Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 182: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Apr. 9 and Apr. 10, 1877,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 496-498 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 496:]

182. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

My dear Friend,

For such I must still style you, & such, when we are dematerialized, I trust you shall be found to be.

Your little note [Mar. 9] came, & I have long longed to reply but, apart from the ever pressing duties of life, & the voluminous correspondence in several languages far beyond my control, I have been suffering from, for some time, a most depressing melancholia & am quite unable to cast it off. So pray forgive my not acknowledging yours at once.

I was working very hard on the Mirror & other publications — so hard that I had not time to think — when suddenly that erratic journal was stopped & I was flung into a semi-state of idleness — no, not idleness, for I have always plenty of irons in the furnace, but the urgency was gone, & I have suffered from the collapse.

During the interregnum in our correspondence so much has happened that our letters cannot gather up again, that I look forward to an interview for the clearing ups, detailments of all intervening matters.

The “boulders” of fact & fiction, anent the Library Table — Ellet affair, duly passed through my hand, & I was sorely driven to “put in my oar” but wisely abstained. The Briggs venom, however, is still working & only a few days ago I received a Boston paper, a religious publication, declaring all kinds of mysterious crimes & unnamed misdeeds had been done by the Raven. But anonymous ephemeral paragraphs are not worth notice, save in a general way, such as in my “Unknown Correspondence by E. Poe” — two copies of which I have desired Appleton's to send you.

You will find therein a copy of his letter to Miss Blackwell. I thought it right that that should appear & that you could not have any objection to its publication. But it does not appear in the English version, which is confined to Poe's relations with Mrs. Shew, Mrs. Richmond, & Mrs. Royster [Shelton].

I shall be anxious to hear your views on this paper.(1) You will see how widely spread its circulation will be, by the little slip from the Athenaeum I sent you. I am doing all I can, now-a-days, to spread Poe's fame & vindication in foreign lands!!! In collecting all possible editions of his works, I am astounded at their number. French numberless — German 5 — Italian & Spanish 2 — that I know of. I shall give a list of all editions some day.

I was stopped so often yesterday that I could not get finished by 4 [page 497:] P.M., when a literary man called for me, & I had to forego the conclusion, & today my brain is so dull & vacant that I do not know what to ask, tell, or say.

Did I tell you that “Rose” — your New England Rose — had painted my portrait in oils? I cannot tell you how I value this painting, not merely on account of its likeness, & fine painting even as a picture, but also because of its artist's sake, & because I saw it grow into being — touch by touch. “Rose” is a real artist and, I am certain, will have few equals in America. She should be duly appreciated by your Providence.

Did you get my paper on J. C. Mangan? Either the English or American issues? Have you followed English literature of late? Seen Rossetti's new edition of works & “Memoir” of Shelley? That Gilfillan will publish a new life of Burns? &c.(2)

Did you ever hear of C. Kent's edition of Charles Lamb's works, with a short vindicatory “Memoir?”(3) Some unscrupulous scandal-mongers had put upon record that Lamb was as drunkard &, latterly, a maniac, & C. Kent has thoroughly “shut them up.” He writes me that he was the first to introduce Poe's name & works (in 1852) to Bulwer, & that he was writing a vindication of E.A.P. some years back — from intuition, & without documentary evidence, when he was stopped by Lord Lytton (the present not the late Lord L.), informing him that I was just completing such a work.

All Europe that knew & appreciated Poe's poetry seemed eager & ready to prepare his vindication. How strange that my poor efforts should have been the first to effect anything — & stranger still, that his own countrymen should be the last to gloat over the virus spewed over his grave.

Happily, time puts all these things right as, I hope & trust, it will our mutual intercommunications.

I wish you would publish a new edition of E[dgar] P[oe] & His Critics — ’tis always being asked for, & would be even more appreciated here than with you.

Always, believe me, here & hereafter, yours,

 

1. Ingram's “Unpublished Correspondence by Edgar Poe” was published in Appleton's Journal for May. This issue must have been out in mid-April, for Ingram had time to send Mrs. Whitman two copies of the article, and she had time to read it carefully and annotate it heavily. From these notes she prepared her first and only public attack on Ingram, an attack that focused on his ethical and scholarly deficiencies. It is reprinted here immediately following. A copy of Ingram's article, annotated in Mrs. Whitman's script, and a manuscript copy of her article, unsigned but probably written by Charlotte Dailey, are in Mrs. Whitman's papers in the John Hay Special Collections Library, Brown University. [page 498:]

In this article Ingram gave portions of a number of unpublished letters from Poe. (The article is not reprinted here; for complete texts of the letters therein, see Ostrom, II, 340, 350-51, 372-74, 400-404, 405-6, 414-15, 417-20, 425-26, 429-32, 434-36, 437-39, 446-48.) Ingram concludes with an account of Poe's “first and last love,” Mrs. Shelton. When Mrs. Whitman read this article, she knew for the first time that at the same time Edgar Poe was engaged to marry her and was writing passionate literary love letters to her, he was also writing passionate personal love letters to another man's wife. Her attack is notable for its restraint and its wit: Ingram, she suggests, has done an unmistakable disservice to Poe's reputation, which he had spent so many years trying to redeem.

2. William Michael Rossetti, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with a Critical Memoir (London: Ward, Locke & Co., 1879). The Rev. George Gilfillan's first Life of Robert Burns, with Memoir had been published in 1856 (Edinburgh: J. Nichols).

3. The Works of Charles Lamb, ed. Charles Kent (London: Routledge & Sons, 1876).