and they ap-
peared in the February number, which did not
come out, I think, until the middle of March,
when the publisher failed and the magazine
was discontinued.

“T cannot doubt that these words were re-
ceived by Poe as a peace-offering to his wounded
and outraged feelings, nor can I doubt that in
writing ‘Annabel Lee,’ the strange sweet song
so charming in spite of its vagueness and ob-
scurity, that he intended I should read in it
the veiled expression, visible to no eyes but
mine, of his undying remembrance. . . .

“T had not seen these verses for years, and
as I then re-read them they sounded so strangely
sweet and mournful, so expressive of all that
I would have wished tosay .. . that I sent
them without venturing to give them a second
look.

“JT transcribe to you from memory a copy of
my verses published in the American Metro-
politan Review.”

OUR ISLAND OF DREAMS

Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,

Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore;

The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart,

But colder those wild words of doom, “Ye must part!”

O’er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry;
Save the wail of those waters there came no reply.

[ 129 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

I longed, like a bird, o’er the billows to flee,
From our lone island home and the moan of the sea:

Away—far away—from the wild ocean shore,

Where the waves ever murmur, “No more, never more”;
Where I wake, in the wild noon of midnight, to hear
That lone song to the surges, so mournful and drear.

When the clouds that now veil from us heaven’s fair light,
. Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night;

When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel,

He shall know if I loved him; but never how well.

1849.

-

Mrs.Whitman goes on to affirm:

“Of course Edgar believed the verses to have
reference to himself; of course, believing them
he would devise some subtle answer whose
meaning should be full of significance to me.
Now I doubt if any reader has ever formed to
himself a very clear conception of the ballad
of ‘Annabel Lee.’ Is the subject of the poem
living or dead?”

Mrs. Whitman points out the significance of
the reference to the “highborn Kinsmen” who
“bore away” Annabel Lee, asserting that Poe
would hardly have used the words, “high-
born” and “Kinsmen,” as descriptive of angels’
who were bearing some one to a heavenly realm.

“Now,” she assests, “I will tell you what I
suppose to have been the veiled meaning of this
passage.” She goes on to say that during the
winter of 1849 she was suffering from chills and

[ 130 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

fever and her physician advised her to spend the
the winter with relatives in South Carolina; she
decided that she would do so and planned to
take a steamer from New York to Charleston.
She wrote to Mrs. Osgood telling of this ar-
rangement and asking her to meet her on board
the boat, but at the last moment, the plan was
relinquished and friends in New Bedford insisted
that Mrs. Whitman should go to them; she
therefore wrote to Mrs. Osgood that “‘just as
she was about to seek the soft and balmy airs of
the south some of her northern friends had
“caught her up’ and ‘borne’ her away to the stern
and rockbound shores of Massachusetts.”

Mrs. Whitman asserts that during her ab-
sence Poe passed through Providence and also
sent the last letter, which she did not receive
for weeks after it was written.

“Poe saw my letter to Mrs. Osgood,” Mrs.
Whitman states, “and referred to the words I
used in the verse which has so puzzled the
critics.

“Of course,” she concludes, “the filling up
of the poem is in many ways purely imagina-
tive. Yet every line and expression has a def-
nite meaning when he speaks of the ‘voice more
familiar than his own.’

“Nevertheless I do not doubt that the poem
may have had in his mind other shades of mean-
ing and may have been in some way associated
with other persons.”

[ 131 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Mrs. Whitman placed much stress on Poe’s
introduction of the words:

The wind came out of the cloud by night,

which she compared with her own line:

The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart.

In Redfield’s “Memoir” it is asserted that
“Annabel Lee’’ was addressed “to a Rhode Is-
and lady,” but most of the biographers are in-
clined to agree with Mrs. Osgood’s statement
that it was written to Poe’s wife, Virginia.

However, in a communication to her friend,
James Wood Davidson, Mrs. Whitman throws
some light upon the origin of Mrs. Osgood’s
statement, which seems to have been made not
so much because she felt sure that Poe wrote
the lines to his wife, as to prevent their being
appropriated by Mrs. Lewis, whom she greatly
disliked.

Mrs. Whitman recounts that in consequence
of the financial aid proffered by Mrs. Lewis to
the Poe family during Virginia’s last days, Mrs.
Clemm was anxious to pay Mrs. Lewis a special
compliment, and that upon a certain occasion
Mrs. Clemm stated to Mrs. Lewis that “Edgar
wrote the ballad ‘Annabel Lee’ to her.” A
mutual friend, Mrs. Hewitt, who was present
at this time, and heard the remark, hastened
back to Mrs. Osgood with the account of Mrs.
Clemm’s assertion.

[ 132 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

Mrs. Osgood was determined that Mrs.
Lewis should never go down to posterity as
the true “Annabel Lee,” and as Mrs. Hewitt
recounts: “Mrs. Osgood’s lip curled and she at
once sat down to pen her comments on the
poem for Griswold’s ‘Memoir,’ in the course of
which she points out that Poe’s ballad was '
written to his Virginia, ‘the only woman. Poe
ever loved.”

“T knew,”’ Mrs. Hewitt writes to Mrs. Whit-
man, “‘that Fanny (Osgood) could not for a
moment have believed this statement, and I
saw that the lines were dictated by pique.”
Mrs. Hewitt concludes: ‘She wrote the com-
ments on ‘Annabel Lee,’ in Griswold’s ‘Memoir,’
not with reference to you, dear Mrs. Whitman,
but only hoping to ‘put Mrs. Lewis down.’ ”

A fourth possible claimant for “Annabel Lee”’
is “Annie,” Mrs. Richmond, to whom Poe en-
closed a copy of the verses in a letter, saying
that he was sending them for her to read, but
not stating that the verses were written to
her. Undoubtedly Mrs. Clemm, in another of
her generous moods, assured “Annie” that the
poem was really hers, because of the similarity |
of name as well as the compliment paid her by
being vouchsafed the first reading and a copy of
the MS.

The “Annabel Lee” mystery will probably
never be solved, and it ill becomes Mrs. Whit-
man’s biographer to question that lady’s evi-

[ 133 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

dence in her own favor. It was a satisfaction to
her to think that Poe had accepted her olive-
branch of peace, and had sent back a final mes-
sage, even though it were so closely veiled as
almost to defy recognition. Yet from a knowl-
edge of the poet’s proud and sensitive nature,
and his tendency to magnify every affront to its
highest degree, it seems likely that Poe did not
forgive his ex-fiancée for not frankly replying to
his note of protest and assuring him that she had
never spoken ill of him, and that all reports of
her having done so were unfounded. This was
what he asked for and did not receive, and state-
ments which he is said to have made later in
Richmond concerning Mrs. Whitman’s trying
vainly to effect a reconciliation with him, prob-
ably arose from the memories which still rankled
and were not dispelled by the perusal of “Our
Island of Dreams,” or of another poem sent by
Mrs. Whitman to the Southern Messenger a
few months later, beginning: ‘The fault was
mine, mine only.”

In her poem, entitled “‘The Last Flowers,”
Mrs. Whitman has embodied her feelings in
regard to her parting with Poe. This poem
bears the date September, 1849, which was two
months before Poe’s death, and from the text
one may gather the suggestion that these verses
also were meant for Poe’s perusal.

Dost thou remember that Autumnal day
When by the Seekonk’s lonely wave we stood,

[ 134 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

And marked the languor of repose that lay,
Softer than sleep, on valley, wave, and wood?

A trance of holy sadness seemed to lull

The charmed earth and circumambient air,
And the low murmur of the leaves seemed full
Of a resigned and passionless despair.

Though the warm breath of summer lingered still
On the lone paths where late her footsteps passed,
The pallid star-flowers on the purple hill

Sighed dreamily, ‘We are the last! the last!”

I stood beside thee, and a dream of heaven

Around me like a golden halo fell!

Then the bright veil of fantasy was riven,

And my lips murmured, “Fare thee well !—farewell !”

I dared not listen to thy words, nor turn

To meet the mystic language of thine eyes,

I only felt their power, and in the urn

Of memory, treasured their sweet rhapsodies.

We parted then forever,—and the hours

Of that bright day were gathered to the past,—
But through long wintry nights, I heard the flowers
Sigh dreamily, “We are the last !—the last!”

Poe’s last days have been so frequently de-
scribed as to need but the briefest summary.
Upon June 27, 1849, he left Fordham for Rich-
mond, where for a time he seems to have
plunged into dissipation from which he gradu-
ally emerged through the intervention of kind
friends. His final weeks in Richmond were de-

[ 135 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

voted to literary work and to the planning for
the publication of The Stylus, which was to
realize his literary ambition in periodical form.
Meanwhile he had renewed his acquaintance
with his boyhood’s sweetheart, Mrs. Shelton,
who has recorded that at this time she saw only
the most approved and dignified behavior on his
part.

As has been stated, Poe’s friends had long be-
fore suggested the wisdom of a marriage with
Mrs. Shelton, who was a practical, warm-
hearted woman, and could provide him with a
comfortable home of which he was sorely in
need, as well as financial aid for both himself and
Mrs. Clemm.

The wisdom of such a step was recognized by
Poe, who had, according to his statements made
to Mrs. Whitman, already contemplated this
match the previous year, and who still cherished
the desperate hope of being saved from himself
by some woman’s restraining hand.

Mrs. Shelton was prevailed upon to look with
favor on the suit which Poe pressed with his
usual impetuosity. A speedy marriage was ar-
ranged and Mrs. Clemm was notified that her
old age would be provided for by this practical
union.

It was said that October 17 was chosen for
the date of the wedding, before which event
Poe felt that it was necessary to make certain
arrangements in New York. On September 27

[ 136 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

he left Richmond upon a boat which arrived in
Baltimore the following day. Upon October
3 Poe was picked up unconscious on the streets
of Baltimore, and it will never be absolutely
known whether he was the victim of foul play
or merely of his own sad weakness. He died at
the Washington University Hospital on Octo-
ber 7, 1849, aged forty years.

He left behind him a goodly number of ene-
mies, and a small group of loving, loyal friends,
among whom Sarah Helen Whitman stands pre-
eminent.

Her sonnets, written shortly after his death,
have taken their place among the permanent
contributions to American poetry, and her
poem entitled ‘‘ Resurgemus,” which follows, is
one of the sincere tributes which she paid to
Poe’s memory.

I mourn thee not: no words can tell

The solemn calm that tranced my breast
When first I knew thy soul had past
From earth to its eternal rest;

For doubt and darkness, o’er thy head,
Forever waved their Condor wings;
And in their murky shadows bred
Forms of unutterable things;

And all around thy silent hearth,

The glory that once blushed and bloomed
Was but a dim-remembered dream

Of “the old-time entombed.”

[ 137 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Those melancholy eyes that seemed
To look beyond all time, or, turned
On eyes they loved, so softly beamed,—
How few their mystic language learned.

How few could read their depths, or know
The proud, high heart that dwelt alone

In gorgeous palaces of woe,

Like Eblis on his burning throne.

For ah! no human heart could brook
The darkness of thy doom to share,
And not a living eye could look
Unscathed upon thy dread despair.

I mourn thee not: life had no lore
Thy soul in morphean dews to steep,
Love’s lost nepenthe to restore,

Or bid the avenging sorrow sleep.

Yet, while the night of life shall last,
While the slow stars above me roll,
In the heart’s solitudes I keep

A solemn vigil for thy soul.

I tread dim cloistral aisles, where all
Beneath are solemn-sounding graves;
While o’er the oriel, like a pall,
A dark, funereal shadow waves.

There, kneeling by a lampless shrine,
Alone amid a place of tombs,

My erring spirit pleads for thine

Till light along the Orient blooms.

Oh, when thy faults are all forgiven,
The vigil of my life outwrought,

[ 138 ]
 

THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

 

In some calm altitude of heaven,—
The dream of thy prophetic thought,—

Forever near thee, soul in soul,

Near thee forever, yet how far,

May our lives reach love’s perfect goal
Tn the high order of thy star!

[ 139 ]
CHAPTER IX
MRS. WHITMAN’S SONNETS TO POE

I
J AINLY my heart had with thy sorceries

striven:
It had no refuge from thy love,—no Heaven

But in thy fatal presence;—from afar
It owned thy power and trembled like a star
O’erfraught with light and splendor. Could I

deem
How dark a shadow should obscure its beam ?—
Could I believe that pain could ever dwell
Where thy bright presence cast its blissful spell ?
Thou wert my proud palladium;—could I fear
The avenging Destinies when thou wert near ?—
Thou wert my Destiny;—thy song, thy fame,
The wild enchantments clustering round thy

name,
Were my soul’s heritage, its royal dower;
Its glory and its kingdom and its power!

Il

When first I looked into thy glorious eyes,
And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained,
Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies
Of autumn nights without a shadow stained,

[ 140 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S SONNETS

 

I stood as one whom some strange dream en-
thralls;

For, far away, in some lost life divine,

Some land which every glorious dream recalls,

A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine.

E’en now, though death has veiled their starry
light,

And closed their lids in his relentless night—

As some strange dream, remembered in a dream,

Again I see, in sleep, their tender beam;

Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill,

Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and
still.

Il

Oft since thy earthly eyes have closed on mine,

Our souls, dim-wandering in the hall of dreams,

Hold mystic converse on the life divine,

By the still music of immortal streams;

And oft thy spirit tells how souls, afhed

By sovran destinies, no more can part,—

How death and hell are powerless to divide

Souls whose deep lives lie folded heart in heart.

And if, at times, some lingering shadow lies

Heavy upon my path, some haunting dread,

Then do I point thee to the harmonies

Of those calm heights whereto our souls arise

Through suffering,—the faith that doth ap-
prove

In death the deathless power and divine life of
love.

[ 141 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

IV

We met beneath September’s gorgeous beams:
Long in my house of life thy star had reigned;
Its mournful splendor trembled through my
dreams,
Nor with the night’s phantasmal glories waned.
We wandered thoughtfully o’er golden meads
To a lone woodland, lit by starry flowers,
Where a wild, solitary pathway leads
Through mouldering sepulchres and cypress
bowers.
A dreamy sadness filled the autumnal air;—
By a low, nameless grave I stood beside thee,
My heart according to thy murmured prayer
The full, sweet answers that my lips denied thee.
O mournful faith, on that dread altar sealed—
Sad dawn of love in realms of death revealed !

Vv

On our lone pathway bloomed no earthly
hopes :—

Sorrow and death were near us, as we stood

Where the dim forest, from the upland slopes,

Swept darkly to the sea. The enchanted wood

Thrilled, as by some foreboding terror stirred;

And as the waves broke on the lonely shore,

In their low monotone, methought I heard

A solemn voice that sighed, “Ye meet no
more.”

[ 142 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S SONNETS

 

There, while the level sunbeams seemed to burn

Through the long aisles of red, autumnal
gloom,—

Where stately, storied cenotaphs inurn

Sweet human hopes, too fair on Earth to bloom,

Was the bud reaped, whose petals, pure and
cold,

Sleep on my heart till Heaven the flower un-

fold.
VI

If thy sad heart, pining for human love,

In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,

Lest the high sun of Heaven itself should prove

Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere

Wherein thy spirit wandered—if the flowers

That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to
bloom

In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,

When all, who loved, had left thee to thy
doom :-—

Oh, yet believe, that, in that hollow vale

Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain

So much of Heaven’s sweet grace as shall avail

To lift its burden of remorseful pain,—

My soul shall meet thee and its Heaven forego

Till God’s great love, on both, one hope, one
Heaven bestow.

[ 143 ]
CHAPTER X
CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE
A Poe’s death Mrs. Whitman re-

mained a warm and constant friend to

Mrs. Clemm, as is shown by their cor-
respondence. She furnished money to buy her
medicines and many little comforts, and in re-
sponse to letters, which invariably suggested
that the writer was in need of “more,” con-
tinued to give generously all that she could
afford.

No better testimony as to the sincerity of the
affection cherished for Poe by his women friends
is needed than that offered by the example of
their willingness to open their homes to his
mother-in-law. After Poe’s death, in 1849,
Mrs. Clemm spent some time with Mrs. Lewis,
returning later to make her home with this
friend for a couple of years; she passed some
months with Mrs. Houghton, who offered to
keep her indefinitely; and for a much longer
period lived with Mrs. Richmond, in Lowell,
who also proffered her hospitality for an un-
limited period.

Although she had never met Mrs. Whitman,
it is probable that Mrs. Clemm had thoughts of
eventually going to stay with her, and a vision

[ 144 ]
 

CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

of her sudden appearance for the purpose of
taking up her residence in Providence gave Mrs.
Whitman some uneasy hours. In one of her
replies to Mrs. Clemm she says: “Had I a home
of my own, how earnestly I should wish to have
you with me—to hear you speak of him whose
memory is so dearly cherished by us.”

Mrs. Clemm’s letters contain a characteristic
mixture of the expression of her devotion to her
“Eddie,” her tender solicitude for his friends,
and her plaintive presentation of her own need
for pecuniary help.

In September, 1851, she requests Mrs. Whit-
man to use her influence with friends to pur-
chase from her copies of “darling Eddie’s
books.” She says:

“The publisher only allows me for the pres-
ent as many copies as I choose to dispose of,
but owing to great delicacy of feeling (on ac-
count of that hateful memoir), I can only avail
myself of this privilege through the kindness of
friends. I have heard my Eddie speak with so
much gratitude of Mr. Pabodie’s great kindness
to him whilst in Providence, that I think per-
haps he will extend that kindness to myself, by
endeavoring to dispose of one or two copies for
me.” . She closes with the words: ‘How
much I would like to become acquainted with
you for my dear Eddie did love you so very
dearly.”

This letter and another dated in October of

[ 145 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

the same year seem to have been written from
the home of Mrs. Houghton in New York. In
the second communication Mrs. Clemm dis-
cusses a suggestion from Mrs. Whitman in re-
gard to disposing of more books, then she con-
tinues: “I have, with my kind friends here a
very pleasant home, and it is their wish for me
to make it a permanent one. My proud spirit
shrinks from any pecuniary favors from them.
Therefore when I can dispose of a few copies of
the books, it prevents me being under obliga-
tion to any one.”

After sending a message of appreciation to
Mr. Pabodie, she says: “I sincerely hope I may
soon have the pleasure of becoming acquainted
with you. I think I would recognize you in-
stantly from the description my darling Eddie
gave me of you. My friends think me very like
him, but I know it is only a family resemblance.
My friend Mrs. Houghton often says she can
almost fancy he is speaking to her, when I am
sad and talking earnestly. Alas I am often sad.
Oh, how sad! when I think of all my dear ones.
The only consolation I feel is knowing that I
shall soon be with them. Pardon me dear friend
for speaking thus, but you know it is just two
years since my precious Eddie left me forever,
and to a cold heartless world.”

That Mrs. Clemm’s activity in seeking as-
sistance from Poe’s women friends was also ex-
tended to the men who had known him in

[ 146 ]
 

CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

literary circles is evinced by numerous letters
among which were several sent to James
Russell Lowell, which are almost identical with
those addressed to Mrs. Whitman at the same
period.

Whatever might have been Griswold’s true
attitude toward Mrs. Clemm, whose character
and disposition he attacked violently in letters
to Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Pabodie, he certainly
obtained from her by means of protestations of
friendship, control of Poe’s letters and manu-
scripts, and in her name begged favors of those
whom he felt he could best reach in that way.
A characteristic communication addressed to
Lowell, in 1849, sets forth his pretended reluc-
tance to edit Poe’s works and his seeming in-
terest in the welfare of Mrs. Clemm.

He writes: ‘‘Poe was not my friend. I was
not his and he had no right to devolve upon
me this duty of editing his works. He did so,
however, and under the circumstances I could
not well refuse compliance with the wishes of
his friends here. . . . It is a difficult task, but I
shall execute it as well as I can, in the short
time allowed to me... .

“Tf you will revise your Memoir and continue
it down to the death of Poe, it will be of very
great advantage to Mrs. Clemm, who is to re-
ceive all the profits which are not retained by
the bookseller. My services will be altogether
gratuitous.

[ 147 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

“‘T wrote a very hasty notice of Poe for the
Tribune, the night of his death. A part of it is
quoted in the last Home Journal. Though badly
done, I think it is essentially just.”

Griswold’s seeming reluctance to assume the
task of biographer and his efforts to prove that
Poe had thrust the work upon him may be
viewed in the light of Poe’s own remarks made
to Lowell in 1843 when he inquired in a letter,
“Who is to write your life for Graham? It is
a pity that so many of these biographies were
entrusted to Griswold. He certainly lacks inde-
pendence, or judgment, or both.”

It is evident that Poe would not have chosen
Griswold as his biographer, even if he did think
that he might edit his works, and it is also evi-
dent that Griswold loved Mrs. Clemm no better
than he did her son-in-law.

This he made clear to Mrs. Whitman im-
mediately after Poe’s death, when he wrote in
response to her protest regarding his harsh
obituary:

New York, Dec. 17, 1849.
My Dear Mrs. WuiTman
I have been two or three weeks in Philadel-
phia, attending to the remains which a recent
fire left of my library and furniture there; and
so did not receive your interesting letter in re-
eos to our departed acquaintance until yester-
ay.

[ 148 ]
CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

I wrote—as you suppose—the notice of P(oe)
—in the Tribune—but very -hastily. I was not
his friend, nor was he mine, as ] remember to
have told you, but I endeavored always to do
him justice; and though that sketch of him has
been deemed harsh, I did not mean that it
should be so.

I undertook to edit his writings to oblige Mrs.
Clemm, and this work will be published in two
thick volumes, of which a copy shall be sent
you. I have done very little more than to ar-
range them and read the proofs. Enough are
omitted for another volume, and I shall perhaps
hereafter prepare one, of his correspondence
and miscellanies.

I saw very little of Poe in his last year, and
know nothing from him of his feelings toward
you. Mrs. Osgood, I am confident had not seen
him, nor written to him a syllable, in more than
two years, and she received from you only one
brief note, soon after her return from Provi-
dence, when she was quite ill. On her recovery,
it was too late for her to answer it. I believe
she intends very soon (she is now again quite
ill) to write to you. I never heard, and I should
not have believed if I had heard, that you spoke
of Poe unkindly. I can understand very well the
contradictory and extraordinary influences of
his genius and his habits of life upon you. That
such influences as you seem to suspect, were
used with him, seems very probable. But you

[ 149 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

may err in regard to their origin. I do not wish,
of course, to involve myself in any such private
feuds as a knowledge that I so write to you
would occasion, but I cannot refrain from beg-
ging you to be very careful what you say to, or
write to, Mrs. Clemm, who is not your friend,
nor anybody’s friend, and who has no element
of goodness or kindness in her nature—but
whose whole heart and understanding are full
of malice and wickedness. I confide in you these
sentences, for your own sake only—for Mrs.
Clemm appears to be a very warm friend to me.
Pray destroy this note, or, at least, act cau-
tiously, till I may justify it in conversation with
you.

I was told that all your letters to Poe had
been sent back to you since his death. It seems
this was not true. When his correspondence (or
parts of it) was placed in my hands, I asked for
your letters, judging from intimations I heard,
that they had been preserved, and wishing my-
self to forward them to you... .

I write very hastily; but I trust not alto-
gether illegibly.

I am yours very sincerely,
Rurus W. Griswo.p.

The question of what became of Mrs. Whit-
man’s letters to Poe has never been answered.

