Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 117: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Nov. 1, 1875,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 350-353 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 350, continued:]

117. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 255

My dear Rose

Just look at that! Thinking of Rose & wondering what she would think of your long silence, I began my letter, as you see, in a fit of “unconscious cerebration,” I suppose we may call it. Now let me take a new departure.

My dear “MacRaven,”

I have just received your very interesting letter [Oct. 18] with the photograph for which I have been waiting so long. I showed Rose the imperfect copy you sent me, and she said it did not begin to — but I remember you once reproved me for betraying confidence, so I leave you to finish the sentence at discretion. As for myself, I am well pleased with it & see no room for improvement.

I am delighted that Mallarmé wishes to send me Le Corbeau. I do hope that I may live to see the realization of his wish. Le Corbeau!

Urge him to send it. I will present it, when I die, to our Athenaeum Library where it shall be embalmed forever, while “Providence reigns & rules.” I long to hear the remarks about you which he is to quote in his preface. When will his translation of the poems be issued?

Browne is thoroughly roused at last about Fairfield's Scribner extravaganza. Fairfield attempted a reply in the Tribune of Monday, Oct. 18th. Did I mention it in my last to you? His reply only showed his hand & was utterly worthless as a defense. In it he said Eureka was “words, words, words.” This roused Dr. Browne, & he talks as if he meant to take the unhappy “Alienist” in hand. He had not seen Fairfield's impotent reply until I sent it to him. Dr. Marvin, who approved and endorsed my statements in the same paper, is well & favorably known to him. Everybody thinks I “used him [Fairfield] up.” I don’t like to serve people in that way, but I couldn’t help it. Seriously, I am afraid the poor fellow is “not in his perfect mind.”

You ask about Porteus. I do not know that he spoke of Poe's sister in [page 351:] his lecture, but he caused it to be announced in the papers that the lecture was given in her behalf, & it was said (stated by him) that he gave to her, or applied to her use, the sixty dollars made by him. I enclose you a copy.

I enclose you a copy of a note which I wrote to Dr. Buchanan in compliance with your suggestion. I have not as yet had any reply.

Last Saturday I received from the Corresponding Secretary of the Monument Committee a very cordial & complimentary invitation to attend the ceremonies, or, if unable to attend, to send something to be read on the occasion. But I have been seriously ill for a week with sore throat, chills & fever, & today cannot speak out of a whisper. An interesting account which I enclose from the New York Herald may interest you, though I fancy it must be taken cum grano. From this I learn that Gill is to be the orator of the occasion. I don’t think he is acting in Stoddard's interest. From the MS. he sent me of his Laurel Leaf, the spirit seems frank & fair enough. Doubtless he is afraid of you. He made no reply to the question I put to him about the portrait.

And now, dear friend, goodnight & good morning forever more,

How will it do for you to send the enclosed as a postscript to Mallarmé? — a P.S. from my letter to you.(1)

If you could ascertain the date of that first draft of “The Bells,” it would be very interesting and might perhaps show that Fairfield was right and that I was wrong about “the Bells” having been written before “Ulalume.” In Jan. 1847 Virginia died; in October Poe wrote “Ulalume,” and it was published in December 1847. In Feb. 1847, Poe wrote the beautiful “Lines to M.L.S.,” published among the early poems. In 1847 (if I am to judge from the dates given me by Mrs. Houghton) Mrs. H[oughton] saw more of him than on any subsequent year. I infer then that it was in that year that he wrote at her suggestion at least the first two stanzas of “The Bells” & the other poems addressed to her. I will give you my reasons presently.

You say that when Mrs. S[hew] gave the 25 dollars for a poem still more impassioned than the “Lines to Marie Louise” that she was just going to be married to Dr. H[oughton], but in one of her letters to me, the one I sent you, she says, “I was married to Dr. H[oughton] in November 1850.” Thirteen months after Poe's death. True, she may have been betrothed to him two or three years before, that is to say there might have been an understanding between them that they were to marry whenever she was at liberty to form another marriage.

Again, she tells me in the same letter that she saw very little of Mr. Poe during the last year of his life (1849), when his mind seemed to be [page 352:] breaking up. To quote her exact words, “He began to break up in brain power about this time.”

Then, as to 1848, she quotes a long letter or note acknowledging one from her that gave him unwonted pleasure. The note, his note, was (in your copy) of her copy, dated Sunday, May 1848. He says it gave him more pleasure than anything had done for months, etc., he hopes she will not drift out of his sight before he can thank her for the great debt he owed her, etc., etc. Undoubtedly it is a faithful copy of the note. But I quote it to show that their intercourse at that time was infrequent. In the summer, in July & August, he was absent from Fordham, & after his return in September, I was cognizant of his life until the close of the year.

“The Bells,” then, I infer, if written under the circumstances described to you by Mrs. Houghton, was apparently written, or at least the two first stanzas, before “Ulalume”! It may be so. Where did Stoddard get his facsimile of those two verses? Yet, if the poem, as it now stands, was written at the time when I knew Poe, I cannot conceive that he should not have spoken of it to me, with whom he delighted to read & talk about his favorite poems.

But why was Mrs. Shew's name affixed to the copy of “The Bells” in your possession? Was it the original writing that she sent you, & did he affix her name to it with the intention that it should pass as hers? And why did Mrs. Shew, after inducing Poe to sell her a too passionate poem which he had addressed to her (the “B[eloved] P[hysician]”) rather than have it published, why did she suppose that it was Griswold & not Poe, himself, who had discreetly omitted the lines which might cause pain to one who afterwards became her husband?

All of this seems strange to an outsider, but as I said before, “le vrai” is not always “le vraisemblable.” Don’t think me too critical. Important questions sometimes turn upon apparently trifling matters. But I have done with puzzling questions & have only room to bestow upon you a benison adieu.

Did Mrs. Lewis tell you what she knows, or claims to know, about the date of “Annabel Lee”?

Don’t fear that I shall betray anything that you confide to me.

[Enclosure: Sarah Helen Whitman to Dr. J. R. Buchanan. Item 253]

Dr. J R Buchanan

Dear sir:

You may remember that many years ago — I think in the summer of 55 or 6 — Mr E W Capron sent you with my consent the MS. of a poem To Helen, sent to me by Mr Poe in June 1848. and first published in Graham's Magazine in the autumn of that year. [page 353:]

Mr Capron was anxious to have the MS. which was without signature submitted to one of your psychometric subjects.

After an interval of some months Mr Capron wrote to you reminding you of his request, and I received from you the following note. It is dated April 30th the date of the year being omitted.

Mrs S H Whitman

Mr Capron requests a return of Mr Poe's MS. poem to yourself. I should do so at once but had almost forgotten its being in my possession and cannot just now lay my hands on it.

When found I shall at once return it with a psychometric sketch.

It is with the faintest hope that after the lapse of so many years you will be enabled to supply any information with regard to the missing that I make this late application.

1. On Apr. 4, 1876, Mallarmé wrote Mrs. Whitman: “I trust that the attempt [his Poe translations] will meet your approval, but no possible. success of my design in the future could cause you, madame, a satisfaction equal to the joy, vivid and profound 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’ ‘’ (quoted in Caroline Ticknor, Poe's Helen [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916], p. 262).