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161. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 302
Oct. 19, [18]76
My dear friend,
It gave me heartfelt joy to hear of your health & happiness in your letter of September the 12th. I wish that you could pass more of your time in that open air, congenial life you describe so felicitously.
I found on the Athenaeum table the allusion to your admirable paper on the poetry of Poe by Forman, but have not yet seen that by Theodore Watts which you say you shall answer soon. Our copies of the London periodicals are always behindtime.
If you would give me the date of any article on subjects referred to in your letters, I could obtain them from Mr. Bartlett. He informed me that he had seen several allusions to your paper in that & other journals which he is in the habit of sending to friends in Cambridge, soon after he receives them.
I saw in a Southern paper among the names of the writers who were to contribute to the Memorial volume to be published in Baltimore, that you were to furnish a “Memoir” of Poe.
At the request of Miss Rice, W. D. O’Connor wrote an article which the advisers of Miss Rice wished him to modify in one or two particulars which it was apprehended would have a tendency to affect its local popularity. The volume being assumed to rely specially for its immediate success on the favor of the Baltimoreans. This entre nous. Whether O’Connor will consent to the modification is still a question.
If you can tell me where I can obtain a copy of the Républic des Lettres, the number containing the translation of the poem a moi meme, I should like to obtain one.
Mr. Bartlett told me last week that he saw some time ago at a bookstore in New York a copy of the illustrated Corbeau. He did not like the work of the artist, Manet. I have since seen an artist from Boston, Henri Bacon, who has just returned from Paris, knows & likes Manet, but does not like his work. Did you see Mallarmé when you were in Paris?
I shall be delighted to receive the portrait you promise me, the Bruckmann Gallery portrait.
I should like to know the true date & history of the daguerreotype given you by Mrs. Lewis & copied by Fredericks into Gill's Laurel Leaves. [page 454:]
I am glad that you have had in the letter of Mrs. Richmond such a gracious tribute to Poe's genuine goodness of heart & character. The letters which Mrs. Clemm sent me from that lady, letters received after her return from a long visit to Lowell — a whole winter spent at her house, convinced me of her fidelity to his memory.
Mr. Didier's “Memoir” is to preface the Household Edition of Poe's poems. I can hardly doubt that it will be favorable to him. We shall soon see.
As to E[lizabeth] O[akes] S[mith], your assertion that you had in your possession the MS. of the offensive paragraph published in the Home Journal — surely you do not mean that the paragraph stating that Poe came to his death through a brutal personal assault “from the brothers of a woman whom he had betrayed & ruined” — you do not mean that the MS. of this (a brief paragraph) was, or had been in your hands? If so, all human testimony would seem questionable. She admits the story of an assault from the brothers of a woman whose letters he had declined to return, as you know, but this is altogether a different charge.
I saw last evening in looking over a bound volume of Scribner's for the last half of the year 1875 a paragraph in the Bric-a-Brac department of the magazine for Nov. referring to the publication of a facsimile poem by Poe, as presented in the Sept. number. It purported to come from R. L. P. Allen, “late superintendent of the Kentucky Military Institue,” who says Poe was a classmate of his, etc., etc. that he entered West Point Academy with him in 1830 & finding the routine uncongenial to him, withdrew in less than a year, that he, Mr. Allen, on leaving the Military School in 1834, went to Baltimore where he was informed that Poe was at that time engaged in a Baltimore brickyard wheeling bricks, like “rare Ben Jonson.” This sounds somewhat Brick-a Brackish. Did you see the item? You will find the story in the November Scribner for 1875.(1)
Gill has just turned up again after a year's silence, and in a very characteristic way, I have received within a week two letters from him. I will tell you about them next time.
I must close now, with a Benedicite. Yours faithfully,
S. H. Whitman
1. Scribner's Magazine, 11 (1875), 142-143:
Farmdale, Kentucky
September 10, 1875
I notice in your September number fac-simile of a poem by Poe, dated March, 1829, and said to have been written after he left West Point. E. L. D. is in error. Poe was a member of my class at the Military Academy — which entered the Academy in June, 1830, and he left the Institution sometime in 1831. I remember him well. While at the Academy he published a small volume of poems which were not thought to have much [page 455:] merit. He was too much occupied with his poetry to attend to the severe studies of the course at the Academy, and hence resigned, in order to devote his whole time to poetry. The writer, having graduated, left the Academy in 1834, and, while visiting a friend in Baltimore in the fall of that year, was asked by a casual acquaintance if he knew Edgar Allan Poe, who had informed the gentleman alluded to that he was acquainted with me. On responding in the affirmative, I was told that Poe was then working in a brickyard in Baltimore, being engaged in wheeling clay in a wheelbarrow. This may throw light on that part of his history immediately after his leaving the Academy.
R.T.P.A.
(R.T.P. Allen, of the Class of 1834, late Superintendent of Kentucky Military Institute.)
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PHR, 1979] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Poe's Helen Remembers (J. C. Miller) (Entry 161)