Both Griswold and Mrs. Clemm denied all
knowledge of them, though it seems likely that

[ 150 ]
 

CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

the latter, in the process of burning up a por-
tion of the correspondence which she desired
to keep from Griswold, may have allowed these
missives to vanish in smoke.

On May 6, 1852, Mrs. Clemm writes to
Mrs. Whitman from Mrs. Richmond’s home in
Lowell. She tells of having been there for some
months, and recites a melancholy tale of recent
sufferings from neuralgia and other ailments.
During this trying period she has longed for
her dear Virginia and Eddie to speak words of
consolation, and she murmurs: “But alas I
never shall hear those beloved voices again.—I
sincerely thank you for the enclosure in your
letter. I was infinitely more gratified with your
kind attention than (although acceptable) with
the money. . I intend some time in June to
visit Fall River ‘for a few weeks, and will then
call and see you—you little know how much I
wish to do so. Will you have the goodness to
present my regards to Mr. Pabodie, I hope to
have the pleasure to thank him in person for his
kindness to my poor Eddie. I hope you will
write me often.”

In her reiteration of the gratitude felt by Poe
for Pabodie’s kindness, Mrs. Clemm brings to
mind the interesting question of the part
really played by Pabodie in the drama of Poe’s
last days.

Briefly summed up: He seems to have played
the part of everybody’s friend; a rdle which

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POE’S HELEN

 

always savors somewhat of insincerity. Gris-
wold boldly acknowledged to Mrs. Whitman
that he “was not Poe’s friend,” but Pabodie
figured as his intimate during his whole associ-
ation with Providence, took him to his home,
obtained his confidence, and became his in-
separable companion. Why did he do it? Was
it for the love of Poe, for whom he seems to
have expressed no real affection or even warm
feeling in the communications which have come
down to us?

Pabodie was an ardent admirer of Mrs.
Whitman, and his attachment to Poe seems to
have dated from the moment that he perceived
that Poe was laying siege to her affections. He
believed most implicitly, as did the rest of Mrs.
Whitman’s friends, that there could be no hap-
piness for her in such a match, and he acknowl-
edged subsequently that he did everything
within his power to break it off. This he might
have done for the sake of Mrs. Whitman, if not
for his own, but could he have done it honor-
ably for Poe’s sake?

As Poe’s friend he should have done his best
to keep the other from temptation, and have
aided in the consummation of Poe’s desire, or
at least left the matter wholly in Mrs. Whit-
man’s hands. The evidence all goes to point
out that he did what he could to destroy Poe’s
chances and to hasten the termination of the |
engagement. It is not known who tempted Poe

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to drink before he paid a visit to Mrs. Whit-
man, but it is certainly true that Pabodie did
not hesitate to accompany him to her house
when Poe was not himself. In short, while he
appeared to Poe as his one friend and true
supporter amidst a hostile throng, he was un-
doubtedly the finger of fate that intervened
to break off this engagement and snatch from
Poe an opportunity which might have opened
for him a new and more auspicious era; one
can but wonder what his feelings were when
upon Poe’s last evening in Providence he walked
away from Mrs. Whitman’s house with him,
soothing Poe’s indignation with friendly words.
This we shall never know, but this we do know
that Poe and Mrs. Whitman were both con-
vinced that in him each had a true, disinterested
friend—and perhaps they were right.

Mrs. Whitman’s next letter to Mrs. Clemm
shows that the latter is busily endeavoring to
get into her hands every available bit of Poe’s
writing, and hopes that Mrs. Whitman may
furnish something.

The latter writes:

“TI was gratified to learn from my friend,
Miss Carpenter, that she had the pleasure of
seeing you while she was in Lowell and to re-
ceive through her a kind message from you.

“TI believe she told me that you had some
thought of writing me in regard to some Manu-
scripts of Edgar’s which you supposed to be

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in my possession. I think she must have mis-
understood you, and that you must have re-
ferred to the copies of the Broadway Journal,
which he left with me.

“With the exception of ‘Letters and Notes’
I have no manuscripts of his, saving two pages
of a lecture* which he delivered in Lowell, in
the summer of 1848. He brought it to Provi-
dence when he was here in September. On one
of these pages was a notice of my own poetry,
as compared with that of Mrs. Osgood, and
Miss Lynch. The notice being very compli-
mentary, I naturally wished to obtain from
him a copy of it. He replied to my request by
tearing out the leaf and presenting it to me,
saying he would replace it by a more elaborate
notice. These pages I retain and I have often
thought that I should like to see the remainder
of the lecture. Can you tell me what has be-
come of it? . . . I hope that I may have the
pleasure of seeing you if you return home by
the way of Providence.”

On November 23, 1854, Mrs. Clemm is once
more with Mrs. Lewis in Brooklyn, and she
writes that it is long since she has heard from
Mrs. Whitman. “I have been with Mrs. Lewis
for more than a year, and will remain here for
at least this winter. The continued unhealthy
state of Louisiana has prevented me going to

*Tn this lecture, entitled ‘The Female Poets of America,”
Poe highly praised Mrs. Whitman’s work.

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

my dear kind friends there. They urge me so
affectionately to go to them that I am some-
times tempted to brave every danger and ven-
ture. I do so long once more to have some one
to comfort and love me, as those dear ones did.
Oh! my precious ones, I regret them more every
day. . . . Do write me dear one as soon as you
receive ‘this.”

Although apparently none too content under
the Lewis roof, Mrs. Clemm is still writing from
there on February 9, 1857, at which time she
pleads for the assistance which shall enable her
to go South. “I do much wish to leave here and
go to my friends in the south. This I cannot
accomplish for want of means, will you aid me
with a small portion of the requisite sum?
When I tell you, I am most unhappy here, and
my health very miserable, I think, for the sake
‘of my poor Eddie, you will not refuse. At all
events dear friend, reply as speedily as you can
for if I go, I must go soon.”

On November 8, 1858, Mrs. Clemm writes
from her next home in Alexandria, Virginia,
where she says she is with kind friends, the
Reuben Johnstons. This letter is filled with in-
dignation at the slanderous treatment of her
dear Eddie in a recent “Memoir” prefixed to the
illustrated poems, which she hopes that some
one will refute. At the close she remarks: “I
suppose you have seen by the papers that Mr.
and Mrs. Lewis are divorced. I had a most

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POE'S HELEN

 

uncomfortable home there for a long time. I left
her house before they were divorced.”

Mrs. Whitman replies to this the following
week assuring Mrs. Clemm that those interested
in Poe are about to issue a defense of him
which will probably appear in one of the lead-
ing magazines. (This is a veiled reference to her
own “Edgar Poe and His Critics,’’ which she
at first intended for a magazine article.)

Early in the year 1859 Mrs. Whitman writes
Mrs. Clemm several letters in regard to cer-
tain questions which she wishes to settle before
issuing her defense of Poe. The first letter is
dated March 10, and in it she asks for more
information about Mrs. Stanard, the first
“Helen,” and also about Poe’s ancestry in
which she has always been much interested.

In a communication dated April 5 Mrs.
Whitman says of her article: “I think it will
very essentially modify the popular judgment—
at least if it should obtain extensive circulation.
It has been seen by some of the best scholars
and critics of my acquaintance and highly ap-
proved by them. It was read by the editor of
an influential Religious Monthly and by him
commended to the Editors of the Atlantic. After
detaining it three months it was rejected with-
out explanation. I believe that Mr. Lowell is
not disposed to look favorably upon anything
written in Edgar’s favor.

“My friends wish me to prepare for a second

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

edition of my poems and if I also publish a
small volume of prose, I shall include the ar-
ticle of which I speak.”

The little volume of prose never appeared,
but the defense of Poe was shortly issued in a
small volume by Rudd and Carleton.

On April 14 Mrs. Clemm replies in a long
letter which opens with expressions of grati-
tude for money sent her, by means of which
she is enabled to buy medicines and other
things which she requires for her health.

She exclaims: “I trust it may be returned to
you an hundredfold.” She then proceeds to
answer the queries about the Stanard family,
recounting that the persons with whom she
resides are intimate with Mr. William Cas-
sinoe, who married Judge Stanard’s daughter;
this unfortunate woman has inherited the fatal
insanity of her mother, who died in an asylum.
Mrs. Clemm declares that the first “Helen”
has been dead twenty-six years (a fact which
Mrs. Whitman finds incompatible with the
knowledge of Poe’s early association with her),
‘and she insists that Poe never visited Rich-
mond but once, and that in 1849.

Undoubtedly Mrs. Clemm’s memory was at
this time by no means what it had once been,
and accuracy of statement was never one of
that lady’s ruling characteristics, even when
she was in her prime.

In regard to Robert Stanard, the school

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POE’S HELEN

 

friend of Poe and son of the first ‘‘ Helen,”
whose resemblance to Mrs. Whitman’s portrait
was noted by Poe during an evening at the
home of his fiancée, Mrs. Clemm proffers the
information that he “married Miss Lyons of
Richmond and died four years ago” (about
1855). A picture of Robert Stanard represent-
ing him as a man of mature years seems to ex-
hibit some resemblance to Mrs. Whitman as
has been suggested, and a glance at pictures of
the two will serve to convince one that if
Robert resembled his mother there might also
have been some resemblance between the two
“Helens.”

In her response to this letter, written April
17, 1859, Mrs. Whitman reminds Mrs. Clemm
that if Mrs. Stanard had been dead only
twenty-six years then Edgar would not have
been a schoolboy at the Academy at Richmond
at the time of her death, but would have been
a man twenty-two years old. She discusses at
length the subject of Poe’s ancestry, about
which Mrs. Clemm had made the statement,
“Edgar’s grandfather was born in Ireland.”

Mrs. Whitman advances her favorite theory
of their joint ancestry, which has been ac-
cepted by some biographers, but seems on the
whole untenable by the latest genealogical re-
search, which points to the likelihood of Poe’s
name coming from that of “Powell”? rather
than “Poer,” as Mrs. Whitman believed.

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

“Mr. Poe was one day speaking to me of the
marked resemblances in certain of our tastes
and habits of thought, some of which might be
almost termed idiosyncracies, yet were common
to both. Assenting to what he said, I added:
‘Do you know it has just occurred to me that
we may come from distant branches of the same
family and that the name of Power, as well as
that of Poe, are both variations from the name
as originally spelled—I think the correct or-
thography of the name in both instances is
Poer.’

“He looked suddenly up with an expression
of surprise and pleasure on his face and said:
‘Helen you startle me! for among some papers
of my grandfather’s there is one in which some
reference is made to a certain Chevelier Le
Poer, who was a friend of the Marquis de
Grammont and a relative of our family.’ He
said at the time that he would at some future
day show me this paper, and seemed very much
interested in the matter. My father’s ancestors
were of Anglo-Norman family who went over
to Ireland in the time of Henry II. The founder
of the family in Ireland was, I think, Sir Roger
Le Poer, who went to Ireland as Marshal to
Prince John, in the reign of Henry II. The
name Poer is by the historians of Ireland
spelled sometimes as Power and sometimes as
Poer or De Le Poer.”

Although Mrs. Whitman’s genealogical con-

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POE’S HELEN

 

clusions as to Poe’s ancestry are not accepted
by some recent biographers, they have never
been absolutely disproved, and there still re-
mains a missing link in the chain to be supplied.
An English friend who was aiding Mrs. Whit-
man in her research work sent her the follow-
ing item about a member of the Poe family in
Ireland, who was apparently more interested
in tracing his pedigree than were the members
of the Poe family in Baltimore:

“Hutcheson Poé (son of the head of the
Irish Poés and an officer in the Royal Marines)
called upon me and seemed very desirous of
gathering information about the Poe family in
America. He had been in Baltimore and called
upon the Poes, on Nelson Poe, Junior, and from
him did not get a very favorable reception.
N. P. Junior said he did not know and did not
want to know who his grandfather was, or
something to that effect. Hutcheson Poé is, ap-
parently, really an innate gentleman and a
handsome looking fellow. He gave me an ex-
tract from the Annual Register for July 14,
1817, page 60, containing an account of some
Scotch emigrants taken over to his Polish
estates by Count Poé, of Doospouda, in Po-
land.”

Mrs. Clemm’s idea of her own accuracy,
which differed considerably from Mrs. Whit-
man’s view of it, is summed up in a letter in
which she says: ‘Anything else I can inform

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

you of concerning my dear Eddie I will do with
great pleasure. Alas my memory is #oo faithful,
I often wish I could forget.’”’ This letter closes
with a suggestion that Edgar’s last love has not
proved as generous as Mrs. Whitman, in her
remembrance of his “more-than-mother”: “I
have not heard from Mrs. Shelton for a long
time, here no one knows her, I cannot ascer-
tain if she is living or no, and she has not been
the friend to me that you have, and she is rich,
too, but I will not blame her, for she I suppose
is entirely estranged from me.” Mrs. Clemm
does not suggest any cause for “estrangement”
but one can surmise that it may have been oc-
casioned by too frequent demands for pecuniary
aid.

In her next letter, of April 22, 1859, she tries
to make it clear to Mrs. Whitman that when a
discrepancy arises between a date given by
“Eddie” and by herself, she is the one to be
depended upon; she asserts: “My poor Eddie
never could remember dates, but always had
to refer to me, and this I suppose is the mis-
take.” (Possibly Poe’s habit of giving out sev-
eral different birth dates may be accounted for
by his failure to refer to Mrs. Clemm; on one of
these occasions he furnished a date which
showed him to have been born two years after
his mother’s death !)

Mrs. Clemm writes Mrs. Whitman that Mrs.
Richmond “still cherishes the memory of dear

[ 161 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Eddie” and continues her kindness to his
“desolate mother.” She says: “I hear from her
once in every week. I never would have left
her but for the climate, the physician said I
could not survive there.” After furnishing more
information about the Poe family Mrs. Clemm
closes with a suggestion that she is still lacking
funds to take her farther south: “I do so fear
I will not be able to go to my friends in the fall,
I cannot procure the means, I do not know
what will become of me. The friends I am now
with are exceedingly kind to me, but I have no
claim on them, and they have a large family,
and, I fear, limited means. The friends I wish
to go to, I know are anxious to have me with
them, and they are congenial spirits too.

“But I will trust in God, if he thinks proper
he will open a way for me. How much I would
like to see you face to face, I think I would
know you among many, for Eddie has so often
described you to me, you little know how he
loved you and his agony at parting with you.
Oh how few understand my darling Eddie.”

_ Mrs. Clemm may be said to have had a touch
of Cromwell in her methods, only in place of
“put your trust in God and keep your powder
dry” she seems to have substituted the idea of
extolling her Maker and writing to Poe’s women
friends, especially Mrs. Whitman. The fact that
Mrs. Shelton did not rise to Mrs. Whitman’s
altitude of generosity, although possessed of far

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

greater resources, is again hinted at in this
letter, when she asserts: ‘‘ Poor fellow, he little
thought of leaving me so desolate and unpro-
tected. . . . But I would rather have it thus,
he never would have been happy in his con-
templated marriage (with Mrs. Shelton) and
to have seen him unhappy would have broken
my heart.”

In the interval which follows Mrs. Whitman
sends Mrs. Clemm her book, which has just
been published, and also the usual financial aid,
concerning which the latter says in her next
communication:

“T cannot help saying to you, that since my
dear Eddie’s death, you have been one of my
best friends.”

Two months later, February 28, 1860, Mrs.
Whitman writes in response to Mrs. Clemm’s
acknowledgment of the book, which is coupled
with another demand for some of ‘‘Eddie’s
handwriting”:

“T would gladly send you some of Edgar’s
writing if I had not already parted with nearly
everything but his letters, and these I cannot
lose... .” In a second note, dated the same
day, she says: “I was disappointed dear Mrs.

lemm, in my wish to send you what you
needed for immediate use. Since I wrote you
last we have sustained still further losses through
withholding of customary bank dividends on
account of Western railroad loans. If what I

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POE’S HELEN

 

inclose can be of use to you it is most heartily
at your service. Do not trouble yourself about
repayment.”

On March 17, 1860, Mrs. Clemm writes that
it is her seventieth birthday and that there is
no one now remaining to “‘bless and congrat-
ulate” her. She says that Mrs. Whitman’s last
enclosure has furnished her with medicine and "
other little comforts, and outlines her work in
the frugal household at Alexandria. “I endeavor
to be as little expense and trouble as possible.
As an equivalent for my board I teach three
children from nine until twelve; the rest of the
day I devote to sewing for her. About five I
retire to my own room, and oh! how I do en-
joy being there with my sad, sad memories.”

One can well imagine that after a substantial
eight-hour day of teaching and sewing “sad
memories’’ were truly a luxury to the poor old
lady.

Indeed, sadness seems to have been a life-
long satisfaction to her, and the habit of shar-
ing her sorrows with her friends may be traced
back even to those happy days spent with her
loved ones, which she so fondly recalled. A
young girl who knew her prior to her life at
Fordham said of her: “Mrs. Clemm and my
mother soon became the best of friends, and
she found mother a sympathetic listener to all
her sad tales of poverty and want. I would often
see her shedding tears as she talked.”

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

Mrs. Clemm’s love of misery was, no doubt,
like that of her Edgar, of whom Stedman de-
clared:

“Possibly his most exquisite, as well as his
most poetic moments, were at those times when
he seemed very wretched, and avowed himself
oppressed by a sense of doom. He loved his
share of pain, and was an instance of the fact
that man is the one being that takes keen de-
light in the tragedy of its own existence, and
for whom—

Joy is deepest when it springs from woe.

Wandering among the graves of those he had
cherished, invoking the spectral midnight skies,
believing himself the Orestes of his race—in all
this he was fulfilling his nature. . . . They err
who commiserate Poe for such experiences.”
On May 20, 1860, Mrs. Clemm writes that
she is much distressed at not having heard
from her Providence friend; she has sent two
letters which have not been answered and she
fears for Mrs. Whitman’s health. As for herself
she has been suffering from bilious dyspepsia,
brought on by too long fasting in Lent. But
this is only a secondary matter as compared
with her anxiety for one who was “so loved by
dear Eddie.” She writes: “I know how much he
loved you. When I go to Heaven, and if it is
permitted me to tell him everything, how much

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POE’S HELEN

 

he will rejoice to hear of all your kindness to
his desolate mother. I do wish I could see you,
if only for a few hours; how much I would have
to tell you, particularly about my unhappy
home while I was with Mrs. Lewis. My health
and spirits were entirely broken down by the
continual excitement I went through at that
time, but I can pray God to forgive her now,
but it has been very long before I could do so.”

Mrs. Clemm finds her present position much
more enjoyable, there being no friction to con-
tend with, but there are other drawbacks of
which she writes Mrs. Whitman in addition to
her dependence upon a household provided
with very scanty means. She says toward the
close of this year that she is recovering from a
severe cold which has entirely prostrated her
and which has arisen from her unhealthy sur-
roundings. “This place does not agree with
me, it lies very low and is always damp. The
cellar of this house is always filled with water, '
which makes it even more unhealthy.’’ In con-
sequence of this she has decided to go to her
friend, Miss Robins, who has said that she will
arrange to take her to Europe the next autumn
and who will defray all expenses. In this letter
she, as usual, thanks Mrs. Whitman for her con-
tinued kindness, which is presumably in the
form of a check.

Her last communication from Alexandria
comes at the close of January, 1861, when she

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

is again distressed at not having heard from
Mrs. Whitman, whom her friend, Miss Robins,
has reported as ill. She hopes that the illness is
not serious, but suggests that in case it should
prove so, a small token would be appreciated
by her. She asks: “Will you send me a small
piece of your hair, I will greatly prize it. I will
have it put in a locket with Eddie’s and my
precious Virginia’s. God, I trust, will be with
you in life and in death.”

Among Mrs. Whitman’s possessions there
still remains a precious lock of hair cut from
the head of Edgar Poe and presented to his
“Helen” during their engagement, but there is
no record of any of Mrs. Whitman’s curls hav-
ing been given in exchange for it, and it is quite
certain that Mrs. Clemm never received the
wished-for lock. It may be that a similar re-
quest went from her to others who had loved
Eddie and who continued to indicate the same
by their kindnesses to her, but let us hope that
they, too, remained obdurate and that the
locket containing Virginia’s hair was not trans-
formed into a miniature repository for feminine
locks suggestive of that belonging to Blue-
beard.

Mrs. Clemm’s next home was with her friend
Miss Robins, in Putnam, where, as she wrote
Mrs. Whitman at the end of August, 1861, the
house was “‘fine and spacious, beautifully situ-
ated and with extensive grounds.” But ere long

[ 167 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Miss Robins’s health broke down and she be-
came quite violently insane, so that she was
obliged to go to a neighboring asylum. This left
Mrs. Clemm in the home with Miss Robins’s
widowed mother, another sister, and a married
son whose wife had eloped with her husband’s
best friend and left him with one small boy.
“Oh dear what a wicked world this is,” ex-
claims Mrs. Clemm, who had certainly seen her
share of trouble. “The sin and sorrow I have
witnessed in the last few years, and now this
terrible desolating war, often makes me de-
sirous to leave it and go to that sweet home
where there will be no sorrow. I hope you will
send me the photograph when convenient.”
Mrs. Clemm thanks her correspondent for her
last enclosure.

Early in the spring of 1862 she says: “‘I have
passed a very dreary and lonely winter. Poor
Sallie (Robins) is still in the asylum, and I fear
with little hope of a permanent recovery. Mrs.
Robins has been confined to her room all
winter with, I think, disease of the lungs. Her
youngest daughter Has been in Kentucky for
a very long time. So you may suppose it has
not been very pleasant for me. How I wish I
could get a home in some pleasant family,
where my services would be an equivalent for
my board. I want little else. I sew neatly and
quickly. I would in such a situation feel so much
more independent. I have nothing to employ

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CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

my time here. I have no claim on Mrs. Robins
and often feel as an intruder. Do you know of
anyone who would give me a home on those
terms? In my last letter I requested you to send
me your photograph, as you promised me, and
a copy of ‘E. A. Poe and His Critics.’ I loaned
mine in Alexandria, and left there in such haste
I could not get it again. . . . Will you please
write me as soon as you receive this.”

A long letter from the poor old lady written
shortly before her entrance into the Church
Home, where she spent her last days, probably
contains Mrs. Clemm’s last request for financial
aid, though it is very certain that up to the
time of the latter’s death Mrs. Whitman con-
tinued to show her the same substantial in-
terest.

This letter is dated Baltimore, June 16,
1863, and opens with a recital of the uncom-
fortable condition at Putnam which had become
so insupportable that Mrs..Clemm in despair
had written to her old rector, Doctor Wyatt,
asking him to use his influence to secure her an
admission to the Widow’s Home in Baltimore.
She says that all her Southern homes are closed
to her on account of the war, and that Doctor
Wyatt has placed her temporarily in the Church
Home where she can remain for a few weeks,
while she is endeavoring to raise the sum neces-
sary for admission. If she can obtain one hun-
dred and fifty dollars she can be taken care of

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POE’S HELEN

 

for the rest of her life in this haven of refuge,
which is associated with her beloved Eddie.

