Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 094: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Apr. 27, 1875,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 281-282 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 281, continued:]

94. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 219

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Last Tuesday I received yours of April 7 with the article on Stoddard's “Original Memoir.” It is very pointed & pungent, & strikes, through & through, the thin cloak of candor worn by the author, tearing it to shreds and tatters. Yet, for all that, I wish it had been more guarded & temperate in tone. It will be a firebrand in the enemy's camp, but he will turn it against you, I fear, in ways where you cannot parry his attack. He evidently controls the Tribune, whose notice of his “Memoir” was, as you know, a very partial one, and he has doubtless influence in other quarters such as might seriously injure the success of your book in America. Then, I think, you have brought me rather too openly into collision with him, when more effect might have been produced by a more specific & temperate statement of the facts. You know he withdrew his statement to the effect that he was not aware that Poe had ever countenanced the story of the lines “To Helen” having been addressed to Mrs. H[elen] S[tanard], or rather he omitted it from his “Introductory Memoir,” so that most readers might look in vain for any such attack on my “veracity,” as you have charged him [page 282:] with. But perhaps you did this to call him out & put him on his defence. I think it would puzzle him to make out a case for himself. We shall see what will come of it soon, I suppose.

It would seem from your publication of the two parodies as one that you fancied they were both written by the same person. This cannot be the case. The lines in print were widely circulated before I received the anonymous parody in MS., a copy of which I sent you. Probably the two writers, should they happen to see their “odes” incorporated into one, would not be flattered by the correlation, although if the sin of plagiarism should be attributed to either party, perhaps neither would care to prove property.

It appears by your reference to Broadway Journal (Vol. 2, p. 63) that Poe had mentioned the unlucky flute in that periodical. I did not know this before. What does he say about it? Is Stoddard introduced by name?(1) I am exceedingly anxious to know. I think the owner of the flute must be astonished to find how familiar you are with American journals.

I am so tortured by neuralgic pains in my head & heart that I hardly know whether my letter will be intelligible to you. If I am ever free from them I shall have so much to say to you.

Mr. Harris has not yet returned, but if you have written, your letter will probably have been forwarded to him. You do not say anything of Anna Blackwell. Have you written to her & have you heard from Mrs. Botta? Let me once more counsel you to keep cool & not be too anxious to provoke a conflict.

& now, dear Don Felix, hail & farewell!

I long to see your “answer” to the Nation.

Here is a tribute from a comrade & messmate of Lieut. Dwight which contains a passing allusion to his interest in E.A.P.

I have not yet seen your notice of Curwen's book. Send me the number of the periodical & I can get it from Prov. Athenaeum.

 

1. See p. 19, n. 5, for Poe's words in the Broadway Journal about his refusal to print Stoddard's “Grecian Flute.”