Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 084: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Feb. 14, 1875,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 255-258 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 255, continued:]

84. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 202

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Since I last wrote to you the weather has been colder than was ever known in New England since the creation of the world. Yesterday, with the arrival of your welcome letter, it seemed to moderate a little. I was so glad to receive it. About Miss Blackwell. It was not Elizabeth but Anna Blackwell who, as I told you, boarded with Mrs. Clemm for a few weeks at Fordham. She is the sister of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. It was Anna Blackwell who translated George Sand's Jacques, & who is now a resident in Paris.(1) Mrs. Gove Nichols, I think it was, who commended the Fordham cottage to her as a pleasant place wherein to seek rest & recuperation from the fatigues of her literary work. Did Mrs. Gove Nichols say nothing of this — nothing of Anna? They were once friends — Miss B[lackwell] having been a patient of Mrs. Nichols’ when that lady was at the head of a water cure establishment in N.Y. Anna B[lackwell] came to Providence in the spring of 1848 to pass the summer, and often spoke of her visit to Fordham. She was at my mother's house one evening in June, I think, when Miss Maria J. McIntosh happened to be present. It was a bright moonlight night. [page 256:] Miss M[clntosh] said, “Mrs. W[hitman], on just such a night as this one month ago I met Mr. Poe for the first time at the house of a gentleman in Fordham — a Mr. Lindsay {I think that was the name} & his whole talk was about you.” etc., etc. Miss Blackwell then said that she had received a letter from Poe to much the same effect two or three weeks before, but had not thought to speak of it to me. She afterwards at my request gave me the letter, which she said she had not answered.(2) I do not think that she was altogether friendly to Poe at that time, & when she heard of my engagement to him, seemed still less so. He called on her with me during his first visit to Providence & I invited her to join a party of friends to meet him that evening at my home, but she did not come, I enclose a little note fom her acknowledging the call & invitation. After she went to Paris I had one or two letters from her, but our correspondence soon fell off.

I have seen the notice in the Examiner of Dec. 19. It was admirable. I also saw the Saturday Review of same date. Just what anyone might predict of the Saturday Review. The genius of Poe could no more be recognized from the standpoint of that Review than could the moons of Jupiter or the ring of Saturn be discerned through a dandy's opera glass. It is essentially pert & flippant & never rises to a higher level than that of the most commonplace intellect. And this if the very secret of its popularity — its “bad eminence.”

Undoubtedly Stoddard is in league with Curwen. I have not seen Curwen's article, but I am sure of it, nevertheless.

If I can see Mr. Harris before mailing this letter, I will find out about the [18]29 edition. I think Mr. H[arris] has been absent from the city for several weeks. You ask why I did not send you such a letter of denial of Griswold's stories as I sent to Gill. Simply because I had already given him the letter & did not exactly know how to duplicate it by another. He has made some palpable and absurd blunders with his material received from me. For instance, he quotes from Pabodie's letter to Griswold in confirmation of the facts of his Tribune statement, the following sentence: “That very morning he [Poe] wrote a note to Dr. Crocker requesting him to publish the intended marriage at the earliest opportunity, & intrusted this note to me with the request that I should deliver it in person.” For the words “deliver it in person” Mr. Gill has substituted the closing words of another sentence — “Make oath to it if necessary” — words utterly unmeaning in this connection, their place being at the close of the paragraph “These are the facts as I know them, which I am willing to make oath to if necessary.” I called Mr. Gill's attention to this & other mistakes which he promised to correct in a second edition of Lotus Leaves now preparing. We shall see.

Don’t be troubled about my comments as to your introduction of my [page 257:] name in certain connections. I feel sure that you published nothing without my implied authority. I did not myself exactly understand what portions of my material you might choose to publish. I don’t like to find any fault with your work — a work which you have done so well & nobly — a work which nobody else could or would have done half so well. You ask me if I can return you the article in the Sixpenny. You once promised me that you would send it but you did not: at least I never received it, & have seen only such portions of the article as are republished in your book & in Temple Bar.