She writes:

“The Episcopal Church will aid me in getting
the requisite sum. If I do not succeed in ob-
taining it I know not what will become of me.
But my faith in God is still firm. I think He
will put into the hearts of some good Christian
(preferably Mrs. Whitman) to aid me. If I get
there I will never need farther help. . . . I sup-
pose you have heard the literati of this place
has a monument in prospect of my darling
Eddie. I have seen a copy of the design, which
is very beautiful. I always hoped this would be
done but I could not hope to live to see it ac-
complished. The gentlemen of the committee
tell me it will be finished this next fall. I am
now in house where my beloved Eddie breathed
his last, and I think it one of my greatest priv-
ileges that I can go unto the room where he
died and pour out my earnest prayers to God
and ask Him to continue His protection to
me. The sisters are very kind and treat me with
great attention. Dr. Wyatt recommended me
particularly to their kindness. I am so much
happier than I ever hoped to be again... .
Will you not my dear friend, for the sake of
him who loved you so truly, reply to this, and
tell me why you have not written to me for
so long a time. Direct to me, ‘Church Home,
Broadway, Baltimore, Md.’”

[178]
 

CLEMM-WHITMAN CORRESPONDENCE

 

There is no record remaining to show how
much of the necessary one hundred and fifty
dollars was furnished by Mrs. Whitman, but it
is likely that she contributed all that she could
spare from her slender allowance in order to
comply with this final request from the per-
sistent correspondent whom she had never seen
but to whom she had proved so sincere a friend.

When asked by a correspondent for her opin-
ion of Mrs. Clemm, Mrs. Whitman replied:

“You ask what I think of Mrs. Clemm. I
have never seen her. The three notes or letters
of hers which I sent you are fair specimens of
her correspondence and through these letters
alone I know her. Mrs. Osgood told me that
she had been a thorn in Poe’s side—always
embroiling him in difficulties, etc. Mr. Wyatt
thought that she was very impulsive and in-
discreet and exasperating,—Poe always spoke
of her with grateful and affectionate considera-
tion. I believe that she loved him devotedly.”

[ar]
CHAPTER XI
MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS.

HE letters which follow were written by
Mrs. Whitman to her friend, Mrs. Free-
man, between the years 1857 and 1860.

During this period Mrs. Whitman’s little
volume, “Edgar Poe and His Critics,’ was pub-
lished and made considerable stir in the liter-
ary world as the first work issued in Poe’s
defense.

In the summer of 1857 Mrs. Whitman made a
trip to Europe at the invitation of her friend,
Horace H. Day, with whose party she travelled,
and who on various other occasions arranged
delightful trips for her to the coast of Maine.

Mrs. Freeman, who was one of Mrs. Whit-
man’s most devoted friends, was also a poet
and a frequent contributor to the periodicals
of her time, writing under the signature of
“Mary Forrest.” Like Mrs. Whitman, she was
associated with the circle which included Emer-
son, Alcott, Alice and Phoebe Cary, and many
others of that literary group of which her
Providence friend writes her in March, 1857:

March, 1857.
My Dear Mrs. FREEMAN
I was very glad to receive your charming
letter which tells me so many pleasant things.

| 172°]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

I am glad that you have been passing a happy
winter and that you have listened to the Orphic
sayings of the eloquent Concord seer and sage.
I love and reverence him, and would gladly
have sat beside you in the pleasant parlor of
Alice Cary and been refreshed as I have so
often been of old, in his gracious presence.
Curtis, in an article on Emerson, in the “Homes
of the Poets,” introduces Alcott as “Plato
Skimpole,” but he has very little of the “Skim-
pole” about him, and Emerson, with whom I
lately spent a delightful evening, says for this
wickedness he must have a reckoning with
Curtis. I have heard Emerson say, heretofore,
that intellectually he owed more to Alcott than
to any other man.

Do you know Emerson personally? If not, I
wish that you may do so.

It is like the memory of a cool, starry night,
to have heard him talk. The lights have little
warmth and are scattered far and wide over
space, but their rays penetrate everywhere and
suggest a mighty system which they do not
reveal. He is so wise, so clear-sighted, so unique,
so gentle, so beautifully cool and clear. Yet
withal (I am fain to confess) a little too nicely
balanced and self-conservative to win your
whole heart. Thus, he said of a gloriously en-
dowed friend of mine, who holds herself aloof
from all society because people offend her
sense of beauty or equity,—‘‘ Why not indulge

[ 173 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

her fastidiousness by abstaining from what does
not satisfy and sustain the soul? What else re-
mains for her but to abstain?”

“The most beautiful of all things remains
for us,” I said, ‘to transform, to redeem that
which is unlovely into that which is lovely by
the power of faith and love.”’

I have made some successful experiments in
this way and devoutly believe that serpents
may be reclaimed. This is only effected by pa-
tience and prayer—but the results are wonder-
ful. es

Yesterday Mr. Prentice of Louisville was
here and spoke much of Eva* and of ‘Mary
Forrest.”” Her words on Love—‘‘Not who love
us, but whom we love are ours,” have the
fragrance of spring flowers, and the essence ot
all wisdom.

I have sent a dozen times for the U. S. Maga-
zine since I read your letter, but it has not
come. Meantime, Eva has sent me the proof-
sheets of two articles which I have read with
deep interest. There are some very pertinent
things in her critique on M. Gasperard. In
what she says on Faith and will, lies the key to
all power and the sceptre of all sovereignty on
earth and in heaven. I do not altogether be-
lieve, as she says, that when the apostles
uttered their inspirations they were always to
the outward eye, “sober, decorous, majestic”

*Eva was Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith.

[ 174 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

because as she will remember it was sometimes
said of them that they were like people “filled
with new wine.” I think she must concede so
much, in justification of our modern prophets
and my poet of the Starry Heavens. .. .

Remember me affectionately to Eva and to
the Carys and recollect that it gives me joy
to receive your letters.

SaraH H. WHITMAN.

The correspondence with Mrs. Freeman is
interrupted by Mrs. Whitman’s trip to Europe,
during which time she wrote a series of inter-
esting letters to the Providence Journal describ-
ing her experiences and impressions of famous
persons.

Her visit to Walter Savage Landor, whom
she has pictured most delightfully in one of
her letters to the Journal, is well worth includ-
ing with her communications of this date.

Batu, June 20, 1857.

We left London on the nineteenth in the
express train for Bath, travelling more than a
hundred miles in two hours and a half, without
inconvenience or fatigue. The road is the best
and the safest in England and the cars more
luxurious than a private carriage.

The stately, sleepy old town lies softly
cradled within an amphitheatre of lofty hills;
its noble crescents and beautiful villas, all

[ 175 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

trellised and tapestried with flowers; its old
walls and towers and terraces folded and cur-
tained in heavy draperies of ivy, and steeped
in the soft vapors of the “‘aquz solis,” the old
Roman name for its healing waters—“‘waters
of the sun.” As we rode through some of its
terraced streets last evening, we did not wonder
at its reputation as the most picturesque in-
land city of Europe. It looked magically beau-
tiful by the soft, rosy twilight that at this sea-
son in England lingers far into the night.

Bath is still the favorite resort of invalids,
idlers and aristocrats, of all who would enjoy
the dolce far niente in the midst of a perfumed
and dreamy atmosphere.

Here were passed the last years of William
Beckford, the eccentric author of ‘“Vathek,”
and the luxurious proprietor of Fonthill Abbey.
It was here that he sought to realize the last
dreams of his marvellous fancy. It seems to
have been his costly and mournful ambition to
erect for himself a gorgeous “palace of art,” in
which he might live and die alone; but an
eternal unrest consumed him, and one after an-
other of his rare creations were, like his para-
dise at Cintra (made memorable in Byron’s
beautiful description), abandoned to desola-
tion and decay. That most grand and terrible
conception of retribution and despair, ‘The
Hall of Eblis” might well have emanated from
such a brain. Mr. Beckford was undoubtedly

{ 176 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

what would be called in our day ‘‘a medium” —
the victim perhaps of some haunting, demoniac

possession. His “Vathek” was written in

French, at a single sitting of three nights and
two days, and without intervening sleep or rest.
May not his rare intellectual tastes, his lavish
expenditure in architectural creation, and his
solitary and restless life have suggested to
Tennyson his wonderful “Palace of Art,” and
to Edgar Poe that strange and sumptuous
fantasy, “The Domain of Arnheim,” one of
his most cherished and favorite conceptions?
Yesterday we accepted an invitation to take
tea with Walter Savage Landor at his house in
River street. Hardly less of a recluse than the
author of “Vathek,’’ Mr. Landor ignores gen-
eral society, professes not to know a dozen peo-
ple in England, and politely expresses his en-
joyment in the society of “foreigners.”’ Mr.
Emerson in his “English Traits,” speaks of
Landor as one of the three or four persons whom
he wished to see in visiting Europe. He still
lives, as in Italy, among a “cloud of pictures.”
His rooms are hung from basement to attic
with rire paintings by the best French, Eng-
lisn, and Italian masters. Dutch pictures he
does not like, and has carefully weeded them
from his walls. He holds to the only orthodox
creed in art, that beauty should be its sole and
devout aim. Among his pictures was a beauti-
ful portrait of the mother of Sheridan, by

[177 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Romney. It was full of riant, sparkling life, and
showed the clear bright fountain from which
sprang the vivacious wit of the brilliant orator
and conversationalist. A picture of Europa, by
Correggio, pleased me more than all the rest.
With one hand she had grasped a horn of the
stately animal she rode, while the other filled
with roses, was pressed tenderly against her
cheek. There was a strange ideal charm in her
innocent playfulness and in the aerial lightness
with which she seemed borne along through a
solemn, mysterious atmosphere, whose lurid
gloom beautifully relieved her soft pearly cheek
and fluttering milk-white robes. I can never
forget this picture. I afterwards found it was a
great favorite with Mr. Landor, who said he
would rather part with every picture in his col-
lection than with this.

His conversation surprises by its freshness
and novelty, and stimulates by its resistance.
With all his fine taste and culture, he is too
arbitrary in his opinions and too eccentric in
his tastes to be a safe guide to others; but it
is pleasant to talk with a man who has faith
in his own fancies. His manners are a singular
compound of noble courtesy and abrupt, un-
compromising protest and assertion. He said,
“You have great writers in your country,”
and spoke in high praise of Emerson, recalling
with evident pleasure their personal interviews
in Italy many years ago. He objected to his

[ 178 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

style, as to that of many of the ablest English
writers of the last half century; insisting on a
classic directness and transparency of diction
as one of the cardinal virtues.

Among others, he instanced Sidney Smith
and Washington Irving as examples of faultless
style. But to assert that the colossal and shad-
owy dreams the intricate and labyrinthian
fancies of De Quincey could be adequately ex-
pressed in a style that is adapted to the racy
humor and practical common sense of Sidney
Smith, or to insist that the scope, the subtlety,
the insight, the remote and star-like beauty of
Emerson’s thought can be told in the sweet
familiar phrase of Irving, is simply to ask that
which is, in the very nature of things, impossible.
As well require that the bulbul and the night-
ingale should sing like the robin and the lark, or
that the night-blooming cereus should yield
the perfume of the day-lily and the violet. He
praised with much emphasis, the writings of
Miss Lynn—‘‘Aminone,” ‘‘Azette, the Egyp-
tian,’ and some others. He said they combined
some of the finer attributes of Rousseau’s
genius, with the intellectual freedom of De
Staél. I believe these works are just being pub-
lished in America. He professed not to have
heard of the author of ‘‘Christie Johnstone,”
whose last novel has so stirred the sympathies
of all American readers. With the exception of
Howitt’s last work, which has just been sent

[ 179 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

him by the author, I saw no books in his
apartments.

He is said to give away his books as soon as
he has read them; a most princely and gracious
habit. Beautiful flowers were on the table, and
bloomed in beds of earth on the broad stone
ledges of the windows, an almost universal
custom in Bath. He gave us moss roses and
musk plants at parting, and we left him with
pleasant memories of the hours passed in his
society. He invited us to return on the morrow
and see his pictures by the morning light.
But today we went with a party of friends to
Clifton, and tomorrow we leave Bath, with its
grand old Abbey,—‘‘the lantern of England,”
—its Temple of Minerva, its Roman ruins and
its medizval relics, for “sunny France.”

In after years in referring to Poe as a con-
versationalist, Mrs. Whitman declared that she
had heard Walter Savage Landor, who was
pronounced the best talker in England; had
listened to George William Curtis talk of the
gardens of Damascus till the air seemed pur-
pled and perfumed with its roses; had heard
the autocrat’s trenchant and vivid talk, and the
racy remarks of Doctor Orestes A. Brownson;
had listened to John Neal and Margaret Ful-
ler, and to the serene wisdom of Alcott; but
unlike the conversational power of any of these
was the “earnest, opulent, unpremeditated

[ 180 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

speech of Poe. The charm of his conversation
was its genuineness, its wonderful directness
and sincerity, and what added to the charm of
his presence in society was his simple, natural,
unconventional courtesy, and the perfectly
sincere grace of his mannet.’

On her return from abroad, Mrs. Whitman
resumed her usual life in Providence, where the
demands made upon her by her mother and
sister were so exacting that she seldom felt she
could be spared from home.

She writes to Mrs. Freeman in September,
1857, of Charlotte Cushman and her dramatic
successes:

“T thank you for your kind sweet letter and
for your promise to send Madame La Vert’s
vol. which I shall be glad to see.

“How sorry I am for Eva’s loss. For Appleton
it must be a profounder sorrow than any words
can speak. His kind and beautiful eyes will be
clouded I fear by a heavier shadow than has
ever yet fallen upon them. I shall look with in-
terest for the poem, of which you speak, about
the little boy.

“People wear very long faces here and talk
only of ‘the times.’

“The failure of the Harpers greatly surprised
me.

“Did you see Charlotte Cushman and do
you like her?

“T have seen her in Lady Macbeth,—by the

[ 18x ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

way, did you ever think how strange it is that
lady Macbeth has no name—no distinctive
name? Like the witches—she is only the fourth
witch.

“T doubt if the character has ever been
played faithfully since Mrs. Siddons gave her
great soul to it. I did not like Charlotte Cush-
man’s Lady Macbeth but I like her Meg
Merrilies.

“That is I think it horribly true. I passed
an evening last week with Miss Davenport,
who tells me it is her great ambition to play
Lady Macbeth. She has succeeded wonderfully
in Medea and will, I think, improve greatly in
the coming year. Do you know her? She is
very talented. I do not know if she has genius
but I think so.

“If you go to Mobile you must write me
when you get there. I have been writing a
letter for the Journal about our Autumnal
woods which I will send you when it is pub-
lished.

“T have just been reading Bayne’s critical
Essays which I like very much. Read it if you
can and tell me how you like his estimate of
Mrs. Browning.

“If Alice Cary comes back and you see her
give her kindest remembrances from me. It is
now just a year since you and I sat together in
her pleasant parlor under the picture of Fanny
Osgood, while opposite to us hung the por-

[ 182 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

traits of two persons strangely associated in
my soul’s history with her, and with another of
whom I will not speak.

“Griswold was living then—now he is with
them in ‘Shadowland.’ How strange it seems
to me.”

In a letter written toward the end of the year
1857 Mrs. Whitman refers to her dislike of
Thackeray, in regard to whose merits she had
carried on many lively discussions with George
William Curtis who failed to agree with her
views.

“T thank you for the kind little note. I have
not yet seen your article on Modern Criticism,
which I hope to find on the Atheneum table
tomorrow and, like Eva’s self, to pronounce

‘capital.’

a ‘Surely’ I ‘have not read Griswold’s will
in the papers.’ Can’t you tell me something
definite about it? or send me a paper. Did he
leave Alice Cary his portrait—and what became
of the other portraits, Mrs. Osgood’s and Edgar
Poe’s? .

“T am glad you like my autumn scenery.
Your praise always gratifies me. It is for such
that I love to write. Mr. Giles has been here
lecturing on Charlotte Bronté, but I think he
said nothing half so good as Eva has said on
that great theme. If little Charlotte had known
when she first began to ‘make out’ that her
name would be a theme for lecturers,—as that

[ 183 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

of Shakespeare, or Milton, or Dante, how it
would have amazed her.

“Do you remember what she said of Thack-
eray, that notwithstanding her admiration for
him his presence always made her feel ineffably
stupid. I can understand this. I hope you do
not like Thackeray, for I feel so utterly antag-
onistic to him that I would rather a friend of
mine should like the most reckless yellow-
covered novelist in authordom than to admire
his prosaic, ignoble, passionless books. I have
just been reading them at the request of one
of his admirers and so speak feelingly. Dante
has somewhere a line which I quote from mem-
ory, and which expresses exactly what I felt in
reading him. ‘Shuddering I went through those
frore shallows, the memory whereof still chills
me.

In a letter dated early in 1859 Mrs. Whitman
refers to the “Phalanstery,” a literary club in
Providence, to which she belonged. Its mem-
bers amused themselves by writing humorous
epitaphs addressed to one another, which were
read at the meetings with much merriment.
Numerous clever contributions were furnished
by Mrs. Whitman, who was herself supplied
by various friends with a greater variety of
epitaphs than are often vouchsafed to any mor-
tal.

Mrs. Whitman thanks Mrs. Freeman for her
epitaph entitled “Proserpine,” a name which

[ 184 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

is henceforth bestowed upon the subject by
numerous friends.

“Thanks for the ‘Proserpine.’ It was read
to an admiring audience at the Phalanstery and
pronounced a very finely-drawn and faithful
outline, allowing, of course, for its pleasant
flatteries.

‘A series of humorous epitaphs on the ladies
of the Phalanstery were read last night at Gov-
ernor Anthony’s in which they adopted for me
your name of Proserpine. The Governor is to
have a number of copies printed for us. I will
send you one. They were written by Miss
Jacobs, the lady who sent the Birthnight
flowers. She told me last evening that she was
intending to write on one of the flower-leaves
‘Asphodels,’ but sending them away in a hurry
neglected to do so. Was it not a strange coin-
cidence with my lines about them ?”

Miss Sarah S. Jacobs’s poem on “St. Helena,”
if not remarkable for its poetic quality is yet
worthy of preservation as an admirable sum-
mary of Mrs. Whitman’s pet foibles, and pre-
sents an amusing example of these epitaphs,
some of which may well rival those belonging
to the inhabitants of “Spoon River.”

Our Poet’s dead, dead as old Grimes,
Whom we shall see no more,

She wrote the Carrier’s address,

But she was dead before;

[ 185 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

And from the post mortem verses that came back to us
then
It would not appear that the fit poet nascitur over again.

No evil anywhere she saw
With her fan shielded eyes,
E’en mediums her friendship shared,
She was of medium size;
Dr. Johnson wouldn’t have liked her, for she was not good
at hating,
And indeed her toleration was something past tolerating.

How oft her voice in memory’s ear
Its rills of music pours,
She wore a bonnet in the house
And thin shoes out of doors;
Faster than seven-league boots they carried her off, those
luckless thin shoes,
What boots it now to meditate on such a careless muse.

Then wipe away those flowing tears
And let this thought console;
The gentle martyr died to save
An India-rubber sole
It is all leather and prunella to make such a fuss about
her,
If we only could think so, we do just as well without her.

Her creed in short was to believe
Whatever she ought not to,
A table rampant was her crest,
Excelsior, her motto;
Her acquaintance was extensive in every far and every
nigh-land
Throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Hades and
Rhode Island.

[ 186 ]}
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

Of Speculations she was fond

Whose depths the soul appall,

A beaming smile she always wore;

She often wore a shawl;
The reason for her great partiality for shawls was perhaps
Because she found no other so serviceable wraps.

Farewell the graceful tongue and pen,
The charm of all the town,
We know she will not lay it up
That we have laid her down.
She is no better off, that we can see for going thus away
She already had what’s promised there, one everlasting
day.*

Mrs. Whitman writes of Mrs. Freeman’s
recent poem, entitled ‘‘ Dead,” and at the same
time refers to James Wood Davidson, who was
a close friend with whom she carried on an ex-
tensive correspondence in regard to Poe. He
also was desirous of bringing out a life of the
poet, and in the summer of 1858, when she was
suffering more than usual from the chronic
heart trouble which she was convinced was
soon to end her life, Mrs. Whitman intrusted
to Davidson the Poe love-letters in order that
he might be able to give to the public after her
death a more true and just account of her as-
sociation with Poe. She, moreover, planned at
one time to collaborate with him.

“Mr. Davidson sent me last week a notice
of the first number of the Great Republic in

* A reference to her friend, Mr. Day.

[ 187 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

which he speaks of ‘Dead’ as ‘a poem written
in the wild and unearthly vein of Edgar Poe—
as fine a thing of the kind as we have seen in
many a day.’

“TI thank you dearest for all your sweet
words and sanitary counsels. All will be well.
I have had an examination of my heart this
week and although the result is not what your
kind heart would interpret as ‘favorable,’ yet
believe me that all will happen for the best... .

“Emerson has been here during the past
week, and again I passed some delightful hours
with him after the lecture. I think I never saw
him so genial and pleasant as now. Did you
see the report of a fine speech he made at the
Burns Festival in Boston? It was the best of
the evening. He says Alcott has been enjoying
a paradisal season at St. Louis. Holding parle
with large and loving audiences.

“Have you read ‘Thorndale’ ? Bishop Clarke
told me last evening at the Phalanx that it was
a book I should specially like. So I take it for
granted that you will like it, too. Bishop Clarke
is the most large-hearted liberal man in the
Church, preaching spiritualism as openly as a
man in lawn may dare to do. He has had great
experiences in the presence of Hume—staying
with him for days together at the home of the
Cheney’s in Manchester.

“You ask if ‘Lenore’ had reference to me.
It was written years before I knew Poe. But I

[ 188 }
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

have something strange to tell about it. On
the very evening when I received your letter
proposing this question, I received from David-
son the January number of Russell’s Magazine,
in which are copies of this poem to Lenore as
originally printed in the Southern Literary Mes-
senger. The one beginning:

Ah, broken is the golden bowl—
The spirit own forever—

Let the bell toll! A saintly soul
Floats on the Stygian river

“Tn the earlier versions of this poem, quoted
by Russell, the verses are addressed not to
Lenore but to Helen, from which Lenore is,
as Poe once told me, in some sense, a deriva-
tion.

“You will see—

Helen, Ellen, Ellenore, Lenore.

“Poe liked to trace these subtle relations in
words and things. .. .

“The name of Power was originally spelled
Poer or De la Poer. It is a Norman name and,
in historical references to the Anglo Normans
of that name who invaded Ireland with Strong-
bow, is most frequently spelled that way. Now
write my paternal name according to this
earlier and more correct orthography.

[ 189 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

Sarah Helen Poer—

“Then transpose the letters in the order in
which I shall number them—

Sarah Helen Poer
36512 8 491011 7121413

1234567 8 gIOII 1213 14
AhSeraphLenore

“T confess that when I saw the result I felt a
strange sense of what Macbeth would call
‘Fate and metaphysical aid.’”’

Toward the end of this letter Mrs. Whitman
speaks of her friend, Mrs. Ritchie, who, with
Davidson, is aiding her in piecing together the
true facts about Poe’s life in Richmond. She says:

“Davidson is deeply interested in every-
thing relating to Poe’s character and history
and had made (without success) great efforts to
ascertain the facts in this particular matter.*
You may judge then how valuable to me is the
information derived through Mrs. Ritchie.

“Tt relieves me from a perplexity on this
matter which I did not know how to solve. Mrs.
Ritchie’s story agrees with that which Poe
himself told me in regard to this lady, with
certain qualifications which I will tell you some
time. But when I was in New York last spring
Mrs. Stevens told me that it was to Miss White

* Poe’s association with Mrs. Shelton,

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

that Poe was engaged, with other particulars
that served to complicate the story and, as I
said, greatly to perplex me. Now I know that
what Poe told me was true, at least so far as
related to the incidents of the engagement or
proposal of marriage, if not as to the feelings
and motives that prompted it.

