Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 145: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Apr. 5, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 409-412 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 409, continued:]

145. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

My dear Friend,

Your long-looked-for letter has arrived, I mean yours of the 24th Ultimo. Your last — the one you call the 3 cent — was so short & so stiff that I have been half crazy with myself for having written as I have done to you. How can mind speak to mind by these cursed crooked pothooks & hangers! How can I learn to express my thoughts by these up & down crooked strokes? I cannot exercise the “Power of Words.”

Do not deem that it is your criticism of my deeds — my writings — that I fear. You could not speak more severely of my weak attempts than I can and have done myself. No one could scarify my writings as I could, & when anyone flatters, or speaks well of my writings, I never feel as if I could thoroughly believe them. From my friends — from you, I should never feel annoyed at dispraise for my literary efforts, nor for pointing out my shortcomings. I speak truthfully, my friend. But what “riles” me — what turns all my hot blood to steam is to find myself made a tool of — played with to suit someone's purpose. And the fact that I loved you so truly — admired & reverenced you so faithfully — made my thought that you were wearied with me — regarded me only as a puppet to be played with — red hot agony.

In some things I am as proud as Lucifer. I must speak of myself now — and in my mind deem myself as great as any being that ever breathed this world's air. I would not change my entity for Shakespeare's nor Shelley's — and often I feel half mad to think that I have ever published a line, knowing that I have written nothing worthy of living, & yet knowing that my thoughts are so grand — so daring. I can but judge myself by what I feel, & it is gall & wormwood to know that the few — how few! — whom I love & reverence can misjudge me — not by what I have attempted, but by what they deem me fit. [page 410:]

What am I talking about? I can’t begin again, so must let this wild farrago go to you. And now to real facts & be “Mr. Worldly Wiseman” again.

I am surprised at what you say about Widdleton publishing Lotos Leaves — so different to what I have imagined from his letters to me. I have returned him the correspondence with Gill he sent me direct, as it struck me that asking you to forward it from Providence seemed to draw you into the controversy. I might, certainly, have sent it to you, & then had it back. There! it was of no value! but it would have shown you what pressure Gill put upon Widdleton, threatening even legal proceedings, & accusing me of perjury. Declaring that I knew certain matter was contained first in Lotos Leaves, & then in a written lecture, & that I had solemnly pledged my word not to publish in America! In one paragraph of one of his letters he asked Mr. W[iddleton] why he was aiding Ingram “in stealing from me (i.e., Gill) the right which properly belongs to me, as the first to undertake to effectually vindicate E. A. Poe.” And, alluding to an intention of pressing the matter as to the question of legal rights, remarks, “If it comes to that the law is explicit & all in my favour upon this point.” Then calls attention to the fact that he, Mr. Gill, is “nearly affiliated with literature (sic)” & that Ingram “is only a clerk in some office.”

That you had assigned any material to him I knew at once was false — as false as that I had made any promise to him. That he had taken portions of my “New Facts” &c. without acknowledgment, did not matter a pin. I don’t think I called any attention to it — until this claim of his — Mais, c’est assez — ne c’est pas?

I have had a copy of the Home Journal with Mrs. E. O. Smith's paper — ’tis the same she sent me. Her fiction is better than her fact. When I read the paper in print I was half inclined, for the moment, to answer it, but reason instantly showed me the folly of thus wasting my time & energies. These newspaper & magazine articles are forgotten in a week.

Did you see Mr. Lathrop's half-hearted attempt to say a word for Fairfield's idea of Poe in Scribner's for this month? In the paper “Irving, Poe & Hawthorne.”(1) These things “won’t wash” & do no real ultimate harm. Fifty years hence when we are dead and — most of us — forgotten, Poe will be a classic, & his personal character no more discussed than Homer's.

Returning to Mrs. Smith — whose extract I return. In her paper on Poe in Beadle's Monthly for Feby. 1867, she says: Mrs. Whitman writes Poe “was, it is true, vindictive, revengeful, unscrupulous in the use of expedients to attain his ends” — I shall be glad to know that “Helena” did not write it. Mrs. S[mith], although so imaginative, might have the [page 411:] good sense to correct where she has been shown correction is necessary. What a hobby she has for misspelling names: her letters are full of it: Helena, Fannie, [illegible], Hurst, &c.

Poe gave her more than she deserved: she might have remained content without inventing for him things that he could not have said. I have not Beadle's, but can “look it up” in the British Museum again, but ’tis no consequence, is it? We can now drop her: she is played out. I cannot understand her “little loves” & fancy it is only a random shot to hit all round. This paper is not a republication, so far as I know, but it is partly made up from her former articles. She “pitches into” Mrs. Lewis vigorously in writing — not in print. The extract from your letter, here sent, is only a small portion of the tirade quoted from you.

Strange is that Memorial letter of S. D. Lewis. I always thought Mrs. Lewis a widow. Would we could meet & talk of these matters.

I cannot find that W. Ross Wallace is dead, & yet cannot hear of his being alive; he wrote some fine poems, some of the finest American lines, I deem, in some respects.

Poe's lines to Helen (headed “Lines to ———”) appeared in Sartain's Union Magazine for November. How then about Graham's? I would be so glad to get a simple record of all Poe wrote in Graham's Maga. for Vols. 18, 21 & then to 1850. Where can this be done? I’ll try Davidson again — he cards me that after 1st his address will be once more P. O. Box 567, New York. Wallace was, so I am told, very dissipated. By the way, “The Raven” when first published was slightly different from the present version. I believe I have discovered what suggested the poem, so far as the refrain &c. is concerned, but I don’t think I need take the public into my confidence. “Sandy Welsh's Cellar” is good enough for them.

Your Rose is doubtless loyal but working hard. I have never answered her pretty last letter so, perhaps, she thinks to punish you for my faults.

Never mind my unwellness. I am never well & always worried & anxious — all my nerves are living ones. I am a perpetual anxiety. And yet life is a luxury to me. To live & feel that I live is something worth “a cycle of Cathay.”

A grand Memorial volume is preparing at Baltimore to include the letters &c. & “my Life” from the International, slightly revised. By the way, I fancy this last item is not to be told. I mean that the life is to be therein, so “mum's the word.”

Mrs. Nichols has written her “Recollections,” but I have suggested its appearing in some magazine, as I am not sure how much, or what portion of it, I can use. I have not seen the paper. I still believe the Nichols too ready “to point a moral & adorn a tale” to stick to the strict [page 412:] letter of literary law — that is, friendly to Poe, but desirous of filling up blanks. Can you comprehend?

My dear friend, Mrs. Houghton, writes but scraps just now — she has domestic trouble, I fear.

And now, forget the “thorns,” & ever believe me, as of yore, & for evermore, yours devotedly,

P.S. Hutcheson Poë (son of the head of the Irish Poës) and an officer in the Royal Marines, called upon me & seemed very desirous of gathering information about the Poe family in America. He had been to Baltimore & called upon the Poes, on Neilson Poe, Junior, and from him did not get a very favorable reception. N[eilson] P[oe], Junior, said he did not know & did not want to know who his grandfather was, or something to that effect.

Hutcheson Poë is apparently really an innate gentleman & a handsome-looking fellow. He gave me an extract from the Annual Register for July 14, 1817, page 60, containing an account of some Scotch emigrants taken over to his Polish estates by Count Poë of Doospouda, Poland.(2)

 

1. George Parsons Lathrop's article in defense of Fairfield's allegation that Poe was a madman of letters was printed in Scribner's Monthly, 11 (Apr. 1876), 799-808.

2. This eighteen-line extract is Item 1 in the Ingram Poe Collection.