About the time of giving up of the Fordham cottage, I know nothing positive. It is stated in the Redfield Ed. of 1850 you know, that Poe left his residence at Fordham for the last time on June 29, 1849. I have always thought Mrs. Clemm remained there until after his death. Mrs. Nichols’ information on many points relating to this period of Poe's history must be valuable & interesting, but she may be mistaken as to some particulars.

I have just found the extract from Eugene Benson's Galaxy article which you sent me & which I thought I had returned. I think with the portion I copied for you it will comprise the whole article. Your explanation as to Neilson Poe's intention of writing a life of Poe explains many things in his course. Perhaps he thinks his work has been taken out of his hands. I have not seen the article in Hearth & Home, & I know nothing of A. B. Harris. If it is written in a friendly spirit, I should like to see it, though I protest against the adjective “friendlily.” You have given me an invitation to “pitch into” you, so you must not find fault with me, you know. Show me a precedent for the words “kindlily” and “friendlily.” Nay, show me a hundred precedents & I will still protest. See how peremptorily I am exercising the privilege you have extended to me?

Poe's letter to M.L.S. I should have known to have been his — known it to have come direct from his heart, without evidence of handwriting or signature. I do not know anything of the Thomas quoted by Stoddard. I think that there can be little doubt that the Philobiblion article was Stoddard's. I did not see the article in the Spectator.

If you won’t think me too fastidious about trifles, I should like to suggest one or two slight verbal alterations.

On page 30 you speak of the calumnies heaped by Griswold “on the dead man's head.” I should like it better if you simply said, “No better disproof of Griswold's calumnies could be given,” etc.

Remember these are only suggestions.

On page 35, I should omit from the account quoted from Mr. Latto the words “and he was often consulted by Mrs. Clemm as to the ways & means, as the boarding business did not pay.” I should simply say after the words “boarded at that time with Mrs. Clemm,” “Mr. Gowans [page 258:] lived with them several months & only left when the household was broken up; he had of course the best opportunity of seeing what kind of life the poet led,” etc., etc.

The omitted portion is somewhat irrelevant, & the talk with Mrs. Clemm, &c., I think, weakens the effect of the testimony.

So much is said about Poe's poverty, too, that it does not seem necessary to introduce it here.

Don’t think me foolishly fastidious, but, somehow, the words “boarding business” jar on my ear. Don’t laugh, if you can help it. I know the words are not yours, but Mr. Latto's, or, perhaps, Gowans’.

On page 62, you say in introducing a passage from E.P. & His Critics, “Here, exclaims Mrs. Whitman,” etc. I think writes Mrs. W[hitman] — or says Mrs. W[hitman] — would be better than exclaims, because the quoted passage is a narration rather than exclamation, n’est-ce-pas?

On page 63 I should say in the quotation beginning “on this occasion” — “On this occasion I was introduced to the young wife of the poet & to the mother, a tall, dignified lady, then more than sixty years old. Mrs. Poe looked very young” etc. Thus leaving out the dress “which looked really elegant on her.” I think the lady appears to more advantage without her dress, — don’t you? The phrase underscored sounds too much like a dressmaker's. But this is a woman's criticism, & perhaps would have no weight as an argumentum ad hominum. I submit it to your grave consideration, however.

On page 85, after the words “injured no one but himself,” you say, “and certainly no one before or since has suffered so severely in character in consequence of it.” The structure of the sentence is a little obscure, is it not?

Would it not be better — but I leave it to you to straighten it out, if, indeed, it needs straightening.

I must close this hurried letter and bid you Godspeed in your work. May all good angels help you!

I shall hope to write again soon. I have much to say, but not now. Ever & ever faithfully and affectionately your friend,

[Marginal note:] You can return Anna Blackwell's notelet.

 

1. George Sand, Jacques, trans. Anna Blackwell, 2d ed. (New York: J. S. Redfield, 1847).

2. Miss Blackwell was later to deny to Ingram that she had ever received a letter from Poe. As we shall see, her denial was a lie that figured largely in the rupture of relations between Mrs. Whitman and Ingram. See Item 315 in the Ingram Poe Collection. For a reproduction of Poe's letter addressed to Miss Blackwell from Fordham, June 14, 1848, see Ostrom, II, 369-71.