“Four or five months after our final parting
Poe went again to Richmond and renewed his
acquaintance with Mrs. Shelton with what de-
gree of encouragement, on her part, I know only
that which Mrs. Ritchie has imparted. Her ac-
count corresponds with his own statement to
me, and exonerates him from the charge of
duplicity which attached to the relation made
by Mrs. Stevens. How grateful I am to you
for having interested yourself in this matter and
given me a statement of facts which have freed
me from all doubt and perplexity in relation to
the whole affair. I leave the subject for the
present, but we shall speak of it again I trust
and I shall tell you many things which I would
have you know... .

“T see by the paper today that the February
number of the Great Republic is out. Shall I
find you there?

“T enclose an account of Mrs. Ritchie’s
wedding which you may, or may not have seen.
I send you too a puff about Fanny Fern,
written three or four years ago, as a specimen
of the puff extraordinary.

[ ror ]
 

POER’S HELEN

 

“Last night was my birthnight—and on re-
turning from an evening with the spiritualists
I found my table covered with the most beauti-
ful delicate little flowers that I ever looked on.
Most of them were quite new to me. I send
some lines I wrote this morning to the kind
friend who sent them.

I do not heed the sands that pass

So swiftly through Time’s slender glass,
As up the golden stairs I go

That lead me where the amaranths grow,
That lead me where the palm-trees blow.

I do not heed the pulse of Time

Knelled from the steeple’s solemn chime,
I only count its rhythm’s beat

In measures musical and sweet

When at mid-winter’s merry tide

These birthnight flowers open wide
Sweet eyes of wonder, and foretell

The deathless meads of asphodel

That wait my coming—then I know
How near to me the amaranths grow,

How near the palm-trees bud and blow.
S. H. W.”

On February 27, 1859, Mrs. Whitman writes
to Mrs. Freeman from Washington:

“T received your little note dearest Mary this
morning sent me from Providence. . . .

I have seen a great number of Lions and
some very pleasant people. Have been during
the past week to Secretary Thompson’s recep-

[ 192 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

tion, to the President’s last Levee, to three
Readings of Fanny Kemble (whom I have also
met in private and for the first time become
acquainted with) and have attended Signora
Mario’s Lecture in behalf of the Italians.

Of the Signora I have seen a great deal.
She is an intimate friend of Mrs. Browning and
today gave me a few shining threads of her
hair and of “ Robert’s”’ as she calls the author
of “Paracelsus,” which Signor Mario thinks his
most remarkable poem.

I send you a single hair of each in the little
envelope; the longer of the two is hers. Perhaps
you will write a poem about it... .

I have written a letter for the Providence
Journal about the last Levee ‘‘Mrs. Kemble”
etc. which you shall see when it is published.
I have not yet solved the destiny that lies
hidden in your name although I have laid
awake for hours trying to find it. Strange
things happen here at Washington. A Cali-
fornian who occupied the parlors over ours
committed suicide a few nights ago under cir-
cumstances of great strangeness and horror and
today at the dinner table I heard that Daniel
Sickles had just shot a gentleman of this city
whose attentions to his wife he resented and
avenged by murder.

‘About the Richmond lady, Mr. Davidson (in
reply to a letter on the subject to a friend in

Richmond, The Rev. James D. McCabe) learns
[ 193 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

that Mr. Poe was said to have been engaged at
the time of his death to a daughter of James H.
Royster (this was Mrs. Shelton). . . .
Good bye dearest for the present
Your own

De H.W,

At this time Mrs. Whitman was still uncer-
tain about the facts connected with Poe’s last
days in Richmond and his association with
Mrs. Shelton.

A month later she writes:

“T miss the beautiful climate of Washington,
the budding trees and the soft April skies, but
they will soon be here, the willows of St. John’s
churchyard already begin to look golden in
the sunlight. My life in Washington seems like
a dream to me, especially my seeing poor Key
with Mrs. Sickles among the guests of the
crowded ball-room at the reception of one of
the ministers the week before his death. . . .

“We had our Mt. Vernon festival this week
and made about a thousand dollars. I did not
go to it but sent to their antiquarian museum a
dress of gold-colored brocade which danced
with La Fayette at a ball in Newport three or
four score years ago.”

Writing again a few months later she voices
her ever-tolerant attitude toward those with
whom she comes in contact.

[ 194 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

“How could you think dear Mary that I
should look on your kind reception of E as
a weakness? You know I believe in receiving
all who come to us, in opening if not ‘wide
arms’ at least willing hearts to all seeking souls,
whether saints or sinners. This seems to me
conscious strength dearest and not ‘weakness.’
I am very glad that you have met so confiden-
tially. If we veil our spirits from all but the
noble and the faithful we shall lose many
chances of making others happier and better.”

On October 12, 1859, Mrs. Whitman writes
to this friend in regard to the defense of Poe
which she has finally completed:

“T do not know whether I shall go to New
York this fall. I think not, for Rudd and Carle-
ton have written to me that they can send the
proof of my book (which they are just beginning
to print) to Providence if I desire it.

“T want to consult you about something in
relation to it but have not time now. | have
read ‘Beulah’ and like it very much. Miss
Evans has imagination and makes vivid pic-
tures and incidents. J think she will do some-
thing very fine by and bye. But the philosoph-
ical tone she assumes is a little too ambitious
for her present culture I think. But it indicates
reading and thought remarkable in so young a
person. How finely she conceives the spirit of

Poe’s fictions. I want to know something of
her.”

 

[ 195 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

A month later she writes to Mrs. Freeman:

“The little book will be ready early in De-
cember I think.

“Tf you have a chance to say a kind word for
it I shall be glad... .

“T want some appropriate quotations for the
interleaf between the title and preface. Can
you think of any? I wrote a preface the other
day at the suggestion of Curtis which I think
indicates very well the character of the work.
I will copy it for you:

“*T)r. Griswold’s Memoir of Edgar Poe has
been extensively read and circulated; its per-
verted facts and baseless assumptions have been
adopted into every subsequent Memoir and
notice of the poet’s life and have been trans-
lated into many languages. For ten years this
great wrong to the dead has passed unchal-
lenged and unrebuked.

“ “Tt has been assumed by a recent English
critic that “Edgar Poe had no friends.”’ As an
index to a more equitable and intelligent theory
of the idiosyncrasies of his life, these pages are
submitted to his more candid critics and readers
by one of his friends.’ ”

On February 19, 1860, Mrs. Whitman writes
in regard to her book which has been out for
about a fortnight:

“Your kind sweet letter and all your pleas-
ant words about my book were very grateful to
me. I can hardly believe a week has passed
since it came. The days have been so crowded !

[ 196 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

“Grace Greenwood lectured here last night
and just as I was sitting down to write to you
I was induced to go and hear her. The lecture,
read by another, would I think have pleased
me. But she cannot read. I never heard a voice
so defective. It was painful to hear her. Our
largest hall was filled to suffocation. No woman
had lectured before the Lyceum till now and
the curiosity to see Grace Greenwood, or to
hear a woman speak, brought together an im-
mense audience. . .

“T had a letter fei Mrs. Clemm last night
expressing great satisfaction in the little book,
a copy of which Rudd and Carleton sent her
at my request. She expressed the sincerest
gratitude and said she knew it would ‘make
Edgar’s spirit happier.’ I am glad that she ac-
cepts it in this way. I thought some of my ad-
missions might pain her.

“T am glad to have you know Aldrich. Tell
me how you like him and if you have read his
poem published by Rudd and Carleton. A Sul-
tan’s daughter secretly loves the husband whom
for reasons of state she is forbidden to see after
the ceremonial marriage. I forget the title. It
is like one of the jewelled windows in Aladdin’s
Palace. I read it through this morning while
waiting in Grand street for Mr. Carleton. .. .

“T have just finished the ‘Amber Gods.’ It
is as gorgeous and strange as the ‘dead butter-
fly’ borne on a salt sea-wind from ‘the grey
loneliness beyond.’ I shall read all she writes.

[ 197 |
 

POE’S HELEN

 

““*How to Grow’ somebody sent me a copy
through the post. On this question I cannot
dogmatize—I mean the question of marriage.
I am quite willing that any wife or all wives
should pass in at the golden door of Paradise
‘through voluntary and entire subjection of the
will of the wife to the husband.’ I am for the
largest liberty on this question, and think that
much may be said for the immolation of wid-
ows on the funeral piles of their husbands. Yet
I do not blame those who abstain or run away.
I am rather disposed to engrave on my banner
the evangelical war-word ‘Break every bond!’ ”

A couple of months later Mrs. Whitman
writes that George William Curtis has written
her for suggestions in regard to the publication
in book form of “Trumps,” wishing her to be

“very candid in her criticism,” and she is
therefore rereading the numbers which have
already appeared serially for the purpose of
giving the author the criticism asked for.

Toward the end of May she writes to Mrs.
Freeman of their mutual literary interests, and
of the new book, “Harrington,” which her
friend, William Douglas O’Connor, editor of
the Saturday Evening Post, is engaged upon.
O’Connor was a great admirer of Walt Whit-
man, in vindication of whom he published in
1866 a pamphlet, entitled “The Good Gray
Poet.”’ He was also a defender of Delia Bacon’s
theory concerning the authorship of Shake-
speare’s plays, being himself an active Baconian.

[ 198 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

“Did I tell you that your ‘Lullaby’ was re-
published in the Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post. It seems to take all hearts.

“O’Connor writes me that he is at work on
his story which he has engaged to complete
before September for a large remuneration. It
is to be published in Boston. His account of his
despairing and demagnetized state, after he had
engaged to do it, was very funny. I had written
that I hoped the angel had touched his lips
with a live coal from off the altar. He writes
- that ‘he has not,’ but ‘that the Devil has put
him on a particularly hot gridiron. Sitting on
which he has written 321 pages of MS and ex-
pects to write the remaining 600 before Octo-
ber.’ I fancied you might faintly appreciate his
position. It is ridiculous (his antithesis) but
very funny. He has just met Walt Whitman in
Boston. He says there are incomparable things
in the new edition. I have not read it, though
the publishers have sent me an advance copy.
He says ‘the great Walt is very grand and it
is health and happiness to be near him; he is
so large and strong—so pure, proud and tender,
with such an ineffable bon-hommie and whole-
some sweetness of presence; all the young men
and women are in love with him.’ O tempora,
O mores! but this is passing strange, is it
not? ‘Strange if true’ as the newspapers say.

“Dr. Channing and Jeannie have returned
from Cuba and are with the O’Connors.
‘Trumps’ is rapidly going to press. I hear

[ 199 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

through Mr. Wheaton that my little book is
in great demand in that region, Mobile, and
more copies are much needed. In Illinois too,
it has devoted admirers. John Hay (a poet-
graduate of Brown University) writes me that
it lay on the table of Gov. Bissell when he died,
with some rare German books,—lay nearest his
hand—and was filled with marks and marginal
notes. O’Connor says I must read his book be-
fore it comes out. How can I? I shall have to
keep a private secretary and a private critic
etc.—Yesterday I had to write an obituary on a
Providence artist (!) to-day a puff for Leaves
of Grass (!!!) the day before yesterday a poem
for a young lady’s album (I enclose you a
printed copy) and tomorrow six letters to the
south and west, to people I have never seen.
I admire Mrs. Stoddard’s ‘Own Story’ for its
vividness and strength. Her sphere is, or seems,
very limited but very unique and marked.

“Nora (Perry) is writing an exquisite poem
about a garden of lilies in a sultry August
‘night. Inspired I think by your splendid
‘Dead Sea,’ not copied or stolen or even imi-
tated from it—simply suggested and inspired
by 20.”

In another communication Mrs. Whitman
tells of some photographs* which she has had

*These photographs and various others were taken by Mrs.

Whitman’s friend Mr, William Coleman, the photographer, to
whom she subsequently gave her daguerreotype of Poe.

[| 200 J
 

 

 

 

MRS. WHITMAN AS “PALLAS”
From a photograph by Coleman, hitherto unpublished

 
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

taken in costume; her suggestion that the two
sides of her face express different character-
istics is of special interest as recalling the fact
that the same was true of Poe, whose pictures
show an extraordinary difference in this re-
spect.

“Thinking that fine feathers make fine birds
I have costumed two of my photographs,
which in some of the pictures gives character
and is an acknowledged improvement. There
is something curious about these pictures. Two
represent the left side of the face and two the
right side. Those of the left are both decidedly
masculine, the other two as decidedly feminine.
Now modern physiologists tell us that the
brain is dual and the left side positive.”

In a subsequent letter she speaks of Whittier.

“TI met Whittier yesterday and had a talk
with him about the glory that is to be revealed.
You may judge how pleasant it was to meet
the poet of freedom just at this epoch. I had
never seen him before though he was at one
time engaged to one of my dearest friends, Ida
Russell. She was a beautiful, splendid creature
but lymphatic and impeded by worldly cares
and solicitudes and ambitions. His Quaker sim-
plicity and her bumptious tastes did not readily
harmonize and so they grew to be strangers.”

During the dark days of the Civil War Mrs.
Whitman’s pen cheered and comforted many
of her friends who were upon the field of ac-

[ 201 ]}
 

POE’S HELEN

 

tion, and several of her soldier correspondents
bore with them through the struggle some
little talisman which she had given them “for
luck” at parting; she was herself devotedly
attached to little tokens of varying value and
artistic merit with which she was always sur-
rounded; for the sake of the giver or of the
precious memory connected with the gift she
often placed upon her walls or in her living-
room articles possessed of little virtue, and
pictures, prints, and sketches which caused the
casual visitor, who knew not why she loved
them, to wonder at the owner’s eccentricity of
taste.

Among her published war lyrics was one writ-
ten just after the fight at Manassas, which in
its suggestion of the sad bells tolling for Rhode
Island’s dead might seem like a distant re-
sponse to Poe’s funeral bells.

At the time that these verses appeared their
author sent a copy to her friend, Mrs. Freeman,
with the words: “I send you my Miserere
after the fight three weeks ago yesterday.

“Lyman Lancing Vaughn was in the dread-
ful Battery of our second regiment that killed
so many rebels... . My friend Col. Slocum
was killed that dreadful Sunday.

“The pressure of his hand still seems warm
in my own, and the bright living smile with
which he reminded me of a talisman which I
gave him when he went to fight our Mexican

[ 202 ]
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LETTERS

 

battles and which he wore, passing unscathed
through the thickest of the fight. That smile
is ever before me.”

A letter hurriedly scrawled after the battle
of Bull Run by G. L. Dwight brings the mes-
sage:

“Tn haste dear Helena. All right, a hard
fight, and got licked. Will tell you more in the
future. Your horse-shoe carried me through.
‘Fill up your beaker to the brim.’ .. .

“Don’t wait for me to write. I can’t always
answer. Write without waiting for it. Long let-
ters I Jong for. Noyes here. H was at Alex-
andria and not in the fight. Under orders
Ballooning and watching the enemy.”’

In a note to Mrs. Freeman written at about
this time Mrs. Whitman’s words echo the ex-
citement of the war when she exclaims:

“T have the affairs of the nation on my hands
and heart and read the ‘extras’ all day without
seeing things nearer crises than two months
ago.

“T just heard a boy crying the twelve o’clock
extra Journal, enriched, as it was delicately
hinted, by the ‘Death of the Rebel General.’

“Hoping it might be Beauregard I ran to the
window to secure a copy. It proved to be
Raines. I wonder if I am getting blood-
thirsty.”

Mrs. Whitman’s verses written after “Ma-
nassas”’ were printed in the Providence Journal

[ 203 ]

 
 

POE'S HELEN

 

in August, 1861. Three of the six stanzas fol-

low:

By the great bells swinging slow
The solemn dirges of our woe,
By the heavy flags that fall
Trailing from the bastioned wall,
Miserere, Domine !

By the sin we dared disown

Till its ‘dragon teeth” were sown,
By the cause, yet unavowed,

By the fire behind the cloud,

Miserere, Domine !

By our northern host betrayed,

At Manassas’ bloody raid,

By our losses unatoned—

Our dead heroes, heart-enthroned,
Miserere, Domine !

[ 204 ]
CHAPTER XII
POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

HEN, after the completion of “ Edgar

\) \) Poe and His Critics,’ Mrs. Whitman

laid down the pen with which she had
paid tribute to her eccentric lover, she doubt-
less fancied that the task which she had set
herself was at last finished. She had, how-
ever, reckoned without the host of would-be
biographers, who were destined to seek her
out and enlist her aid in the production of
their various works.

After an intermission of almost two decades,
in which the all-absorbing conflict between
the North and South swept minor matters
from the field, a second wave of interest in
Poe arose, and half a dozen biographers en-
tered the literary arena for the avowed pur-
pose of doing justice to the poet’s memory.

Each one in turn solicited from Mrs. Whit-
man the kind assistance which she had shown
herself both capable of giving and willing to
bestow; having already done much, she was
rewarded by enlarged opportunities for doing
more. From England came an earnest plea
from John H. Ingram, whose earliest ambi-
tion had been to champion America’s “neg-

[ 205 |
 

POE’S HELEN

 

lected genius”; while on this side, William F.
Gill, Eugene L. Didier, and others, addressed
enthusiastic communications to “Helen,” the
friend of Poe, who had already taken the lit-
erary stand in his defense. Even from France
came a demand for Mrs. Whitman’s sanction
of the translations of Poe’s poems being pre-
pared by Stéphane Mallarmé.

Although she had now reached the age of
seventy, Mrs. Whitman’s youthful spirit did
not shrink from the new task imposed upon
her. She spent her strength ungrudgingly upon
an exhaustive correspondence with Poe’s biog-
raphers; she hunted data, delved into archives,
wrote long and painstaking accounts of her as-
sociation with Poe, loaned pictures, auto-
graphs, and books which were in her possession,
and in the end, as a reward, found herself
whirled about in a vortex of controversy and
criticism. Most of the men who were deter-
mined to provide Poe with an authentic biog-
raphy, like the majority of women who
claimed they loved him, hated each other
cordially, and exercised their eloquence in the
direction of execrating their fellow craftsmen.
And Mrs. Whitman, who had been friendly
with them all, was the storm centre and the
repository of their grievances and grudges;
a truly wearing occupation for one who was
past threescore years and ten, and who adored
peace and tranquillity.

[ 206 ]
 

POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

The opening of January, 1874, brought Mrs.
Whitman Ingram’s* first communication con-
cerning Poe; this opened up a correspondence
which extended over the next four years.

Previous to this, by a few months, had come
letters from Gill asking for aid in the prepara-
tion of a lecture in which he proposed to exon-
erate Poe from charges which had been made
against him by Griswold. This lecture was to
be a forerunner of an extensive Life of Poe
which he intended to produce.

To Gill’s request, Mrs. Whitman had oblig-
ingly acceded, sending, to make clear certain
points, letters and information such as she
later contributed toward the work of In-
gram. Before receiving Ingram’s first letter a
number of months had passed, during which
period Gill had paid no attention to Mrs.
Whitman’s communications, so that she had
been led to infer that he had relinquished his
project.

After a brief acquaintance with these two
men Mrs. Whitman became convinced that
the Englishman’s work was to prove by far
the more reliable and adequate, and she there-
fore put her whole heart into responding to’
his continuous appeals.

Ingram’s first letter opens with the words:

*Ingram’s death in England, in February, 1916, followed the
announcement of the completion of a final exhaustive work on
Poe, which he had been for years engaged upon.

[ 207 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

“T am sending this in the forlorn hope that it
may reach you safely and induce you to kindly
aid me in my efforts to clear the memory of
my favorite author, Edgar Poe, from the cruel
slanders of the late Dr. Griswold. For many
years past I have been collecting material for
a new life of the poet, but here in England, I
work under great difficulties.”

After describing his inability to secure the
much-needed documents, he goes on to say:

“A little while ago I was delighted to see
your work, ‘Edgar Poe and His Critics,’ in the
Museum, as it strengthened and confirmed me
in my desire to do my best in vindication of
Poe.” After expressing his hope that Mrs.
Whitman will not refuse to assist him, he
closes his letter with a long list of queries which
he hopes she will answer.

From this time, until the close of their
correspondence, he continues to send Mrs.
Whitman long and finely penned epistles, cover-
ing from four to sixteen pages and mailed at
frequent intervals, sometimes as often as semi-
weekly.

In the course of this correspondence a close
friendship sprang up between the young man
and the elderly woman, who shared the same
enthusiasm. Ingram had never been in America
and was, in many instances, ignorant of facts
and how to obtain them, until assisted by his
American correspondent. Upon the other hand,

[ 208 ]
 

POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

his research work had brought to light much
that had hitherto failed to materialize, and so
together they solved many problems, and
when at last his work was finished, Ingram
acknowledged his deep debt of pratitude to
Poe’s American champion, without whose able
assistance he could hardly have carried to a
successful finish his researches in this part of
the world.

In return for the information furnished by
Mrs. Whitman, Ingram sent many enter-
taining accounts of his acquaintance in Lon-
don with Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Houghton, Mrs.
Gove-Nichols, and other women who had in
their early days been associated with Poe.

It was a curious occurrence, suggestive of
the last act of some comic opera, which
brought to London, just at this period, so many
of the actors who had participated in Poe’s
life drama, and showed them making their
final speeches upon an English stage. This
feminine coterie, as scrutinized by Ingram,
something more than “twenty years after,”
presents a very edifying picture of human
frailties and petty animosities. And _ the
idealist breathes a sigh to think that lovely
woman, who in her youth inspires immortal
verse, may prove in later years to be un-
wieldy, unattractive, and commonplace, as
well as an unscrupulous busybody, quite
ready to exploit herself at the expense of one

[ 209 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

whose brief attention has alone rescued her
from oblivion.

In his desire to get into close touch with
the surviving members of the Poe family in
America, Ingram turned his attention to the
investigation of the affairs of Miss Rosalie
Poe, Edgar’s one sister. Finding her to be
quite poor and dependent, he was inspired
with the idea of sending her a generous sum of
money raised by the literary admirers of Poe
in England. He speedily enlisted the sympathy
of Tennyson, Rossetti, and also of Swinburne,
who was an especial Poe enthusiast. From the
latter he received a cordial response which he
forwarded to Mrs. Whitman on March 11,

1874.
Swinburne’s communication reads:

I am writing Mr. Morris and have com-
mended the matter to him as one of Poe’s
truest admirers. With best wishes for your
success and sincere congratulations on the
good work you have already done for the
long and grievously outraged memory of the
first true and great genius of America,

Believe me,
Yours very truly
A. C. Swinpurne.

This plan to render independent the for-
tune of Poe’s only sister, whose lack of mental
equipment made it impossible for her to be

[ 210 ]
 

POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

thrown on her own resources, was never realized,
for before its accomplishment, the death of Miss
Poe was announced, on July 21, 1874, at the
age of sixty-eight years; she had survived her
brother by a quarter of a century, and the
only respect in which she was said to have
resembled him, was in the possession of an ex-
quisite handwriting; this gift enabled her to
teach penmanship in the Young Ladies’ Semi-
nary in Richmond, kept by her adopted mother,
Mrs. McKenzie. Rosalie Poe lived in Richmond
up to the last year of her life, when she was
taken into the home of her cousin Nelson Poe,
of Baltimore. Here her eccentricities made it
impossible for her to remain for any length of
time, and she was transferred to the Epiphany
Church Home, in Washington, D. C., where,
after a few months she breathed her last. On
learning of her death, from Mrs. Whitman, In-
gram expressed much sorrow at having failed to
carry out his plan more promptly, and wrote for
the Mirror an appreciative tribute to Miss Poe.

