Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 089: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Mar. 30, 1875,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 267-269 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 267, continued:]

89. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 211

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Your long-looked-for letter [Mar. 14] came yesterday. I am sorry I told you of my anxiety. I ought to have known how very busy you must be, with so much on your hands. Your letter was intensely interesting, as are all your letters. [page 268:]

Mrs. Clemm never mentioned M.L.S. to me, but the difficulty about Griswold's “Memoir” may have led to permanent estrangement. Did Mrs. Houghton anticipate the malign character of the “Memoir?” Do you know when it was that Poe dictated to her the events of his life? And so Mr. Conway was a cousin of Mr. Daniel & tells the same story of the challenge, etc., that was given by Mrs. Anna Cora Ritchie to my friend Julia Deane Freeman. That is well. I like Conway's notice & wonder I had not seen or heard of it before, though I think the word “ardent” as applied to my characterization of Poe is out of place; it almost makes me doubt if he has ever read it [Edgar Poe and His Critics]. It might perhaps be called too imaginative or too unreal (which I do not admit, however), & one of my friends always speaks of it as my finest “poem.” To this I don’t so much object. The ideal is often far truer than the actual.

What Conway says about Poe's being the only man whose life had been made the subject of a mythology is true enough. Do you know Mr. Conway personally?

There was a notice in the Nation of last week, or rather a critique, of your “Memoir” & Stoddard's “as indicative of a revived interest in the genius of Poe,” of which genius of course it has not the faintest idea. The notice could not be called favorable to either, but it was not so unfavorable as might have been anticipated, from the general character of that paper, which is notoriously dry, caustic, literal, & hard-headed; poetry & romance are words that have no meaning in its vocabulary.

You ask about Anna Blackwell's letter from Poe. I gave the letter many years ago to Mr. John R. Bartlett for his large & valuable collection of autographs. The copy which he made for me is still in my possession. I will copy it verbatim, though it contains nothing of special interest except of interest to me, & perhaps to you, in the passage wherein he speaks of S.H.W. Miss Blackwell was, as you perhaps know, of English birth and parentage.

While I have been copying the enclosed letter, your copy of the Athenaeum has been left by the postman. I mean the one containing Moy Thomas's review. It is the one which Mr. Bartlett brought me to read, but I am glad to own it. Thanks.

I hope Mr. Harris's letter, which was mailed a week ago, will duly reach you, & I hope that you will not “cut” all your friends, as you expressed a wish to in your last. Yet one may find “three dinner parties a week” too much of a good thing.

And now, my dear Don Felix, good night, & keep cool & provoke an open fight with Stoddard. Mrs. Nichols gives good advice. Ever & ever your friend,

[page 269:]

I will write again soon, but don’t think you must answer, & don’t mind about my criticisms.