Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 156: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, July 11 and July 18, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 440-441 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 440, continued:]

156. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 295

My dear Friend,

I have just received yours of the 28th. Thanks for sending me the numbers of Notes & Queries containing your correspondence with “Uneda.” I shall try to look at it this P.M. if the intense heat does not prevent, but not in time I fear to revert to it in this letter.

I shall look with interest for the Athenaeum paper.

I am curious to know what note you would like to have suppressed in the “Marginalia,” as published by Mendes. Is it suppressed in your edition of the works?(1) I am heartily in favor of suppressing (at least in all matters not affecting important truths) whatever may seem to an editor irrelevant or likely to injure the reputation of his author. I rely on your usual prompt kindness to enlighten me. I have been looking over Griswold's edition & yours, but cannot find any note in either which seems to call for so strong a word as that you have applied to it.

You speak of having received many copies of Mrs. Weiss's letter, one of which you think was sent by me. On the contrary, I have not even seen it. Can you spare me one of the copies in your possession? I wish very much to see it.

Mrs. Von Weiss, it seems, is the Susan Archer Talley whose poems have been spoken of so favorably by Griswold. The specimens given by him being chiefly haunting echoes or variations from Tennyson's “Lady of Shalott.”

I was profoundly interested in the specimens of Poe's first published collection of poems. Mr. Harris was surprised not to find the three classic stanzas “To Helen.” Were not you?

All that you say about your discoveries as to the order of his prose articles, stories, & poems is intensely interesting to me.

In answer to certain questions put to me by Mr. Didier as to the discrepancy between Mr. Willis's statements & my own concerning the [page 441:] time of Poe's removal to Fordham, I had an opportunity to refute some recent scandals pretty effectively. The letter which I commenced with the intention of writing only a brief note grew to an unexpected length, & he thinks if published just as it stands will have great weight in disproving them. I know my treatment of the subject will interest you & will meet with your cordial sympathy. Some benignant Fate gave me the opportunity to refute them almost without an effort on my part. There is nothing personal in the communication, not a word in allusion to myself.

I have not yet answered my letter from Rose. The domestic atmosphere is not serener than when I last wrote, and a thunderstorm, most grateful after the long continued heat & drought of the last three weeks, is rolling & crashing overhead.

Will write next week. Ever faithfully your friend,

My dear friend,

A week of intolerable heat has passed since I wrote the enclosed hurried note. Prevented from mailing it by the storm of Tuesday evening last, I have been hoping day after day to write you more fully, but disappointed in the hope, will send off a delayed note.

I have been twice to the Athenaeum to examine the Notes & Queries. Have seen the April & May numbers with the astonishing claim put forth in them! The June number has not yet arrived. I never heard of Miss Georgiana Sherburne or her story of Imogene! I think her bug, if examined by an entomologist, will turn out a humbug. As soon as I can get the June number, I will take note of it.

I have been pondering over that note to which you refer in “Marginalia.” If I am not mistaken, it was intended as a mere play upon words, or an extravaganza, like the recipe to cure a boy from squinting. N’est ce pas? It is absurd, but I should hardly say “hateful.” Tell me about it.

I have not seen Mr. Harris since I received your last. He called last week, but I was too unwell to see him.

Ever sincerely your friend, who would fain be your “Providence,”

I have not yet found time to answer my letter from Rose. Her sister Grace called on me yesterday & told me Rose would stay another year. The family have given up their house in town.

I did not know that the early poems had been republished in the Graphic. I have been completely insulated during the devitalizing weather of the last four or five weeks.

 

1. The note in Poe's “Marginalia” Ingram wanted to suppress reads, “That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.”