Ingram pictures to Mrs. Whitman his varied
impressions of the feminine circle with which
his researches have brought him in contact.
Among these acquaintances Mrs. Gove-Nichols*
figures prominently, as well as Mrs. Houghton

*Mrs. Nichols, who was a physician, was one of the first
women to lecture on hygiene. For many years she conducted a
successful water-cure in New York, and her theories in regard to

diet, bathing, and fresh air, were in line with those to-day sanc-
tioned by the medical profession.

[ 211 ]
 

POL’S HELEN

 

(formerly Mrs. Shew), which two ladies fail to
agree in their accounts of Poe and of his house-
hold.

Mrs. Nichols, formerly Mrs. Gove, was one
of the friends who came to the assistance of
the Poe family during Virginia’s illness, and
her stories of the dire want experienced by the
Poe household, published in later years, were
said to have been greatly exaggerated.

Ingram assured Mrs. Whitman that Mrs.
Nichols’s_ recollections of Virginia’s death-
bed appeared to be “fictitious” when con-
trasted with the accounts which he had from
the letters of Poe and Mrs. Clemm, while
Mrs. Houghton assured him that everything
needed in Poe’s family was amply provided
by interested friends.

In summing up Mrs. Nichols’s qualifications
Poe had said of her: “She is a mesmerist, a
Swedenborgian, a phrenologist and a disciple
of Preissnitz, and what more I am not pre-
pared to say.” He might have added that she
was another one of “The Literati” who hoped
to cancel past indebtedness and acquire fame
by furnishing the public with the history of
his family.

Mrs. Whitman’s English correspondent writes
on January 27, 1875, that he has just seen Mrs.
Nichols, who promises to aid him; she is old
and nearly sightless, but exceedingly “posi-
tive.”

| 212 |
 

POE'S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

“TI fight any number of men, but I don’t
want an embroglio with any ladies,” he as-
serts. ‘Mrs. Nichols promises to work sys-
tematically to help me, and will not leave a
stone unturned to do so. She had (in com-
pliance with an earnest desire from Mrs.
Clemm) written ‘Reminiscences of Poe’ for
a series of sketches in The Leader, and the
article was, apparently the one reprinted in
Sixpenny, but with alterations. ... She in-
sists that Miss E. Blackwell never boarded at
Fordham, and that the home there was given
up by Poe and his mother-in-law long before
his death. Can you lighten the darkness?”

The query about Miss Blackwell recalls the
fact that on this point a misunderstanding
arose between Ingram and Mrs. Whitman,
owing to a blunder made by the Englishman in
mistaking the identity of the two sisters, Miss
Anna and Miss Elizabeth. Mrs. Whitman’s as-
sociation was with Miss Anna, and her account
of that lady, sent to Ingram, he tried to fit in
with Miss Elizabeth’s recollections, when he got
into communication with that lady. She failed
to verify what Mrs. Whitman had said, and
Ingram was temporarily convinced that his
American friend must have misinformed him;
a conclusion which offended Mrs. Whitman.

Ingram writes later that Mrs. Houghton
(M. L. S.), is going to help all that is in her
power, by going over Griswold’s “‘Memoir” and

[ 213 ]
 

POPS HELEN

 

pointing out the statements which are cruel
and false. Of these various women assistants
he says: “ Between us twain, I speak everything
in confidence of all these witnesses, but to
each of them separately am careful, each one
having some bitter enmity for each other. Of
you only do all speak well. . . . Mrs. Nichols
asked for Stoddard’s ‘Memoir.’ She is sur-
prised at his trying to throw stones at Poe and
expected something better from him.”

The writer fears that Mrs. Nichols’s recol-
lections will be decidedly imaginative when he
receives them, but looks to Mrs. Houghton for
genuine aid; she is supplying him with fluent
accounts of her association with Poe, whom she
aided in time of need, and he wonders why
Mrs. Clemm has not in her letters referred to
this lady, to whom she appears to have been
deeply indebted.

Even Mrs. Houghton is: “Not always so
clear as could be wished,” but “‘a regular child
of nature, ingenuous, unsophisticated and (like
Mrs. Whitman) too trusting for the human
world.” He later states in response to a query
from Mrs. Whitman that the reason why
Mrs. Clemm never mentioned Mrs. Houghton
was (so he infers) because of the ungrateful
way in which Mrs. Clemm had treated this
kind friend.

He writes: ‘Mrs. Houghton did anticipate,
apparently, Griswold’s malignity and tried to

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POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

pay for the suppression of the ‘Memoir,’ but
Griswold had too many reasons for publishing
it to accept her price. He said that Mrs. Clemm
was ‘reconciled’ to it. Mrs. C. evidently re-
ceived a small income from it for life. Don’t
mention this to Mrs. Nichols, or Mrs. Hough-
ton, both wish well to Mrs. Clemm’s memory,
especially the former, and we are much in-
debted to them for ‘more light.’ Poe dictated
the events of his life to Mrs. Houghton (then
Mrs. Shew), when he was suffering from the
illness through which Mrs. H._ befriended
him.”

On May 18, 1875, Ingram writes: “‘ Formerly,
I was anxious to impart all information at once,
to help the good cause, but now will be silent
save to you, till all is published”; he further
describes Mrs. Houghton:

“Mrs. Nichols did not think it strange that
you knew nothing of Mrs. Shew—Dr. Shew is
dead, and Mrs. Houghton separated from Dr.
Houghton, if not legally, really! Mrs. H. is not
a very highly educated woman, at once ex-
plains that she is not literary, but one can see
she has natural talent for some things, and is
thoroughly good-hearted, loving but indepen-
dent, and perhaps somewhat too confiding and
eccentric. She might worry one’s life out to
live with, but apart would inspire affection. I
must like her, but that of course does not pre-
vent me carefully weighing all her evidence

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POE’S HELEN

 

... her letters are so naive and original, that
I am charmed with them.”

In June 1875, Ingram touches upon his
association with Mrs. Lewis, whom he sees
occasionally. She is evidently seeking his
friendship because she thinks he is likely to
be useful to her, and he acknowledges that it
is best not to offend her, as his refusal to ac-
cept one of her invitations had called forth a
slurring criticism of his “Memoir” of Poe from
that lady’s pen, although she had previously
commended this same work. He says that she
has given him a copy of Poe’s daguerreotype
which she owns, and also Poe’s MS. copy
of “Politian” containing several unpublished
scenes; he concludes that many of Poe’s
papers which she possesses were probably ob-
tained from Griswold with whom she had been
on friendly terms.

These references to Mrs. Lewis recall the
fact that Poe wrote complimentary notices
of her work at a time when her pecuniary aid
was a household necessity.

Mrs. Clemm was in need of money for
family expenses, and Mrs. Lewis sought her
out and induced her to accept advances of
which it was very convenient for her to avail
herself; such loans, or gifts, had to be made
good by the reluctant poet. Poe at times ex-
pressed to his friends his extreme distaste for
such humiliating tasks, but he, nevertheless,

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POE'S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

discharged them. It has been chronicled that
Mrs. Lewis would seat herself in Mrs. Clemm’s
kitchen and remain there until the return of
Poe, who had slipped away in the hope of
escaping her. His essay on Mrs. Lewis, in
which he so highly extolled several of her pro-
ductions, is an example of his method of paying
a debt of honor contracted by Mrs. Clemm.
An interesting example of Poe’s corrections
furnished for one of Mrs. Lewis’s poems was
published a few years since by Ingram, in the
Albany Review (vol. I, 4, 1907). The poem,
entitled “The Prisoner of Perote,” is com-
pletely transformed by Poe’s changes, which
were, of course, not credited to him. He at-
tended Mrs. Lewis’s receptions in the same
spirit of discharging his obligations, and when
he left on his last journey South, it was from
Mrs. Lewis’s house that he set out, because
by so doing he could leave Mrs. Clemm in
the charge of one whom he regarded as an
especial friend, who would insure her com-
fort. Mrs. Lewis’s loyalty to Poe was exhibited
soon after his death by her efforts to ingratiate
herself with Griswold, who posed for a short
time as chief arbitrator of fame in literary
circles. While Mrs. Whitman and other of
Poe’s friends were warmly protesting against
Griswold’s onslaught, Mrs. Lewis was writing
to congratulate the ruthless biographer on his
having supplied such true “insight into Poe’s

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POE’S HELEN

 

character”; later, she broke altogether with
Mrs. Clemm, asserting that she was a “‘fault-
finder” and “ungrateful.” When, in after
years, Griswold and his criticisms were no
longer popular, she again changed her tactics
and entered the literary arena as Poe’s de-
fender. She composed three sonnets to the
poet’s memory, the last being addressed “To
His Foes.” In her later days she doubtless con-
vinced herself that she had really performed
many kindnesses done by others, and she per-
sisted in declaring that Poe had asked her to
write his life.

Mrs. Lewis’s baptismal name was Sarah
Anne, a name which she scorned to attach to
her literary productions; in consequence she
adopted “Estelle” as a pen-name, or “Stella,”
as she was called by Poe in the lines addressed
to her. His acrostic written to “Sarah Anna”
upon a certain occasion, did not, it has been
stated, meet with the lady’s approval, and her
insistence upon the name of her choosing was
at times a source of expense to the poetess,
as is shown by a letter of Griswold’s, written
to her husband, in which Griswold claims
quite a sum for the cost of altering her bap-
tismal name to her poetical one, in a laudatory
account of her work.

That Mrs. Lewis had flooded Poe with her
correspondence was evident from testimony
casually offered by Griswold, who wrote to

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POE'S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

James Russell Lowell in 1849, in answer to
the latter’s inquiry about his own letters:
“T remember seeing in the hands of Mrs.
Lewis, of Brooklyn, who has a large share of
the letters addressed to Poe, some of yours,
and these I will endeavor to obtain and send
to you.”

Mrs. Lewis was generous in furnishing in-
formation regarding Poe’s arch-enemy, Mrs.
Ellet, who, she asserted, “goaded Griswold
to death.”

In a brief correspondence with Mrs. Hough-
ton, Mrs. Whitman is given a glimpse of the
attitude of that lady toward “Stella.”

Mrs. Houghton voices her indignation that
Mrs. Lewis should be asserting that she ren-
dered that timely aid to the Poe family which
was in reality given by herself. She exclaims:

“T do not see how you all could attribute to
that Mrs. Lewis that sorrowful time in his
life when he needed a congenial friend and
generous loving care. If it had been left anony-
mous I should have kept quiet, but Mr. In-
gram’s mention of Mrs. Lewis, as doing my
work, was more than my sense of justice could
endure, and I have spoken out to this noble
enthusiastic defender of Mr. Poe, John In-
gram. . . . I can’t see why Mrs. Clemm
should have allowed this, of course I know
she is dead and has been for many years, still
it cannot be possible she was so far gone in

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POE'S HELEN

 

mind and memory as to have forgotten the
long time it took her unfortunate ‘Eddie’
to even tolerate Mrs. Lewis. I saw very little
of Mr. Poe the last year of his life, and Mrs.
Lewis may have laid them under obligations
just about the time Edgar went to Richmond,
which obliged him to write up her works while
on this lamentable tour, for Mrs. Clemm made
promises for him which humiliated his soul,
and to which he made less resistance as he
began to break up in brain-power about this
time. Of course, the body cannot be sustained
upon pride (however true and honorable), and
want may explain more than anything else.”

In a subsequent letter she says:

“My initials when Mr. Poe knew me were
M. L. S., and the Valentine written in 1847
to Mrs. M. L.S., and published by Griswold
as a poem of his youth, was written the Feb-
ruary following Mr. Poe’s wife’s death and
published in the Home Journal, by Mr. Willis,
at that time. I was married to Dr. Roland
S. Houghton, in November 1850. . . .

“(The Valentine) will tell you in a few
eloquent words, Mr. Poe’s feeling toward me
in his most generous and even grateful manner
and expression. It speaks for itself—and can-
not be gainsaid. I have sent the original to
Mr. Ingram.

OMe Griswold had reason to dislike me, and
put the Valentine to Mrs. M.L.S., among

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POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

the poems ‘written in youth.’ I went to see
this creature Griswold with Mrs. Clemm twice,
and tried to bribe him to leave out his memoir,
by paying the cost of those published, but his
hatred of Mr. Poe was a passion worthy of a
demon instead of a man... .

“P.S. You will not misunderstand me, I do
not wish to injure Mrs. Lewis, but she has
allowed Mr. Ingram to make statements un-
true.

“Mrs. Clemm never mentioned to me of
being at Mrs. Lewis’s house, but she might have
been sometime, but my honest opinion is, that
Mrs. Lewis had no home to offer her. Where is
this Mrs. Lewis. Do you know? I am curious
because of her audacity. M. L. S. H.”

Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith was the next
one of Poe’s friends with whom the English
biographer became acquainted. She was an-
other of “The Literati” whose personal claims
upon the friendship of Poe won from him a
rather lengthy tribute to her poetic work; an
appreciation which, if analyzed, may be said
to come under the head of “damning her
with faint praise.” In this critique Poe writes
that Mrs. Smith’s “most popular poem, ac-
cording to Griswold,” is ‘The Acorn,” which
though inferior to her poem, “The Sinless
Child,” is preferred by many. He speaks of
“The Sinless Child” as having made its first
appearance in the Southern Literary Messenger,

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POE’S HELEN

 

where it “at once attracted much attention
from the novelty of its conception” (a “Sin-
less Child” being an undoubted novelty in
almost any locality).

Poe further remarks that the poem is quite
long, including more than two hundred stanzas
of some eight lines each; and after reviewing
its theme at generous length he concludes:
“The execution of ‘The Sinless Child’ is as
we have already said inferior to its conception

. (its author) enables us to see that she has
very narrowly missed one of those happy
‘creations’ which now and then immortalize
the poet. With a good deal more of deliberate
thought before putting pen to paper, with a
good deal more of the constructive ability,
and with more rigorous discipline in the minor
merits of style, and what is termed in the
school prospectuses, composition, Mrs. Smith
would have made ‘The Sinless Child’ one of the
best, if not the very best, of American poems.”

After having been immortalized by this
commendation, drawn out and painfully ex-
tended over a half-dozen pages, Mrs. Oakes
Smith undoubtedly felt herself justified in
taking her place among the poetic elect of her
times. Yet whatever may have been the pop-
ularity attained by her poem, “The Acorn,”
it was evidently not the kind from which the

“great oaks spring,” except perhaps to phys-
ical dimensions. At all events when the old

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POE'S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

lady entered the circle of story-tellers who
would willingly have aided Ingram, he rec-
ognized the fact at once, that discretion was
the better part of valor, and that Mrs. Oakes
Smith was one to be avoided for the sake of
Poe, if not for that of his biographers.

This lady was a most ardent spiritualist
who revelled in the supernatural and told her
dreams impressively. In 1851, her book en-
titled ‘‘Shadowland”’ was filled with her be-
liefs and experiences in the realm of spirits
which she claimed was far more real to her
than that of earth. In this little book she re-
fers to Poe as one “endowed by nature with
the eye of a dreamer, and the intuitions of a
believer,” but she declares, ‘‘a slight overbal-
ance of intellect was enough to destroy the
beautiful harmony originally designed.” This
conclusion differs from that arrived at by most
critics, for those that have given the matter
any consideration invariably conclude, that
it was not “strength of intellect,” but “weak-
ness of will”? which brought about the tragedy
of. Poe’s existence.

Mrs. Smith’s volume closes with the words:
“The writer has thus thrown herself into the
midst of dreams and phantoms, impalpable
shapes and airy nothings. Her material might
be greatly extended, but perhaps her devotion
to truth will be sufficiently shown by what is
written.”

een]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

It was undoubtedly a recognition of this
species of “devotion to truth” which made
Ingram, twenty years later, refrain from add-
ing to his collection of facts any specimens
from Mrs. Smith’s storehouse of ‘impalpable
shapes and airy nothings.”

Mrs. Whitman’s association with Mrs. Oakes
Smith (called by her friends “ Eva,” in memory
of the heroine of her poem, “The Sinless
Child’) was in early years a very close one, as
their mutual interest in spiritualism drew them
together. Mrs. Whitman wrote several poems
to this friend, who was in her day beautiful
and much admired. Mrs. Smith aided her hus-
band in editing several papers; and, in addition
to the publication of a number of books, she was
the first woman in this country to appear as a
public lecturer, and at one time she was pastor
of an independent church.

Yet her friendship with Mrs. Whitman cost
the latter her most priceless autograph trea-
sure, namely the poem “To Helen,” beginning,
“T saw thee once, once only.’”’ Owing to Mrs.
Oakes Smith’s glowing accounts of the power
of a certain clairvoyant, Mrs. Whitman sent
the manuscript of this poem to Doctor Joseph
R. Buchanan, then of Cincinnati, who was
publishing a medical and physiological journal,
and making experiments in character-reading.
Doctor Buchanan, who had furnished Mrs.
Oakes Smith with an impressive reading after

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POE'S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

holding an unsigned manuscript of hers in a
blank envelope, was intrusted with Poe’s poem,
for psychometric experiment, and after it had
been in his hands for two or three months a
request was made for its return. The doctor re-
plied that it had been mislaid and that as soon
as it was found it would be returned accompa-
nied by the looked-for “reading.’’ The poem did
not, however, turn up.

Ingram had doubtless concluded that
“Eva’s” assistance was something to be
avoided, when he exclaimed to Mrs. Whit-
man:

“Mrs. E. O. Smith is no good, and I am in
hopes that I shall be free from her in a friendly
manner.”

In reference to Mrs. Gove-Nichols he says:

“She has just recovered her sight after an
operation. She tells me that she is preparing
her ‘Recollections of Poe’ for me, but I fancy
she'll give too much space to Mrs. Clemm,
whom she was very fond of. I may misjudge
her but I cannot help deeming that she belongs
to the genus imaginative. I judge from some
letters and one short interview, but we'll see.

“Were it not so terrible I should often laugh
at my American lady correspondents. Half
their time and space is devoted to slandering
each other—swearing that Poe cared only for
them, and that everybody else who lays claim
to his friendship is an impostor! That they

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POE’S HELEN

 

(each one says the same) were only girls when
he knew them, and when he died, and so could
not vindicate him to the world, etc.!! Entre
nous—they all hate Mrs. Lewis—(that makes
me think she could not have been so bad),
and she returns it with interest. In fact, they
all look upon Poe’s fame as a convenient peg
upon which to hang their own mediocrities
where the world may see! For my part I be-
lieve Poe only cared for Mrs. Houghton out
of the lot of them, and he loved her and clung
to her as a friend, and as the friend of his wife,
but not in any nearer or dearer way. I’m sure
that Mrs. H. is most anxious to impress this
upon me, as, apparently, someone who had the
right to be jealous of her, was jealous. I do
like Mrs. H. so much for herself, and not
only for her goodness to Poe.”

He forwards to Mrs. Whitman Mrs. Hough-
ton’s account of the writing of “The Bells”:

“Poe came to her house ill and depressed
and said ‘I have to write a poem and I don’t
know what to say.’ He sat at the open window
and the sound of the church bells, sad and gay,
came in, and Mrs. Shew (afterwards Mrs.
Houghton) suggested them as a subject, and
Poe wrote the first draft of ‘The Bells’ as
has been previously recounted.” On the first
manuscript, which, Mr. Ingram says, is in his
possession, Poe wrote ‘“‘The Bells by M. L.
Shew.” Her purchase of his poem “To M. L.

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POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

S.” Ingram also explains by saying that Mrs.
Shew was then about to be married to Doctor
Houghton, and, having seen the verses, which
were likely to be considered too ardent by the
public, in view of her approaching marriage,
she, upon hearing from Poe that he was about
to sell them for twenty dollars, offered him
twenty-five dollars and so secured them from
publication at that time.

The last of the feminine circle with whom
Ingram comes into touch is ‘Annie,’ Mrs.
Richmond, of whom he writes November 2,
1876:

“Mrs. Richmond speaks in the highest terms
of Poe—she, I fancy, saw nothing but his
brightest side. I think she was very glad at
the prospect of his marriage with you, but I
cannot help deeming the result was the best
that could have happened, at least for you.”

Ingram asserts that Mrs. Richmond has
placed a large number of letters at his dis-
posal, and has told him that the manuscript
of “The Bells,” which Gill has claimed the
ownership of, was only loaned the latter by
her.

Toward the end of Ingram’s correspondence
several points of difference arose in regard to
certain dates and events about which Mrs.
Whitman had given him information; he was in-
clined to accept the testimony of Mrs. Clemm,*

* That set forth in her letters.

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. POE'S HELEN

 

and others, whose statements conflicted with
those of his Providence friend, and this seem-
ing lack of confidence in her accuracy, after
his having so long acknowledged its value,
grieved Mrs. Whitman exceedingly and caused
a partial estrangement.

Mrs. Whitman’s sensitiveness to Ingram’s
questioning of her statements was enhanced
by his publication of the “Annie” letters,
which exploited the fact that, while Poe was
engaged to her, he was writing exceedingly
affectionate, if ‘“‘brotherly,” letters to Mrs.
Richmond, who undoubtedly appealed to
the more practical and human side of his
nature. “Annie” was young, warm-hearted
and impulsive; she adored Poe’s genius, and
when he came to visit in her household minis-
tered to his comfort, and acted the part of a
loving sister, as he asserted. On these occasions
“Annie’s” husband, Mr. Richmond, was in-
cluded in the family group, and seems to have
shared his wife’s interest in Poe.

While Mrs. Whitman appealed to the ideal
and intellectual side of Poe’s nature and con-
stantly inspired him to rise to the heights she
hoped that he might attain, it is certain that
she deplored his weaknesses and exacted from
him a line of conduct which he felt he could
never maintain. Under these circumstances
it is not unnatural that in moments of reac-
tion, when he was debating with himself his

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POE’S WOMEN FRIENDS

 

own qualifications, he should have turned to
“Annie” for the affectionate encouragement
of one who accepted.him as he was, and soothed
instead of endeavoring to uplift him. After
the breaking off of the engagement, Poe turned
at once to “Annie” for sympathy, and also
as a friend to champion his reputation which
he felt had been unjustly assailed.

It can be easily imagined that the publica-
tion, for the first time, of the “Annie” letters,
of which Mrs. Whitman had known nothing,
and which seemed to tell the public that Poe’s
love for her was less intense than she had
supposed, came as a great shock to her, and
not only darkened, but shortened her last
days.

After her long association with Ingram and
her faithful endeavors to aid him in his work
(and he owned that she was the only one to
-whom he was materially indebted), it was a
distinct blow to Mrs. Whitman to have pub-
lished by Ingram the affectionate letters to
“Annie,” in which Poe referred slightingly to
her, and announced his satisfaction at having
the engagement broken. In these letters, which
reveal the omission of considerable matter by
the English editor, he might well have omitted
such paragraphs as were bound to wound the
feelings of one who had been his faithful as-
sistant. Although in the end, Mrs. Whitman
modified her displeasure, and in her apprecia-

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POE’S HELEN

 

tion of Ingram’s work,* dedicated to her, for-
gave his deviation from what she thought the
path of friendship, their previous happy re-
lationship was never re-established.

*Ingram’s first “Memoir” was dedicated to Mrs. Whitman.
The second, containing the “Annie” letters, was issued after her
death, but the letters themselves had been previously published
by Ingram in a magazine article.

