Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 133: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Jan. 4, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 382-384 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 382, continued:]

133. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 280

My dear friend,

Your interesting letter of Dec. 21 just received. I am sorry to know that you are not well. You must not let the sword wear out the scabbard.

About the Benedict Arnold story, I know nothing certain. I first heard it from Mrs. Oakes Smith when “at the mountains” with her in 1858. She seemed to credit it. How hard it is to get at facts in this world! I have found the letter from Mrs. Smith which she wrote to me about my book. It does not look as if she thought ill of him. Send it back when you write.

The photo which I sent you from Harper's Weekly is a copy of the one in possession of Neilson Poe. I cannot understand how he could have declined to send you a copy on the ground that it was “so like” the one in your book that it could be of “no use” to you. It is very unlike it in the general character of the expression. Yours is more intellectual, more full of conscious power & purpose, while the other is grave & pensive, at least in the copy I sent you & which I wish you to retain. A good engraving from it would be invaluable for your collection of portraits. Its date, too, makes it doubly valuable.

I think I told you that the daguerreotype from which the portrait in your book was engraved was taken on the afternoon before the evening when Poe wrote to me the note of which I sent you a copy, written on board the steamer, only a few days, or a week, perhaps, after the Ultima Thule daguerreotype was taken. I am now convinced that I must have been mistaken as to the time. I have told you that Mrs. Osgood came just after Poe left, on that occasion, & I well remember that I urged her to go with me to the rooms of Masury & Hartshorn (now Coleman & Remington's) to see the portrait, & that she resisted all my entreaties. If I had then had the portrait taken for me, I should certainly have shown it to her. This impressed itself very strongly on my mind a few days ago, & now I feel sure that it was on his next visit to Providence, early in December, that this second Providential portrait was taken. The mood of mind expressed in it, too, agrees [page 383:] perfectly with the whole tone of his thought & conversation during this visit.

I will try if possible to ascertain the exact date. I dwell more upon this, because I feel that the dates of all these portraits will throw light on this story of his life. The portrait in the Memorial volume, preceding your vindication, is the one in your book, & if possible even more like him, since some of the lines are softened & the cheeks are not so full, the lines between the nose & the corners of the mouth being fainter.

Have you obtained a copy of Dodge's daguerre? And if so, does it resemble the one which you had from Mrs. Lewis? If you had only had time to correct some things which I pointed out to you last summer!

The story about the dilapidated state of his “shoes, boots, & gaiters” & the game of “leaping” — & the —

But it is too late now to waste time in regrets. I think his friends at the South felt something of this regret. Dr. Browne, you will remember, says something about “the interesting, but in part, too painful reminiscences of this time of suffering at Fordham,” etc., and Dr. Moran speaks (as if to offset the impression there given) of Poe's exceptional “elegance” of dress — which is perhaps overstated, but which I was glad to see presented as serving to qualify the other statement of abject penury.

Perhaps it would be difficult to have left out the parts to which I allude without giving offence to Mrs. Gove Nichols?

Why was the facsimile from Poe's letter, beginning “The agonies which I have lately endured have passed my soul through fire” omitted? It seemed to me full of character & significance.

I am glad to know that you have heard from Mrs. Shelton, but I certainly gathered from Poe's letter to Mrs. Clemm, the last of the two written within a month of his death, that Mrs. Shelton had accepted him, & that the affair was irrevocably fixed. I should like so much to see a copy of the letter! If you will confide it to me I will give my word of honor to breathe no word of it to anyone & to return you the copy, or destroy it.

I want you to be very careful of those two letters of Mrs. Clemm's to, me in 1859 in which she spoke of Mrs. Shelton, Mrs. Stanard, & Mrs. Richmond.(1) Mrs. Shelton's account of their early engagement & separation, etc. agrees with what Poe himself told me, in explanation of a passage in his letter to me.

Have you heard from Mrs. Hale? She has just issued a new no. of a. magazine.

What you say of Gill's having published letters to me in the Daily Graphic surprises me. It is my first notice of his having done so. Can [page 384:] you tell me the number of the paper? And was it from advance sheets of the Laurel Leaves?(2) I have asked you so many questions in this hurried script that I am going to underline them with a blue pencil in order to impress them upon your memory.

I hear of pleasant & favorable notices of the Widdleton volume, but have been shut off from everything by the pressure of letters & exhaustion & exacting cares incident to the season.

Miss Rice tells me that “Mr. W. F. Gill volunteered to read ‘The Raven’ at the dedication of the monument, & that, greatly against her opinion of the unfitness of the time, he prevailed upon Professor or President Elliot to consent.” This “in dreadful secrecy she did impart,” and, in the same spirit, do I impart it to you.

I am glad that you are to meet Japp. Ask him — but no, I will not ask any more questions tonight.

What has become of Le Corbeau?

And now, for a little, let me commend you to the spirit of seventy-six, & to all good angels. Your faithful

 

1. Maria Clemm's letter of Apr. 14, 1859, mentions these ladies. Ingram copied excerpts from the letter and used portions of them in his 1880 Life; the entire amount he copied is reproduced in Building Poe Biography, pp. 41-44.

2. The article “A Poet on His Critics” contained only a long excerpt from Poe's letter to Mrs. Whitman, not portions of several letters, as Ingram had led her to believe. See p. 377, n. 2.