[ 230 }
CHAPTER XIII
RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

HE way of the transgressor may be hard,
but that of the assistant of rival biog-

raphers is harder still, and in this stony
path the daintily shod feet of Mrs. Whitman
were destined to travel wearily during the last
years of her life.

Yet it is true, “the labor we delight in
physics pain,” and despite the harassment,
incessant controversy, and even the dissatis-
faction with final results, Mrs. Whitman un-
doubtedly experienced the keenest pleasure in
sharing in the production of works in which
she felt such intense interest.

Although many years had elapsed since
Griswold’s cruel attack on Poe had stirred
the literary circles to controversy and indig-
nation, the memory of his brutality, coupled
with the undying charm of Poe’s romantic
figure (the only truly romantic figure in our
literature), left him still in possession of the
foremost place in the hearts of would-be biog-
raphers.

The wave of interest, which culminated in
the “Baltimore Memorial,” in 1875, with its
impressive exercises and dedication of the
“Poe Monument,” seems to have started

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POE’S HELEN

 

several years earlier, making itself apparent
quite simultaneously on both sides of the
water, as has been previously suggested. In
France, England, and Germany, as well as in
New England and the South, prominent men
of letters were busying their pens with essays,
criticisms, translations, and finally biographies
of Poe.

The first of these to turn to Mrs. Whitman
had been Richard Henry Stoddard, to whom
she supplied considerable data, loaning him
various selections from Poe’s letters in the
belief that they would help him in the inter-
pretation of the writer. Instead, however, of
Stoddard’s taking a sympathetic view of
Poe’s communications, he scoffed at them as
insincere productions, using them rather as
evidence against his subject than in his favor.
This naturally grieved Mrs. Whitman ex-
ceedingly, and for this reason she was more
keen to assist the next applicant for aid, in
the belief. that a biographer truly in sym-
pathy with Poe would estimate his character
more justly.

Therefore, as has been already noted, when
William F. Gill, of Boston, applied to her she
readily responded to his appeal.

In the autumn of 1873 he wrote to Mrs.
Whitman:

“Mr. Clarke’s memoir fails in strength of
denunciation of Griswold’s mendacity. I mean

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RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

that my essay shall at least be strong on that
point. If I can claim no other kindred trait
with the genius of whom I am to write and
speak, I can sympathize in the manner and
spirit with which he denounces any imputa-
tion upon himself, and the hand which points
the finger of contempt at Griswold’s perfidy
will not be gloved.”

Gill’s claim to resemble Poe in one of his un-
lovely characteristics is a reminder of Edmund
Clarence Stedman’s pronouncement upon those
of his biographers, who have dwelt more upon
the “infirmity” of his genius than on his
literary achievements. He remarks that these
critics of Poe, although “unable to produce a
stanza which he would have acknowledged, at
least felt within themselves the possibilities
of his errant career.”

In his desire to handle Griswold “without
gloves,”’ Gill was at times inclined to lose sight
of his subject, yet his enthusiasm for Poe
made Mrs. Whitman hope that he would
eventually produce an adequate biography.

But, from the first, it was quite evident that
he was not an accurate or systematic worker;
his letters were hasty scrawls, which spoke of
slap-dash methods and showed the writer’s
inclination to be both careless and inconse-
quent, contrasting most unfavorably with In-
gram’s beautifully penned epistles and system-
atic methods of investigation.

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POE'S HELEN

 

Gill, after visiting Mrs. Whitman in Provi-
dence, and having been accorded a long inter-
view, shows by subsequent letters that he has
practically forgotten the information she has
bestowed. He writes, March 14, 1874:

“T am fairly at my work of writing the de-
fense of Poe now. It occurred to me that you
might aid me still further, if you would, by
writing out a sketch of the personal char-
acteristics of the poet that I might have be-
fore me.

“Of course it is not possible to recall all
that one hears in a conversation. I feel that I
have forgotten many of the little points evolved
in my meeting with you. Should you therefore
have an opportunity soon of recalling any little
characteristics, they would prove very useful,
and I should be under new obligations to
you.”

Having complied with this request, and in
addition sent Gill a couple of letters to which
he had vouchsafed no answer, his Providence
correspondent took it for granted that his
interest in this work had subsided, and turned
her attention toward the enthusiastic young
Englishman.

During the season of 1874, Ingram furnished
a magazine article about Poe, in which he used
some of the matter supplied him by Mrs.
Whitman, and this was not long in reaching
the notice of Gill, who at once sat down to

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RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

voice his exceeding indignation that she had
allowed Ingram to print that which he was
about to make use of himself.

To this communication Mrs. Whitman re-
plied expressing her surprise at his attitude
in regard to her right to handle her material
as she saw fit, and also suggesting that by his
careless methods and failure to do his part,
he had convinced her that his defense of Poe
is not likely to prove as satisfactory as that
of Ingram.

Gill responded apologetically, urging that he
had been a bit hasty, and that his incessant
work on the Poe biography, which he was now
engaged upon, must be his excuse for irritabil-
ity.

From this time, until the publication of
Gill’s biography, Mrs. Whitman continued to
aid him as much as was in her power, giving
him, besides literary material, some bits of
good advice to which he paid little attention.

In February, 1875, she is aiding him in the
correction of proofs and writes:

“T will endeavor to make such corrections
as seem to me most urgently called for in the
proofs sent me. .. .”

She offers some suggestions as to the func-
tions of the biographer, when she says:

“TI think that selection is as necessary in
the writing of a Biography, or Memoir, espe-
cially the Biography of a poet—as it is in the

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POE’S HELEN

 

modelling of his statue or the painting of his
portrait. We want the ideal—the large general
effect of the subject, not the petty, ignoble
details and external blemishes. We do not
want for instance to hear of the wigs and paint
of a Queen Elizabeth, or the dilapidated wear-
ing apparel of a poor poet, but to know some-
thing of his essential attributes and idiosyncra-
sies.””

Later, she is endeavoring to have certain
changes made in passages which she points out
as incorrect. She reminds Gill that she has al-
ready urged him to make changes which set
aright some of Poe’s own words: “your present
version makes of it a platitude—a thing Poe
was incapable of, and the careless rendering is
sent abroad to be copied and recopied as his! I
cannot reconcile myself to such a wrong. . . .

“You say in your preface that you are in-
debted to me among others for assistance.
This involves me as a participant not only
in all you have seen fit to publish on this sub-
ject either with or without my consent; as
were all the Griswold and Pabodie letters in
your ‘Lotus Leaf,’ paper, but also in all the
mistakes and misstatements that you have
carelessly associated with the matter claimed
to have been confided to you. I must protest
against being held responsible for, or made a
party to such misrepresentation.

“T am sorry for you since I would gladly

[ 236 }
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

have aided you in your advocacy of a cause
which I have so much at heart. For this I was
willing to overlook much in the past which I
found it easier to forgive than to forget, and
for this I am still desirous of your best welfare
and success.’ Mrs. Whitman concludes with a
postscript which shows that her indignation
is well aroused:

“P.S. Since you say it is too late for you
to make the corrections I have suggested, it
would certainly be too late to send, as you
request, a letter of Mrs. Clemm’s in order
that a facsimile copy may be taken from it.”

She is not at all pleased with the theory
which Gill advances about ‘The Raven,” and
urges him to omit it:

“T would earnestly suggest that the omis-
sion of your theory about the Raven would
greatly improve the validity of your narration
in other respects. It is a theory which cannot
fail to throw discredit upon other portions of
the work because it rests apparently upon so
slight a foundation. The sentiment of remorse
expressed in the poem may have had its source
somewhere in personal memory, but the treat-
ment of the subject by you is too literal and
detracts from, rather than heightens the pathos
of the situation, at least so it appears to me.
I know you will appreciate the candor which
impels me to make this criticism if you do not
approve the criticism. I should rather leave

[ 237 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

everything to the imagination, in that rich
chiaro-oscuro which the great artist delighted
to work in.”

During the next few months the controversy
between Ingram and Gill waxes more and more
strenuous, and each in turn, after having
poured out his wrath to Mrs. Whitman, at-
tacks his rival in the public press.

In January, 1876, Ingram writes Mrs. Whit-
man that he cannot express his intense disgust
at Gill’s scandalous charge in the ‘‘Memorial
Volume.” He declares that if such an impu-
dent scamp as Gill lived in the “old world”
he would be ejected from the abodes of every
decent person, but he tells her that he sees
clearly that such “sad rogues” are not only
tolerated, but are even feared in the United
States. He suggests that even she is prone to
condone Gill’s insults and lies. Ingram fears
that his rival is but one of many such scamps,
and concludes that he had better wipe his
hands of “such a crew.”

He goes on to say that a friend has recently
written to him about Gill, saying, “even your
grandchildren will curse the day your name
became connected with that rogue’s.” This,
at the time, seemed to him absurd exaggera-
tion, but he now plainly sees that his other
correspondent “knew the man.” Ingram can
now understand why poor Poe found the
United States but “one large prison.” For his

[ 238 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

own part, he has had enough of it. He has
gladly sacrificed literary and pecuniary rewards
to try to work out the vindication of a noble
and unfortunate man’s fame; his health has
suffered in consequence, but were it not for
Gill he would not have complained. ‘I would
have fought and have won against all the
tricks of your Stoddards, Didiers, Fairfields,
and the like,” he asserts, “but it is quite im-
possible to sully my name, which is untarnished,
by having it connected with this Gill.” He
tells Mrs. Whitman that Gill is an unmitigated
scoundrel and that he sees but one course open
to himself, namely, “‘to give up having any-
thing more to do with Edgar Poe,” and if
Mrs. Whitman will now tell him of any one
whom she knows to be really honest, he will
deliver to him his own collection of material
and also notes, etc., in regard to Poe.

He closes this indignant letter with the
statement that he will always be glad to hear
from Mrs. Whitman on any subject, remark-
ing, “but you are the only Northern person
connected with literature whose words I can
place any reliance on, as a rule.”

His use of the words “as a rule,” did not
please Mrs. Whitman, and she suggested to
Ingram that he explain the seeming reflec-
tion upon her veracity; this he subsequently
did, when in a less excitable mood.

His letter, which contained a copy of the

[ 239 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

“Disclaimer,” a scathing printed arraignment
of Gill, offers an example of the warmth of
feeling which was provoked by this biographic
rivalry, and will give the reader an inkling of
the manner in which Mrs. Whitman was
drawn into the arena of strife.

Ingram’s “Disclaimer” was promptly re-
sponded to by Gill, whose printed rejoinder
greatly distressed Mrs. Whitman. She writes
on February 27, of her “‘regret and amaze-
ment” at his reply to Ingram, and asserts:
“Tt were better to have abandoned a claim
which you must have known to be untenable,
and which in your recent interviews with me
I thought you frankly admitted to be so.”
She concludes: “‘I am sorry that I should have
been the innocent cause of so much antagonism
and hard feeling between persons whom I
fain would have regarded as disinterestedly
devoted to a generous purpose.”

Gill endeavors to justify his conduct in
quoting from certain of her letters without
permission, on the ground that he did so in
order to strengthen his point against his Eng-
lish antagonist, but Mrs. Whitman’s sym-
pathies are with Ingram, and she finds it hard
to forgive Gill for his misdemeanors.

In October, 1876, he writes her that he hopes
that time will soften her estimate of his short-
comings, declaring: “The provocation seemed to
me great, and impulsive people are apt to feel

[ 240 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

very differently when swayed by any excess of
feeling than in cooler moments when reason is
at command.”

In response to this letter Mrs. Whitman
says: “In relation to what I wrote you about
your controversy with Mr. Ingram, and your
misuse of my letters, you say that under the
influence of provocation impulsive people are
sometimes betrayed into doing things which
their cooler judgment would condemn. This
I am ready to admit—But one must be on
one’s guard with people who are tempted on
provocation to betray the confidence of corre-
spondents. N’est-ce pas?

“Now if you have prepared any paper for
publication on Poe in which you are intending
to speak of me I must urge it upon you as you
value my continuance of friendship to submit
the MS to me before publication.”

Again she asserts: “I had previously asso-
ciated you with a cause very dear to me and
had entertained for you a feeling of sincere
friendliness and regard, notwithstanding your
unjustifiable course in publishing letters sur-
rendered to you only that you might, as you
said comprehend and authoritatively refute
one of the calumnies brought against Poe by
his ‘literary executor.’ ”

She writes in a subsequent letter: ‘You
must not wonder that I am unwilling to trust
these books out of my hands to one so con-

[ 241 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

fessedly careless as you are. In witness of your
carelessness or forgetfulness, let me remind
you that my copy of the third vol. of Red-
field is still shorn of the pages containing Mrs.
Osgood’s recollections of Poe, which I cut
out from Griswold’s memoir, you having for
three years neglected your promise to return
them. Again, the extract from one of Mrs.
Clemm’s letters which you requested for a
facsimile, you have not returned. You tell me
that you are less careless than you used to
be, but your statement about the engraving
which you wished to obtain my consent to
your publishing does not accord with this.”

While Mrs. Whitman was endeavoring to
quell the strife being waged between Ingram
and Gill, she was approached by one more
biographic competitor, namely Eugene L. Did-
ier, of Baltimore, who wrote her early in the
year 1876:

“If the most enthusiastic devotion to the
memory of our greatest genius can possibly
excuse the liberty I take in thus addressing
you, please let it suffice.

“TI am writing the life of Edgar Allan Poe,
to be published by Mr. Widdleton next Sep-
tember in the Household edition of the poems.
I want my life to be complete, final and ex-
haustive. I have obtained much interesting
information about Poe’s parents, and his school
days in Richmond, his life in Baltimore etc.

[ 242 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

“Tf you will furnish me with extracts from
his letters, literary or otherwise, and above
all put me in the way of giving an authorita-
tive denial to the base and infamous calumny
of Griswold regarding the breaking off of your
engagement, I shall most gratefully appreciate
Te

As usual, Mrs. Whitman did her best to
help one more enthusiast to give to the world
“the true Edgar Allan Poe,” and as a result
evoked added resentment from the other biog-
raphers. Ingram despised Didier, and Gill
was antagonistic to both, and Mrs. Whitman
found the path which wound in and out among
the queries and conflicting statements and bit-
ing criticisms a devious one to follow.

Didier, like the others, plied her with ques-
tions and secured what material he could from
her already much-scattered store, and finally
prevailed upon her to furnish an introduction
for his book, which appeared late in 1876.

He wrote her in April of that year:

“T am engaged, heart and soul, upon my
Life of Poe. Each day adds something new,
and I am thoroughly convinced that I shall
be able to offer to the world an accurate memoir.
It is not my intention to attempt to refute the
malicious statements of previous writers, but
simply to prepare a biography which will for-
ever serve as the accepted and genuine life

of the Author of the Raven. Mr. Widdleton
[ 243 ]
 

POER’S HELEN

 

has assured me that he will never again publish
Griswold’s ‘Memoir.’

“The only portion of Poe’s life that is lost
to me is, from the time he left the University
of Va., Dec., 1826 to entering West Point,
July, 1830. Can you give me any information
on this point? ...

“How grateful would I be if you should
prepare something however brief for my memoir.
That would indeed show a practical interest in
my enterprise... .

“Please accept my earnest thanks for the
corrected copy of your exquisite poem ‘The
Portrait of Poe.” When it first appeared, I in-
serted it in my copy of ‘Edgar Poe and His
Critics,’ which book I esteem the most precious
in my library.”

Early in June, Didier is writing to her for
further assistance, on the score that his manu-
script must go to press the following month.

He says: “So do, dear Mrs. Whitman, if
you can, in any way, assist me in placing before
the world the true story of your slandered
friend, my earliest admiration, our country’s
greatest genius—Now is the accepted time.

“T wish all my lady correspondents were
as kind and considerate, and let me add,
sensible as you are. Mrs. von Weiss,* having

*Mrs. Susan Archer Talley von Weiss saw something of Poe
when he was in Richmond; she published an article about him in
Scribner's Monthly in March, 1876.

[ 244 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

said she would be pleased to give ‘all the in-
formation’ she could ‘concerning Mr. Poe,’ I
wrote to her for certain information which she
claimed to be able to furnish. In reply, she
writes a long letter, saying: ‘Much that I
knew of Mr. Poe was under the seal of personal
confidence, and may never be revealed at all—
but it assisted me to know Mr. Poe as well, I
suppose, as such a nature may be known or
understood. My acquaintance with him was
brief, but there existed between us a very
strong sympathy and appreciation such as I
can find no words to thoroughly express, but
you may, perhaps, understand: and woman
though I am, and young as I was at the time—
1849—I believe that I comprehended him as
fully as any one ever did. He admitted this.’

“Mrs. Weiss then goes on to say that the
cause of the quarrel between Allan and Poe
was ‘very simple and natural under the cir-
cumstances,’ and while admitting that she
feels it a duty to make known circumstances
which would extenuate (exonerate) Mr. Poe
from the charge of ingratitude etc., towards
his adopted father, asserts: ‘I am yet unwilling
to wound Mrs. Allan’s feelings, who is still liv-
ing.’ ”

After presenting this example of the way in
which this lady had assisted him, Didier closes
with the words: ‘What I want is to remove a
cruel wrong from the dead, but I have done

[ 245 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

that without Mrs. von Weiss’ valuable assis-
tance. 2+.

Didier next voices his contempt for Fairfield,
who has created a sensation by his production
of an article on Poe entitled, “A Mad Man of
Letters,” in which he sets his subject forth as
a victim of epileptic mania. Didier says: “J am
preparing an article in which I intend to make
Fairfield, in a literary sense ‘The man that
was walled up,’ I know the fellow personally,
and am familiar with his absurd imitations of
Poe in his first literary ? productions.”

Fairfield’s presentation of Poe as one whose
genius was something akin to epilepsy, pro-
voked a storm of protest from Poe’s admirers;
Didier pronounced him ‘‘as malicious as he
was ignorant,” Gill announced that he wished
“to horse-whip” the offender, and Mrs. Whit-
man, invariably mild and gentle, was driven
to the production of an article the most severe
ever put forth by her.

It was entitled, “Poe, Critic and Hobby,”
and may prove interesting to a generation
that finds it hard to realize how keen was the
Poe controversy some forty years ago.

Oct. 13, 1875.
To THE Eprror oF THE TRIBUNE,
Sir:
Mr. F. G. Fairfield, a gentleman who has
the temerity to pass “ten years among spit-

[ 246 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

2

itual mediums”’ in the cause of science, having
demonstrated that they are all more or less
afflicted with epileptic mania, has recently
turned his attention to poets and men of in-
spirational genius, and finds that they too,
from Ezekiel to A‘schylus, from A‘schylus to
Coleridge are all mad as March hares. If there
is method in their madness, there is also mad-
ness in their method. He frankly confesses in
his book of mediums that he has himself had
personal experience of the malady. He has
studied it in all its phases. He intimates that
“habitual lying” is one of its most trustworthy
exponents. . . .

In the October number of Scribner’s Monthly
this gentleman has an article entitled, “A
Mad Man of Letters,” in which he selects the
author of “The Raven” as a favorable speci-
men of the epileptic type. Assuming chronic
lying as symptomatic of the disease, he gravely
quotes the following story in evidence of Poe’s
habitual mendacity. A single instance, he says,
may suffice to prove the many. Here is the
instance:

“A gentleman who professed to have re-
ceived ‘the facts’ from Mrs. Clemm, told him
that Poe, once on a time, after walking all the
way from New York to Fordham, swallowed
a cup of tea, sat down to his writing-desk, and
dashed off ‘The Raven’ substantially as it is
now printed and submitted it to Mrs. Clemm

[ 247 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

as the result of his evening’s incubation, un-
mindful of the fact that Poe did not reside in
Fordham until long after ‘The Raven’ was
printed and published. Mr. Fairfield naively
accepts this story as a choice bit of veritable
history, illustrative of Poe’s tendency to ha-
bitual lying. For how could ‘The Raven’ have
been composed at a single sitting, when Mr.
Fairfield assures us that he has the evidence
of Poe’s contemporaries on this matter, gentle-
men who were in the habit of meeting him at
midday for a cozy chat in Sandy Welch’s
cellar. And did not these gentlemen assure
him that the poem was produced line by line,
stanza by stanza, and submitted by Poe, piece-
meal to the criticism and emendation of the
Ann-St. Clique? Gentlemen who doubtless
“Knew a hawk from a hand-saw when the wind
was southerly,’ and who suggested many valu-
able alterations and substitutions. One of these
gentlemen, says Mr. Fairfield, ‘has even pointed
out two particular instances of phrases that
were incorporated at his own suggestion,’ show-
ing that ‘The Raven’ was a kind of joint-
stock operation in which many minds held
small shares of intellectual property.’ After
this, may we not hope that the gentlemen who
assisted at the incubation of this marvellous
fowl in Sandy Welsh’s cellar, will come forward
in a body to claim their respective shares in
this piece of joint-stock property, thus setting

[ 248 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

at rest forever all questions as to who wrote
‘The Raven’... .”

Having disposed of “The Raven,” Mr.
Fairfield applies his scalpel to Poe’s wonder-
ful poem of “Ulalume,”’ calling it, in his hap-
hazard way, “his last poem, a mere rigmarole
in rhyme, exhibiting in its elaborate empti-
ness the last stages of mental decrepitude and
decay.” “Thus sang he, then died,’”’ exclaims
this careful and conscientious commentator.

On the contrary “thus sang he” then wrote,
“Eureka,” ‘The Bells,” “Annabel Lee,” and
other of his most memorable poems. But when

n “alienist,” I believe that is the correct word,
mounts his hobby and rides roughshod in
pursuit of an epileptic subject to illustrate a
favorite theory, he cannot be expected to pay
much attention to such hard facts as happen
to lie in his way... .

If Mr. Fairfield, who is not without poetic
insight, had thought less of his theory and more
of his subject, he might have better appre-
hended what he is pleased to call the gist of
the poem; might have seen that it was not the
“low hanging moon,” but “Astarte’—the
crescent star of hope and love, that after a
night of horror was seen in the constellation
Leo, “coming up through the lair of the lion,
as the star-dials hinted of morn.” He might
have seen the forlorn heart hailing it as a
harbinger of happiness yet to be, hoping

[ 249 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

against hope, until, when the planet was seen
to be rising over the tomb of a lost love, hope
itself was rejected as a cruel mockery, and the
dark angel conquered ... it is a poem for
‘poets, and will not readily give up “the heart
of its mystery” to alien “alienists.”

Mrs. Whitman reviews Mr. Fairfield’s un-
flattering charges, closing with the quotation
of his accusation that Poe was “incapable of
honest work,” in response to which she says:
“If this piece of amateur surgery is a speci-
men of ‘honest work’ we must needs borrow
Aesop’s lantern to find out its honesty.”

About this time, Didier voices his opinion of
the value of Gill’s work.

He writes to Mrs. Whitman:

“The publication of the book has been de-
layed on account of some negotiation with that
man Gill, who, it appears, has got together a
lot of rubbish which he wants to publish. He
applied to me to incorporate it with my life.
I declined positively. Mr. Widdleton seems to
fear him, and is now trying to buy his stuff,
not for publication, but ‘merely to get it out
of the way.’ ...

“I thank you most cordially for your letter
and valuable enclosures. Our poet has one
rare good fortune at least: so true, so gifted,
so generous a friend as yourself to watch with
tender devotion over his honor.”

[ 250 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

Early in January, 1877, Ingram, who despite
his threat has not after all relinquished his
biographical undertaking, writes that he is
awaiting the opportunity to see Gill’s book,
from which he anticipates small profit, and
also that of Didier, of whom he has a very
poor opinion. He hopes to produce something
quite different from “‘all these sketches,” he
means to paint “a living, breathing man.”

Ere long, his wish to see the rival biog-
raphies is gratified, and he proceeds to ex-
press his opinion of these American works.

Of Didier’s book he says that Mrs. Whit-
man’s introductory letter is the best part of
it, exclaiming:

“Didier seems to have vulgarized all he
touches. I prefer Griswold’s ghastly, gaunt,
and even fiendish portraiture, to Didier’s
man-milliner sort of puppet. As for his data,
as, of course, you have detected, they are
more mischievous and misleading than those
of any work on Poe yet published. Scarcely a
page but is full of errors—he has copied my
vindication extensively, as you see, but even
there, he has either copied me when I have been
in error, or has made a ‘muddle’ of my facts.
As I have told you, Mrs. Poe died before the
fire,—Stoddard was quite right there,—and
that alone would have invalidated the state-
ments of old Mr. Clarke. . . . From birth to
death the book is unreliable, untrue, and

[ 251 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

some statements are, evidently, purposely mis-
told.” .

A few months later Ingram’s opinion of
Gill’s book is embodied in a scathing review
in the London Atheneum, October 27, 1877;
from this a few extracts may be worth quot-
ing, to illustrate the kind of welcome which
greeted Gill’s work in London:

“This ‘Life of Poe’ is written, its author
informs us, to correct Griswold’s ‘numerous
inconsistencies’ and ‘glaring falsehoods’; but
after perusal of the book, we are forced to the
conclusion that the compiler cannot have read
his predecessor’s work through, or he would
not make the many erroneous statements
about it that he does. Some of his misstate-
ments, indeed, are so singular, that it seems
strange that they can have been made unin-
tentionally; whilst his blunders, whenever he
attempts to give information derived from
‘original investigation’ are most ludicrous.”

This criticism continues, in the same pleas-
ing vein, to demolish Gill’s production:

“Another raison d’étre of this book is, says
Mr. Gill, the complaint of an English author
that ‘no trustworthy biography of Poe has
yet appeared in his own country.’ If Mr. Gill
intended to remove the reproach, he has failed
utterly. Unwilling, or unable, to thoroughly
investigate personally the subject of his work,
he has contented himself with taking Mr.

[ 252 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

Ingram’s recent ‘Memoir’ of Poe as the basis
and main source of his compilation, added
several pages from Mrs. Whitman’s book, a
few untrustworthy data from an old sketch
by Mr. Stoddard, interlarded some irretriev-
ably vulgar anecdotes, and concluding with a
republication of the threadbare ‘Memorial
Ceremonies’ of 1875, entitles the collection
‘the first complete life of Edgar Poe yet pub-
lished.’

“Could he have seen our recent review of
Mr. Didier’s volume, he would, doubtless, have
deferred publication of his book until he had
corrected some of the many preposterous er-
tors with which it abounds. His most glaring
fault is his want of knowledge of the subject
he is writing upon; in reprinting quotations
from the writers, whose works he makes so
free with, he almost. invariably betrays the
fact that, instead of referring to the original
source, he is citing at second-hand. He con-
tinually indulges in long verbatim or slightly
altered excerpts from his predecessors, without
affording the least acknowledgment of his in-
debtedness; and whenever he does confessedly
quote, he nearly always fathers the quotation
upon the wrong person. . . . Mr. Ingram’s
‘Memoir’ is followed with blind reverence, al-
though, of course, without acknowledgment,
and the consequences are often quite laugh-
able. . . . Mr. Gill’s errata and blunders would

[ 253 .]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

require several pages of the Atheneum to set
forth.” The article closes with a list of some of
these errors.

This critique was reprinted in the Boston
Herald on October 28, and to this onslaught
Mr. Gill replied in the same paper on Novem-
ber 11, not softening his epithets or mincing
his words.

He began by noting the fact that Mr. Ingram
was an attaché of the London Atheneum, which
must explain its present attitude, asserting:
“This Mr. Ingram, like Mark Meddle in Lon-
don Assurance, courts notoriety, and, having
failed to enlist any attention in his memoir of
Poe, has, since its publication, groped among
the outskirts of the literary circles, with his
shoulders laden to his ears with chips, craving,
like Meddle, a blow or a kick. Nearly two years
ago (Feb. 1876) he got what he had for some
time desired in this way, in a letter published
by me in the London Atheneum, and copied
here in the New York Evening Post and other
journals... .”

Mr. Gill then goes on to protest against
the duplicity of Ingram in securing from Mrs.
Whitman the use of letters previously placed
in his hands, and prints extracts from two of
Mrs. Whitman’s letters asking for the return
of matter which she wished to show to the
Englishman. He resents the fact that Ingram
has taken steps to put his “Memoir” before the

[ 254 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

American public, after having given him to
understand that his work would never con-
flict with his own. He acknowledges that there
are some errors in his work, but declares that
they are not those suggested by the Atheneum;
such as they are, he announces, will shortly
be corrected in his new edition about to appear.
He says: “Mr. Ingram, probably aware that
my ‘Life’ is to be republished in England, and
sensible of the effect that its disclosure of the
unreliability of his memoir will produce, took
the only available means of modifying this
unpleasant effect by animadverting upon the
trustworthiness of my biography in the columns
of the journal to which he is attached. . . . In
conclusion permit me to state that Mr. In-
gram’s memoir, which the Atheneum accuses
me of ‘blindly following’ is comprised in 99 12
mo. pages, while my ‘Life’ also a 12mo. con-
tains 315 pages.”

“Dr. Johnson has said that he never knew
that he had succeeded ‘until he felt the re-
bound.’ According to this test Mr. Ingram has
paid my ‘Life’ a compliment by his virulent
attack which should compensate for the bad
temper brought to it.”

This retort from Gill called forth another
regretful protest from Mrs. Whitman, who
keenly felt the unnecessary publicity given to
her private correspondence. In addition to her
own failing health, the recent death of her

[ 255 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

sister was a source of great sorrow to her, and
the bitter controversies indulged in by the
literary men with whom she had hoped to
work out such admirable tributes to Poe’s
memory told heavily upon her slender reserve
of strength.

By this time she had discovered that, how-
ever different the opinions of Poe’s biographers
might be in regard to their subject, they were
of one mind in their supreme disdain for one
another.

Having recorded Ingram’s opinion of Gill and
Didier, and Gill’s opinion of his English rival,
it may be interesting to learn something more
of Didier’s views concerning the other two.

Of Ingram, Didier writes: ‘Every school-
boy knows who discovered America, but many
intelligent men and women do not know who
‘discovered’ Edgar A. Poe. Some years ago
an obscure Englishman claimed to have dis-
covered Poe and made him known to the
American people. Not only did this obscure
Englishman claim to have introduced Poe to
American readers, but he attempted to be-
little and read out of court all Americans who
presumed to write about their own country-
man. But while attempting to undervalue
their work, he did not hesitate to appropriate,—
I like a gentle word,—their material. I was a
student of Poe’s life and works before this
presumptuous Englishman had emerged from

[ 256 ]
 

RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS

 

his original obscurity. . . . I confess I have
been astonished at what I have heard regard-
ing the peculiar methods this ‘Discoverer’ has
used in adding to his Poeana.” Didier then
charges Ingram with having failed to return
to their owners some of the poems and original
MSS. which they allowed him to have in his
possession while his work was being’ produced.

Having freely expressed himself regarding
Ingram, Didier voices his admiration for Gill’s
production: ‘‘We regret that we cannot truth-
fully praise Mr. Gill’s literary style. . . . Mr.
Gill’s grammar is not always as Czsar’s wife
was required to be, above suspicion. . . . Mr.
Gill devotes the greater part of his appen-
dix to an account of the proceeding attending
the unveiling of the Poe Monument in Balti-
more in November, 1875. We must condemn
his bad taste in quoting from the contemporary
account of the ceremonial such passages as
these: ‘Mr. William F. Gill, who has done
much by his written vindication of the poet’s
memory to remove false impressions, gave the
finest rendition of ‘‘The Raven” to which we
have ever listened. The large ‘audience was
spellbound by his perfect elocution, and his
resemblance to the recognized ideals of Mr.
Poe himself made the personation of his horror
and despair almost painful.’”’ To this Didier
adds: “We were present on this occasion, but
we saw no person ‘spellbound.’ We have seen

[ 257 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

every likeness of Poe extant, but we fail to
discover any resemblance between the author
of ‘The Raven’ and Mr. Gill. Gill set out
with fixed determination to whiten Poe and
blacken Griswold. Like the famous La Mancha,
he attacked all obstructions which stood in
the way, and the result has been that those
who knew Poe will scarcely recognize him as
painted by Mr. Gill.”

In her alliance with the biographers whose
work she believed would exonerate Poe from
the injustice which had been done him, Mrs.
Whitman had doubtless pictured herself as
happily associated with a set of idealists, who,
like herself, cherished one precious aim. Ex-
perience taught her that even the best-inten-
tioned literary craftsmen are subject to human
frailties, and may be governed by personal
interest, swayed by small animosities, and in-
fluenced by commercial considerations.

Yet she has left behind her no record of
having ever regretted the expenditure of time
and strength which she bestowed upon a cause
so dear to her.

[ 258 ]
CHAPTER XIV
STEPHANE MALLARME

T has been said that a most fitting es-
cutcheon for Poe might have been the crest
of Scott’s templar, Bois-Guilbert, a raven

in full flight, holding in its claws a skull, and
bearing the motto—“Gare le Corbeau.”

However suitable this crest might be pro-
nounced for the author of “The Raven,” one
would have questioned its appropriateness for
the gentle Rhode Island poetess, whose re-
sponse to the famous poem had first brought
her into touch with its author. Yet it was
“a raven in full flight” that Mallarmé chose
to send to this lady in the form of a strikingly
effective book-plate, which she afterward cher-
ished among her literary treasures.

It is true that this raven, executed by Manet’s
brush, held no skull in its claws, but instead
bore a complimentary inscription from Mal-
larmé, who had some time before opened a
correspondence with Mrs. Whitman.

The association with Mallarmé formed one
of the most interesting links in the chain of
events which connected Mrs. Whitman with
Poe. The Frenchman, who was born in 1842,

[ 259 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

was, like Ingram, some forty years the junior
of his friend in Providence, at the time of his
correspondence with her and his translation
of Poe’s poetic works.

Ingram had written Mrs. Whitman, early
in 1876, regarding the translation of Poe’s
poems, on which the Frenchman was then at
work and had described the illustrated edi-
tion of “Le Corbeau”’ which had been pre-
viously published. He had suggested that
Mallarmé was anxious to make her acquain-
tance, and was about to write to her. Ere long
the Frenchman’s first letter arrived, and some
time after the opening of this correspondence
Mrs. Whitman wrote Ingram:

“T had on the 28th. inst. an exquisitely
beautiful letter from Mallarmé, who is in
truth a ‘prose poet’ in his letters. He says
beautiful things about you. He has now made
the acquaintance of three of my friends. Our
Rose (Peckham), Mrs. Louise Chandler Moul-
ton and Walter F. Brown, one of our young
Providentials; so that we are getting well ac-
quainted. He is to send his ‘Raven’ by Mrs.
Moulton who is returning in February.”

As has been pointed out, “‘ The Raven’s” pop-
ularity was not confined to this side of the
water; its weird fascination was exercised in
many foreign lands, where curious transla-
tions and parodies were constantly appearing,
and already Ingram was planning a compila-

[ 260 ]
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tion of ‘Raven’ literature, a project which
he later carried out; the little volume on “The
Raven” and its poetic progeny proving a most
amusing literary curiosity.

This poem, for which Poe received ten dol-
lars, may be viewed as a unique example of
increased valuation, for forty years after its
publication, the owner of the original manu-
script rated his literary property (said to be
the most popular lyric in the world) at ten
thousand dollars.

Mallarmé’s interest in Poe had led him to
make a literal, unrhymed translation of “The
Raven,” which had been most strikingly il-
lustrated by Edouard Manet, the great painter
of the Impressionist School. And although the
structure of the poem makes its rendition into
French exceedingly difficult, yet Mallarmeé’s
translation promptly became a favorite with his
countrymen.

When he was in his early twenties, Mal-
larmé spent considerable time in England,
becoming so proficient in the language of that
country that on his return to France he was
prepared to accept the chair of English at the
Lycée Fontanes, in Paris, which he continued
to occupy for many years.

Despite his proficiency in English, his cor-
respondence with Mrs. Whitman was carried
on entirely in French.

Mallarmé’s first letter follows:

[ 261 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

87 Rue de Rome,
Paris, April 4, 1876.
MaApaMeE:

I do not know if this letter will precede or
follow by a few days the arrival in Rhode
Island of a copy of “Le Corbeau,” that my
collaborateur, Manet, and myself have felt it
not less a duty than a pleasure to offer you.

Whatever is done to honor the memory of
a genius the most truly divine the world has
seen, ought it not at first to obtain your sanc-
tion?

Such of Poe’s works as our great Baudelaire
has left untranslated, that is to say, the poems
and many of the critical fragments, I hope to
make known to France, and my first attempt
of which you will receive a specimen, is in-
tended to attract attention to a future work,
now nearly completed.

I trust that the attempt will meet your ap-
proval, but no possible success of my design
in the future could cause you, madame, a
satisfaction equal to the joy, vivid and pro-
found and absolute, one of the best that my
literary life has yet procured for me—caused
by a fragment kindly sent me by M. Ingram
from one of your letters in which you express
a wish to see a copy of our “Corbeau.”

Not only in space, which is nothing, but in
time, made up for each of us of the hours we
deem most worthy of remembrance, your wish

[ 262 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

seemed to come to me from so far! and to
bring with it the most delicious return of long
cherished memories ever experienced by me,
for, fascinated with the works of Poe from my
infancy, it is already a very long time since
your name became associated with his in my
earliest and most intimate sympathies.

Receive madame this expression of my
gratitude such as your poetique soul may
comprehend, for it is my inmost heart which
thanks you,

STEPHANE MaLiarMe.

About this time Mallarmé became interested
in the Poe memorial volume, which was being
compiled in Baltimore, and declared his in-
tention of contributing to it. He also expressed
his desire to dedicate his translation of Poe’s
poems to Mrs. Whitman. He wrote:

“T shall contribute to the memorial volume
that your compatriots are about to publish,
two sonnets by one of my confreres and my-
self, as also some admirable pages of Baude-
laire, and finally a portrait of Poe copied by
Manet from one which Ingram has just pub-
lished. I propose, either this winter or in the
spring, or later, to publish a complete transla-
tion of the poems. Pardon these details they
are associated with a request I have to make
of you. It is that you will permit me to dedicate
this translation to you.

[ 263 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

“Do not refuse me that which I regard as
a duty now that I know you and that it has
become possible to me. Above all when I tell you
that it was one of my earliest aspirations and
that I would even then have ventured to do it
without having the happiness of knowing you.”

A month later he writes expressing his
gratitude for the interpretation of the poem
“Ulalume,” which she has sent him with its
history as she had gleaned it from her con-
versations with Poe.

“My first thought has been that I should
have to-day translated for the first time the
lines ‘To Helen.’ It seemed to me that I should
do better in knowing the subject, ah! let me
take your hand.

“Perhaps since the evil is done, and my trans-
lation of this divine poem dates from the epoch
when I translated the others, I may inquire if
you have already seen the publication that I
have made of it in one of our Reviews? The
dedication and the preface will come afterward.”

Mallarmé’s first letter not only “preceded”
the arrival of the “Corbeau,” but did so by
several months; the illustrated poem was not
consigned to Mrs. Moulton’s care as had been
suggested, but was forwarded by mail, and
by some accident it disappeared during its
transatlantic flight. In November, Mrs. Whit-
man writes concerning the coming of a second

[ 264 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

copy of the ill-fated book (which was really in
the form of a portfolio, with its illustrations
in large separate sheets, a gift which could
not have been easily overlooked in a package
of mail).

“How can I thank you for your beautiful
letter and for your generous intention of send-
ing me another ‘Corbeau.’ I am so sorry that
our ‘ebony bird’ should have caused you so
much trouble; for aught we know it may be
still wandering to and fro over the waste of
waters like the raven which Noah sent forth
from the window of his ark and which seems
to have returned ‘nevermore.’

“Yet I cannot altogether regret the loss of
this ominous bird since you say it caused your
thoughts more frequently to wing their way
across the ocean toward the haven to which
it was destined. Nor need IJ tell you how grate-
fully I shall receive from you the dedication
of your proposed volume of the translated
poems. Mr. Ingram has promised to send me
a copy of the République des Lettres, containing
your translation of the one ‘To Helen.’ Have
you not made a translation of ‘Ulalume’ ?”

It may be of interest to quote a brief extract
from the translation of ‘To Helen,” the poem
beginning, “I saw thee once, once only,” etc.

Je te vis une fois—une seule fois—il-y-a-des
années: combien, je ne le dois pas dire, mais

[ 265 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

peu. C’était un minuit de Juillet; et hors du
plein orbe d’une lune qui, comme ton Ame
méme s’élevant, se frayait un chemin précipité
au haut du ciel, tombait de soie et argenté un
voile de lumiére, avec quiétude et chaud acca-
blement et sommeil, sur les figures levées de
mille roses qui croissaient dans un jardin en-
chanté, ot nul vent n’osait bouger, si ce n’est
sur la pointe des pieds;—il tombait sur les
figures levées de ces roses qui renderaient, en
retour de la lumiére d’amour, leurs odorantes
ames en une mort extatique;—il tombait sur
les figures souriaient et mouraient en ce parterre
enchanté—par toi et par la poésie de ta présence.
Tout de blanc habillée, sur un banc de violette,
je te vis 4 demi-gisante, tandis que la lune, tom-
bait sur les figures levées de ces roses, et sur ta
tienne méme, levée, hélas! dans le chagrin.

Mrs. Whitman’s reference to La République
des Lettres, which contained the Frenchman’s
translation of Poe’s (second) poem “To Helen,”
recalls the fact that this publication was the
organ of the new school of which Mallarmé
was one of the principal exponents. This was
called the school of the Impressionists and had
reacted against the Romantic school, which
had for many years dominated the world of
letters in France. Mallarmé realized that the
field of French poetry had become so con-
ventionalized that all life and originality were

[ 266 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

dying out of it and he desired “‘to refresh the
languid current of French style.”

This he succeeded in doing, and even his
pupils, who pushed his theories too far, did
much to give spontaneity and beauty to a
national poetry that was becoming flat and
tame.

La République des Lettres, which Mallarmé
established, was later placed under the direc-
tion of Catulle Mendés, the dramatist. This
Review touched lightly upon politics and the
arts, and published tales, poems, and plays
of those interested in this new movement.
Ivan Turgeneff was one of its leaders, and some
of his finest work appeared in this organ.
Alphonse Daudet, Zola, Léon Cladel, and
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt were among
other contributors.

As atranslator Mallarmé holds a pre-eminent
place, and his rendering of Poe’s poems into
French is considered a masterly accomplish-
ment. Edmund Gosse says of it: “Each verse
is in simple prose, but so full, so reserved, so
suavely mellifluous, that the metre and the
rhymes continue to sing in an English ear.”

Yet this same critic owns that while Mal-
larmé ever delights him, he cannot always
understand his work, and in reference to his
sonnet on the “Tomb of Poe,” he declares:
“T have read it over and over. I am very stupid
but I cannot tell what it says.”

[ 267 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

One needs only to study this poem in the
original, to realize that Mrs. Whitman’s task
as translator was no easy one, although the
critics have pronounced this sonnet one of
Mallarmé’s most perfect productions:

Tel qu’en Lui-méme enfin |’éternité le change,
Le Poéte suscite avec un glaive nu

Son siécle €pouvanté de n’avoir pas connu

Que la Mort triomphait dans cette voix étrange:

Eux comme un vil sursaut d’hydra oyant jadis l’ange
Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu,
Proclamérent trés-haut le sortilége bu

Dans le flot sans honneur de quelque noir mélange.

Du sol et de la nue hostiles 6 grief!
Si notre idée avec ne sculpte un bas-relief
Dont la tombe de Poe éblouissante s’orne.

Calme bloc ici-bas chu d’un désastre obscur;
Que ce granit du moins montre 4 jamais sa borne
Aux noirs vols du Blasphéme épars dans le futur.

When Mrs. Whitman undertook the trans-
lation of this sonnet, Mallarmé, with a gallant
desire to aid her, forwarded his own literal
rendering of his poem into English, which is
a document well worthy of preservation.

Mallarmé’s literal translation:

Such as into himself at last Eternity changes him,
The Poet arouses with a naked! hymn

His century overawed not to have known

That death extolled itself in this? strange voice:

[ 268 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

But, in a vile writhing of an hydra, (they) once hearing
the Angel’

To give! too pure a meaning to the words of the tribe,

They (between themselves) thought (by him) the spell
drunk

In the honourless flood of some dark mixture.®

Of the soil and the ether (which are) enemies, O struggle!
If with it my idea does not carve a bas-relief

Of which Poe’s dazzling® tomb be adorned,

(A) Stern block here fallen from a mysterious disaster,
Let this granite at least show forever their bound

To the old flights of Blasphemy (still) spread in the fu-

 

ture.”

1naked hymn means when the words take in death their abso-
lute value.

2 this “his own.

3 the Angel “the above said Poet.

4 to give “giving.

5 «in plain prose—charged him with always
being drunk.

6 dazzling «with the idea of such a bas-relief.

7 Blasphemy “* against Poets, such as the charge of Poe

being drunk.
Mrs. Whitman’s translation follows:

THE TOMB OF EDGAR POE

Even as Eternity his soul reclaimed,
The poet’s song ascended in a strain
So pure, the astonished age that had defamed,
Saw death transformed in that divine refrain.*

While writhing coils of hydra-headed wrong,
Listening, and wondering at that heavenly song,
* “ Annabel Lee.”

[ 269 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

Deemed they had drank of some foul mixture brewed
In Circe’s maddening cup, with sorcery inbued.

Alas! if from an alien to his clime,

No bas-relief may grace that font sublime,
Stern block, in some obscure disaster hurled
From the rent heart of a primeval world,

Through storied centuries thou shalt proudly stand

In the memorial city of his land,

A silent monitor, austere and gray,

To warn the clamorous brood of harpies from their prey.

Whatever may be the verdict regarding the
success of Mrs. Whitman’s translation, it is
certain that Mallarmé’s serious attempt to
aid her by his literal rendering of his sonnet
with its instructive notes, is as amusing a bit
of memorabilia as one often discovers, and a
little study of the problem which it presents
gives an admirable idea to the uninitiated of
the task which often confronts the translator.

The final flight of Mallarmé’s Raven took
place early in January, 1877, at which time the
Frenchman wrote: “‘The publisher assures me
that you will have been in possession of the
‘ Raven some days when this reaches you, and
although I trust that a letter from you will
confirm my hope, a little dubious in this re-
spect (lest the sombre bird should have aban-
doned himself to some new fantasie of flight
and disappearance?) I have so much to thank
you for that I will anticipate your answer,
perhaps even now on the way to me.”

[ 270 |]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

Mallarmé thanks Mrs. Whitman for sending
him by Mr. Walter Francis Brown of Provi-
dence a copy of “Edgar Poe and His Critics,”’
with which he is exceedingly delighted.

Mrs. Whitman’s note of introduction penned
to the Frenchman at the time of Mr. Brown’s
departure, illustrates her graceful manner of
writing presentation missives; she says: “Mr.
Walter F. Brown, a young artist of our city,
will hand you this note. He is on the wing for
Paris, that paradisal city where, as one of our
humorists says, ‘All good Americans hope to go
when they die.’ Mr. Brown is not dead. On the
contrary, he trusts to spend the winter there in
preparing himself for immortality.

“T know that he will have great pleasure in
making your acquaintance, and that the plea-
sure will be a reciprocal one.”

Early in February, 1877, Mrs. Whitman writes
of the arrival of the long-delayed ‘‘Raven”’:

“T have so many things to thank you for!

“Since I wrote you the ‘Corbeau’ has become
my room-mate, my fireside companion—a
presence as real to me as any dream while you
are dreaming it. Two of the etchings illustrate
the walls of my boudoir; one, where he is seen
swooping down over the roofs of the towered
city toward the open window of the poet, and
the other where he sits enthroned in shadows
on the bust of Pallas. These are wonderfully
unique and impressive. As for the one where

[ 271 ]
 

POE’S HELEN

 

we see of the Raven only what purports to be
‘his shadow on the floor,’ it is so far out of the
range of my appreciation that I hardly know
where to class it. Entre nous I should like to
do with it what the Greeks did with their
honored dead, 1e., cremate it. Would the new
school of artists ever forgive me?”

Manet’s illustrations, done, it has been said,
in his most “intimidating” style, are startling
productions. A glance at some of them reveals
strange blotches of black ink apparently with-
out form or- meaning, but presently what has
seemed merely’a splash of ink proves to be a
grotesque vision which takes hold on the imag-
ination with a haunting persistency.

Mallarmé’s unrhymed translation of “The
Raven,” to which these pictures formed so
startling an accompaniment is considered a
remarkable piece of work from which it may be
of interest to quote a couple of stanzas:

Une fois, par un minuit lugubre, tandis que
je m’appesantissais, faible et fatigué, sur maint
curieux et bizarre volume de savoir oublié—
tandis que je dodelinais la téte, somnolent
presque: soudain se fit un heurt, comme de
quelqu’un frappant doucement, frappant a la
porte de ma chambre—cela seul et rien de plus.

Prophéte, dis-je, étre de malheur! prophéete,
oul, oiseau ou demon! Que si le Tentateur

{ 272 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

t’envoya ou la tempéte t’échoua vers ces bords,
désolé et encore tout indompté, vers cette dé-
serte terre enchantée—vers ce logis par l’horreur
hanté: dis-mois véritablement, je t’implore.
“Y a-t-il du baume en Judée ?—dis-moi, je t’
implore!’? Le Corbeau dit: “ Jamais plus.”

Mrs. Whitman’s letter concerning this pro-
duction closes with the words:

“Your translation is wonderfully true. I am a
little in doubt about the translation of the words
(stock and store) by the word bagage. To the
English reader it ‘suggests’ something perhaps
a little too palpable and tangible n’est ce pas?

“Your ‘Vathek’ has also arrived and was
to me a delightful surprise. I have read your
preface with strange interest. It reopens many
questions long unanswered. It is indeed a
treasure. I do not know where Poe has spoken
of Beckford, but I am sure that he has often
either written or spoken of him. His ‘Domain
of Arnheim,’ in which he speaks of Fonthill
was apparently suggested by it. On the margin
of a magazine containing this story sent me
by Poe before its publication in a vol., he wrote:
‘this story contains more of myself and of my
inherent tastes and habits of thought than
anything I have written.’ ”

Mallarmé’s reprint of Beckford’s ‘‘Vathek,”
to which he wrote the introduction above re-
ferred to, was among his early publications, as

[ 273 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

was his poem “L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune,”
which, though ridiculed at the time of its ap-
pearance in the early seventies, and called
“a miracle of unintelligibility,” has taken its
place among the French classics—and_ to-day
the bibliophiles vie with each other to obtain
copies of these two publications.

For years Mallarmé, champion of the Im-
pressionists, was scoffed at in France and
elsewhere, but he kept on his way with absolute
indifference to outside criticism, and gradually
a great change came about in public opinion.

Those that visited his salon were convinced
that it was the one vital force operating in
the literary world of Paris. Renan was lec-
turing at the Sorbonne, while Mallarmé was
rolling cigarettes and talking nonchalantly to
visitors at his own fireside. His guests were
not deterred by the fact that they must
climb up four flights of stairs to reach him,
but flocked to his abode. There he appeared
arrayed in his working clothes, for his recep-
tions were for men only; he opened the door
himself, and ushered his guests into his modest
apartment which was generally filled to over-
flowing with the rising artists and men of let-
ters of the day.

In this sanctum conversation was carried on
in the most simple and direct manner, for affec-
tation shrank out of sight before Mallarmé’s
absolute sincerity.

[ 274 ]
 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

Talkers who had come to hear themselves
speak, suddenly discovered that there was no
chance to exploit themselves here: if they
started “brilliant” conversation no response
came from the others present, and they soon
realized that this circle had gathered to listen
to Mallarmé alone; it was a place of silence and
tranquillity, the only place in Paris, it was
said, where long intervals of quiet could pre-
vail without seeming awkwardness. And in
these marvellous intervals Mallarmé was like
a presiding Quaker at a Quaker meeting; the
guests did not talk among themselves nor did
they try to make him speak, they merely
waited for him to do so; as one by one the
subjects near to the thoughts and interests of
all arose, the presiding genius discoursed easily
and delightfully upon the various topics which
he knew how to make both helpful and inspir-
ing to his fellow craftsmen.

In that atmosphere one could indeed take
what Mallarmé called “an exquisite vacation
from oneself.”

Apart from his receptions and from his de-
light in the drama, and in witnessing beauti-
ful dancing, Mallarmé’s especial recreation was
found in slipping away to his boat and gliding
out over the water. In his enjoyment of this
favorite pastime he seems to have resembled
the English poet and tanslator Fitzgerald, who
loved his boating in the same way, and to

[ 275 ]
 

POE'S HELEN

 

whom a sailing breeze was more tempting
than a pot of gold.

In the year 1896, Mallarmé was paid one
of the highest honors that: his country could
bestow; he was named “ Poéte des Poétes,” by
acclaim of all the poets in France. It was an
election at which almost every Frenchman of
letters voted. Then for two years prior to his
death he lived in the full blaze of fame, being
regarded as the most conspicuous man of letters
in France. Pilgrims visited him as they did
Victor Hugo, and his Tuesdays, which had
meant so much to the younger writers of
France, became renowned throughout the lit-
erary world.

Mallarmé’s influence in the world of letters
has been very great; he evolved a new theory
of French verse, and many claim that he was
the father of vers libre, despite the fact that
while he stood for a new freedom he took no
liberty with long-standing laws.

Yet it is true that his translations of Poe
set the pace for the new school from which
the exponents of vers libre assuredly derive
their inspiration.

He believed that “‘words are precious stones,
and should be so set as to flash and radiate
from the page.” And of his use of words Ed-
mund Gosse has declared: “language was
given him to conceal definite thought; to draw
the eye away from the object, he aims at il-

[ 276 ]
 

 

STEPHANE MALLARME

 

lusion, and wraps mystery around his simplest
utterance.”

He was a dreamer of dreams and a con-
veyer of impressions instead of information;
his words were suggestive rather than de-
scriptive. Mallarmé’s family had been devoted
to the service of France for many generations,
and in the same spirit, he worked always for
his cause and never for himself.

He died in 1898, after a life devoted to
letters, yet he left only enough poems to make
one small volume; a single volume of prose, a
few pamphlets, and the prose translation of
the poems of Poe. Among these are, however,
some masterpieces of verse and prose.

Arthur Symons said of him: “Mallarmé was
one of those who love literature too much to
write it, except by fragments, in whom the
desire for perfection brings its own defeat.”

He stood out against the ultra-realistic
school, and headed the revolt against Zola,
asserting his principle that “‘to name is to de-
stroy, to suggest is to create.”

He was an early defender of Wagner, and
fought for Manet, Rodin, and Degas, when
all were against them. He introduced Maeter-
linck to fame. He was the head of the Sym-
bolists, and it was due to Mallarmé that
Whistler’s masterpiece, the portrait of his
mother, found a home in the Luxembourg.

Mallarmé’s portrait was painted by both

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Whistler and Manet, two close friends, who
had found in him adequate appreciation at a
time when the public had not learned to prize
their worth.

Two years after Mrs. Whitman’s death,
the Arnold portrait, by which alone she pre-
ferred to be remembered, was reproduced and
copies sent to intimate friends by Mrs. Albert
Dailey. One of these pictures was forwarded
to Mallarmé, who expressed his pleasure and
appreciation to Mrs, Dailey on October 28,
1880. He wrote:

Mapam:

I have been touched as well as made happy
by your sending the portrait of Mrs. Whit-
man.

It is a true act of devotion on your part
to have thus perpetuated the expressive fea-
tures which you have so often looked upon,
and which I could but imagine.

But I must first of all thank you for having
thought of me in the bestowal of the precious
token, and of having (just as she whom we
mourn condescended to do in her life-time)
treated me as a friend of this noble woman;
a friend who will now be yours madam if you
are willing.

I am pleased to summon from the past,
while reflecting upon the beautiful and gifted
one recalled by the image which you have

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STEPHANE MALLARME

 

given me, the lines of the poet To Helen of a
night.

How daring an ambition! yet how deep—
How fathomless a capacity for love!

Thank you for all these recollections once
more revived by your kindness madam; and
believe me,

Your grateful and devoted
STEPHANE MALLARME.

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CHAPTER XV
MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

RS. WHITMAN’S last years were spent
M in the city of her birth, where she had

passed almost her entire life. Returning
to Providence as a young widow in 1833, she
had left the city, only for brief trips to Bos-
ton, New York, or Washington, except for
her European tour in 1857.

Time touched her with a gentle finger, and
as her contemporaries one by one dropped
away, she drew about her a circle of young
people to whom she contributed much of
friendly criticism and literary inspiration; she
was free from all petty judgments, and no be-
littling gossip ever passed her lips. Retaining
her enthusiasm and interest in all that was
taking place about her, she was always ready
to welcome new thoughts and to foster the
bright hopes of a rising generation.

Her keen interest in spiritualistic phenom-
ena, and her firm belief in the nearness of the
spiritual world, seemed to surround her with
an unworldly air and kept her in a certain
poetical atmosphere which belonged to herself
alone.

A brief description of Mrs. Whitman’s home
during her final years has been given by Pro-

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

fessor William Whitman Bailey, whose asso-
ciations were with the house on Benevolent
Street, and not with that on Benefit Street
with which she is usually associated.

“Her sitting-room was at the left of the
front door as one entered, and there the lights
were always turned down. Bits of drapery
hung about, gave a weird and sombre aspect
to the apartment. Mrs. Whitman always wore
a veil in doors. I think it was in this room that
there hung a large portrait of Poe... .
Her other pictures some of which were given
by artist friends of whom she had many, were
of varying merit. Whether good or not, she
exalted all, placing the artist’s intention far
above any conceivable execution. Her imagina-
tion could transform the veriest cheap chromo
into a masterpiece. She had a trick of inverting
her lamp shades so that a flood of light would
be thrown upon and suffuse some particular
painting or print, leaving the rest of the room
in darkness. .. .

“She would indeed poke good-humored fun
at her best friends, or most treasured beliefs,
meaning no harm, and expecting the same
treatment of herself. Like Hood, Lamb, Holmes,
Thackeray and others she loved a pun, but
to have it passible, it must be very good. . . .

“T have never known any one with so lively
a fancy. We were always passing literary squibs
between us....1 met her one spring day on

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Benefit Street, she was walking abstractedly as
she was wont to do, till I accosted her, then
she at once brightened up; I had just returned
flower-laden from the woods, in passing I
handed her some sprigs of trailing-arbutus.
I can see her now as she tripped off with her
peculiar springy step. She always. appeared
when on the street as if wrapped in medita-
tion. Next day she had acknowledged the gift
by a graceful poem in the Journal.

“She always was youthful in feeling though
then seventy years of age.... Her youth
was a characteristic feature, not beiiied: but
an ever-present charm, spontaneous and most
delightful. One never realized that she was an
old lady. ... She had a rare devotion to
youth of either sex. I think their earnestness and
hope appealed to her. . . . The life of the artist
appealed to her. She certainly loved Bohemians,
even if they lived as she did, from hand to
mouth. It was certainly wonderful and pitiful
to know upon how little she and Miss Power
could exist. They kept no cook or maid, and
ate like the gods when there was food, not
always nectar and ambrosia, and when they
felt like it. Her affection for her sister, so long
afflicted, was most tender and pathetic, and
to me always recalled the relation of Charles
and Mary Lamb.”

Mrs. Whitman’s eye for nature was extraor-
dinarily acute and any one who accompanied

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GdIG NFNLIHAM ‘SYN TITHA “JONICIAOAd ‘ATINVA ATIF FHL JO INO

 

 
 

MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

her on her walks was expected to share in her
process of minute observation. One of her
friends asserted that “not a tint of the sky,
the meadow, the river, the wood escaped her;
no flower was too small to be seen by her, and
all her glances, like those of Thoreau, were
discoveries.”

As the eccentricities of her sister Anna in-
creased with advancing age, Mrs. Whitman
withdrew more and more from general society,
adapting her life in every way to suit the
other’s demands and needs. She had for years
felt convinced that Anna would survive her,
and had in consequence practised the most
rigid economy in order that she might leave
the helpless sister provided for.

When, at last, the younger woman, to whose
welfare she had dedicated the greater part of
her life, passed on, Mrs. Whitman, then seven-
ty-four years of age, was left entirely alone
and seemingly in need, not only of care and
affection but of the necessities of life. Then it
was that Mrs. Albert Dailey, who had for years
cherished a warm friendship for her, insisted
that she should become a member of her own
household. This invitation Mrs. Whitman ac-
cepted gladly, making it later clear to these
friends that she still possessed a sufficient in-
come to amply defray any financial indebted-
ness.

On the 27th of June, 1878, less than a year

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POE'S HELEN

 

after the death of her sister, Mrs. Whitman
passed peacefully away at the home of these
kind friends, where the last months of her
life had been surrounded with every comfort.
There she had been free to see and entertain
her friends, had found a resting-place for her
own household treasures, and had been tended
faithfully by the daughters of the house, who
had bestowed upon her the same affection that
would have been vouchsafed a member of their
own family.

To the elder daughter, Miss Charlotte Field
Dailey, who especially devoted herself to the
elderly guest, and who watched over her when
she breathed her last, Mrs. Whitman took
pleasure in recounting the interesting story of
those past years so filled with memories of the
distinguished men and women of her time.
Gazing at her favorite picture of Poe upon
the wall of her room, she frequently recalled
the varied associations linked with the poet’s
tragic career.

During her last months Mrs. Whitman em-
ployed her remaining strength in preparing
her collected poems for publication, and in
going through the mass of correspondence
which she had preserved; day after day she
busied herself in destroying countless letters
which she felt would be of no value in the
compilation of the memoir which she believed
would soon be forthcoming.

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

A few months after Mrs. Whitman’s death,
a revised and enlarged collection of her poems
was published, containing an introduction by
her literary executor, Doctor William F. Chan-
ning. In this volume are included all the poems
relating to Edgar Poe, some sixteen in number.
Mrs. Whitman’s first book of verse appeared
in 1853, when it received a warm welcome
from both critics and public; it was entitled
“Hours of Life, and Other Poems.”

After the death of Doctor Channing, Mrs.
Whitman’s literary remains were consigned to
the care of Miss Dailey, who, with her sister
Mrs. Henry R. Chace, discharged the task of
going through the entire correspondence and
noting its contents. Later, these ladies ren-
dered material assistance to Professor Harri-
son in his work of editing Poe’s writings and
of preparing his Life.

Except for the publication of “Edgar Poe
and His Critics,” in 1860, Mrs. Whitman
brought out no other book, although through-
out her life she was a constant contributor of
both prose and verse, to the periodicals of the
day, as well as a correspondent for the New
York Tribune and the Providence Journal.

The popular idea that Mrs. Whitman’s
claim to literary immortality rests solely upon
the foundation of her brief engagement to
Poe, and her association with his memory,
vanishes in the light of the knowledge of her

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POE'S HELEN

 

own attainments and of the genuine title to
remembrance which she won for herself.

Mrs. Whitman’s Celtic strain of romance
and her ever-ready wit were doubtless an in-
heritance from her father Nicholas Power,
who claimed descent from that Nicholas le
Poer, whose castle Don Isle was one of the
first to fall under Cromwell’s hand. (And in
memory of this romantic episode the pet
name “Don Isle” was bestowed on Mrs. Whit-
man by Mrs. Dailey.) From her mother, whose
strong and steadfast character is stamped up-
on the pictures that remain of her, she prob-
ably inherited her independent mental attitude,
liberal religious outlook and also that well-
balanced mind which held in check the purely
romantic and sentimental in her nature which
must else have predominated too strongly.

Mrs. Whitman early developed an aptitude
for literature and language, and her attain-
ments soon far surpassed those of the average
young women of her day. Her fondness for the
classics is evident to all who scrutinize her
works both of prose and verse. To her knowl-
edge of French and Italian she added a per-
fect facility in reading German and Spanish,
an equipment which prepared her to exercise
her critical faculty in estimating the produc-
tions of foreign writers.

She acknowledged that Dante had been a
very strong influence in her literary life, as

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

his presentment of the allegory of humanity
amid the mystic scenes of the supernatural
had powerfully affected her imagination. And
she especially reflects this influence in her
long poem entitled “Hours of Life.” This and
many of her sonnets, which she looked upon
as her more important contributions to the
field of poetry, are to-day little known, while
some of her fugitive poems, in which she has
revealed her love of nature with much grace
and charm, will continue to hold their place
among this nation’s best work. It is hard to
find anything lovelier than “A Still Day in
Autumn,” which was set to music by Henry
Wilson, and, under the title of “Autumn,”

became one of the favorite songs of its day.
From this poem three stanzas are quoted:

I love to wander through the woodlands hoary,
In the soft gloom of an autumnal day,

When summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And like a dream of beauty, glides away.

How through each loved familiar path she lingers,
Serenely smiling through the golden mist,

Tinting the wild grapes with her dewy fingers,
Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst;

Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining

To light the gloom of Autumn’s mouldering halls;
With hoary plumes the clematis entwining,
Where, o’er the rock, her withered garland falls.

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POE’S HELEN

 

That even in the last months of failing
health Mrs. Whitman’s intellectual powers
knew no abatement is evinced in her last
poem “In Memoriam,” written in memory
of her sister in April, 1878, only two months
before her own death.

During these last months, which were also
the first months of freedom which she had in
years experienced, she looked out with all
her natural enthusiasm upon the awakening
spring, and sighed to think that now that
she was at liberty to enjoy the outside world,
the arch-enemy pain forbade her doing so.
“It is a pity that I cannot enjoy it, now that
T am free,” she was heard to murmur with a
faint smile. She loved life, but she was ready
for death, which she had long faced, and now
awaited with cheerful composure; it was to
her no plunge into the dark, only a slipping
out into the light, and in her poem “The Angel
of Death,” written long years before, she had
expressed her welcome to this messenger:

Henceforth, the sorrowing heart its pulse shall still
To solemn cadences of sweet repose,

Content life’s mystic passion to fulfill

In the great calm that from thy promise flows.

Welcome as the white feet of those who bring
Glad tidings of great joy into the world,
Shall fall the shadow of thy silver wing

Over the weary couch of woe unfurled.

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

A heavenly halo kindles round thy brow;
Beyond, the palms of Eden softly wave,

Bright messengers athwart the empyrean go,
And love, to love, makes answer o’er the grave.

This poem in its complete form was read
at the close of the simple funeral ceremonies
which were held at the Dailey home, on the
last day of June, 1878. Mrs. Whitman was
laid in the North Burial Ground, in Provi-
dence, where, in spite of her request that no
stone should be placed above her grave, and
that only the green turf should mark the spot,
her literary executor erected a “suitable tab-
let” to her memory.

Mrs. Whitman’s little volume “Edgar Poe
and His Critics”’ won for its author the highest
praise from the critics on both sides of the
water, and all acknowledged that no more
searching analysis of Poe’s spiritual and in-
tellectual equipment had been advanced than
that furnished by this author when she says:

“Wanting in that supreme central force or
faculty of the mind whose function is a God-
conscious and God-adoring faith, Edgar Poe
sought earnestly and conscientiously for such
solutions of the great problems of thought as
were alone attainable to an intellect hurled
from its balance by the abnormal preponder-
ance of the analytical and imaginative faculties.
It was to this very disproportion that we are
indebted for some of those marvellous intellec-

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POE'S HELEN

 

tual creations, which, as we shall hope to prove,
had an important significance, and an especial
adaptation to the time.”

And at the end of her monograph she con-
cludes with the words:

“Could we believe that any plea we may
have urged in extenuation of Edgar Poe’s
infirmities and errors would make the fatal
path he trod less abhorrent to others, such
would never have been proffered. No human
sympathy, no human charity, could avert
the penalties of that erring life. One clear
glance into its mournful corridors, its ‘halls of
tragedy and chambers of retribution,’ would
appall the boldest heart.

“Theodore Parker has nobly said that
“every man of genius has to hew out for him-
self, from the hard marbles of life, the white
statue of tranquillity.’ Those who have best
succeeded in this sublime work will best know
how to look with pity and reverent awe upon
the melancholy torso which alone remains to
us of Edgar Poe’s misguided efforts to achieve
that august statue of peace.”

Mrs. Whitman’s literary vision was a re-
markably clear one; she could see truly, and
could also discern the best; that for which she
was always searching. And it was said of her
that in her presence “‘one felt that noble and
beautiful things were possible.”

Her admirable prose portrait of Edgar Poe

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MRS. WHITMAN’S LAST DAYS

 

may well be supplemented by her last vision of
the poet, embodied in her poem “The Portrait.”

After long years I raised the folds concealing
That face, magnetic as the morning’s beam:
While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing,
Like Memnon waking from his marble dream.

Again I saw the brow’s translucent pallor,

The dark hair floating o’er it like a plume;

The sweet imperious mouth, whose haughty valor
Defied all portents of impending doom.

Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision
That seemed not of earth’s mortal mixture born;
Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian,
And far, sweet dreams of “fairy lands forlorn.”

Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow

Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps,

Lit by the prescience of a heavenly morrow
Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps.

Oft has that pale, poetic presence haunted

My lonely musings at the twilight hour,
Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted,
With marvel and with mystery and with power.

Oft have I heard the sullen sea-wind moaning
Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore,
Or listening to the autumn woods intoning
The wild, sweet legend of the lost Lenore;

Oft in some ashen evening in October,

Have stood entranced beside a mouldering tomb '
Hard by that visionary Lake of Auber,

Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume.

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POE’S HELEN

 

Oft in chill, star-lit nights have heard the chiming
Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air,

And felt their molten-golden music timing

To the heart’s pulses, answering unaware.

Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth’s sorrow
Sleep restfully after life’s fevered dream!

Sleep, wayward heart! till on some cool, bright morrow,
Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning’s beam.

Though cloud and sorrow rest upon thy story,
And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall,
Time, as a birthright, shall restore the glory,
And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall.

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