Text: John Grier Varner, “Chapter 02,” Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence, dissertation, 1940, pp. 21-65 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 21:]

In January, 1803, the year of Emerson's birth, Sarah Helen, the second child of Nicholas and Anna Marsh Power was born.(1) Mrs. Whitman later stated that “oblique Saturn sat in the house of agonies” at this fateful beginning of her life; and, she always felt that the planetary influence in her life was an ominous one.(2) She later came to attribute to the mystical power of the stars much of her destiny — her intellectuality, her spirituality, and even those piercing neuralgic pains which often came with the cold northern winters.(3) She always felt that it was some such astrological force which drew to her that unfortunate poet, born on the same day six years later, who became one of the dominating influences of the latter portion of her life.(4) It was at ten o’clock P.M., on January 19, that the birth of this second child was announced and entered into Captain Power's family Bible. And possibly the town crier, passing through the narrow, hilly street, learned the news and went on his way crying assurance of public weal. It was not long before Sarah Power hearkened to such words of assurance, for the first sounds which she learned to utter were those of the town crier, “All's well”. And years later when she had bolstered her philosophy with Swedenborg and other [page 22:] optimists following in his wakes, she still felt that chief among the influences of her whole life had been those words of the town crier, “All's well”.(1)

The little city of Providence provided a suitable setting for the birth of a poet. All the charm of the Old World clung to the quaint, narrow streets which wound over the hills, past stately, severe wooden mansions, and high steepled churches. Near the great cove were the Golden Ball Inn and the Montgomery Tavern, where Washington and Lafayette were entertained; and along the streets were shops displaying swinging signs of “The Black Boy”, “The Golden Eagle”, “Shakespeare's Head”, “Mustapha, the Turk”, or other equally curious designs.(2) At the great bridge was a whipping post, and parallel to the river were long lines of old half-dilapidated red brick stores with wooden roofs and stone door and window frames, “which stood upon docks, built as if for an immense trade with all quarters of the globe.”(3) The American nave had seen its origin in Providence, and “the windows of the counting houses along the wharves saw the arrival of many a Providence built clipper and the homecoming of mariners bringing news of China and India and things of interest from all corners of the earth”.(4)

All of the romance of the sea hovered about the decaying old northern port. George William Curtis, [page 23:] affectionately recalling some years later his boyhood in Providence, spoke of the sloops moored along the docks, and of the occasional great East Indiamen, with rusty, seamed, blistered sides and dingy sails “which moved slowly into the harbor with an air of indolent self-importance and conscious superiority, bringing with it the mystic spell of Madagascar, Ceylon and Southern seas”. Curtis would often ramble out of town on those well remembered afternoons to the fields that lay upon the hillsides over the harbor, and there sit “looking out to sea, fancying some distant sail proceeding to the glorious ends of the earth to be his “type and image, who would so sail, stately and successful to all the glorious ports of the future”.(1)

It was this same picturesque setting which Curtis describes that Sarah Power knew in her early life. She could sit underneath the mulberry and cherry trees in her grandfather's garden and like George William Curtis draw fancies concerning the distant sails; and as a child she no doubt wandered down the wharves to the little shop where her father sold calico, an, rum, and molasses — as Curtis, breathing in the spicy odor of camphor and sandal wood, gazing at the little men with large stomachs who sat on rope coils by dark warehouse doors and looked silently toward their ships, listening to the almost sad, chanting, cabalistic strains of sailors [page 24:] as they turned cranks that lifted bales and crates and swung them ashore. And again, like Curtis she might have timidly touched the hot hulk of some great ship which had lain along the shores of China seas, sucking in whole flowery harvests of tea, and thus established a mystic connection “with Pacific Islands, palm groves, and all the passionate beauties they embower, with jungles, Bengal tigers, peppers and the crushed feet of Chinese fairies”. The very air of Providence was spicy with the products of China seas, and Sarah Power never lost that love of romance that came with the ships which moved in and out of the little harbor of Providence when she was a child living down near the wharves on South Street. Years later she liked to sit along the slopes overlooking the harbor, and she begged for the construction of parks and promenades where other people could watch the romantic marine traffic which belonged to her native city.(1)

“Dream followed dream,” Mrs. Whitman once wrote concerning this early part of her childhood, “and still the day floated on golden wings away.”(2) To her those “morning” hours were “divinely free”, and she often wandered out over the far-off, sunny hillsides, wooded cliffs, and wild ravines that skirt the city of Providence, seeking the arbutus and following “where fairies lurked in every dell”.(3) Sometimes her wanderings carried [page 25:] her to the old North Burial Ground where she was fascinated by the blackberry vines which grew over ancient gravestones, and where the staring, vacant faces of the round-eyed cherubim which adorned ancestral, tombs suggested appallingly to her childish imagination the dismembered and disembodied lives which her forefathers were leading in that mysterious world without end.(1) Sometimes she wandered the entire day, and when she grew tired and returned home with feet covered with chilbains, she would seek out her mother; and as they sat in the evening by the gleam of the hearth's light, Mrs. Power would soothe the young child's pains with stories of Cinderella, or the Sleeping Beauty, or the forlorn child doomed by a stepdame's scorn to wander until she found peace in the “Golden Ball”.(2) She soon became acquainted with many stories which carried her fancies far into the realms of the imagination. When she was a mere child of seven, Mrs. Power read to her “A Winter's Tale”, and she developed a great fondness for Shakespeare. She loved the songs of Puck and Autolyous, and as she had a great passion for jewels at this time, she was very much impressed by the lines:

Many years later she remarked that always Puck's “fairies that do run, (sic) from the presence of the sun, following darkness like a dream” carried her with [page 26:] them.(1) When quite young, she was allowed to visit the Providence stage, and there, trembling and enraptured, she gazed upon those creatures of her dreams — bright, breathing and palpable”. She could scarce deem that the earth possessed such beauty. This was life, and to her all else was but vain shadows.(2) In describing a visit to the New York theater years later, she wrote with some sentiment concerning this early experience:

There seems to have been no limit to the wanderings of Sarah Power's childish fancies, and she early explored regions of romance both dark and haunting. When only eight years of age, she read Clara Reeve's “Old English Baron”, a blood-chilling tale, which, though popular with an American public that read avidly novels of the Gothic type, would have been looked upon as poison in a child's hand by some of Mrs. Power's relatives who had not yet learned to accept novels of any sort as anything other than instruments of the devil. Miss Reeve's vaults and halls yielded their ghosts and the child was impressed, so much so that when she was an old woman of seventy, she remarked that she had never forgotten this haunting story.(2) Such dark tales along with strange stories told by her Aunt Rebecca of adventurous Irish ancestors played no small part the formation of her character.

The first five years of Sarah Power's life were spent in the home of her grandfather.(3) Here in the garden which had delighted her Aunt Rebecca she must surely have acquired an early love for those phases of the natural world which were to furnish inspiration for [page 28:] her verse. Here also at the foot of the bed, she possibly found the same samplers which had warned her grandmother to adorn herself with grace and to prize wisdom more than pearls. But it was the love and care of her grandfather which perhaps contributed more than anything else toward the development of Sarah during this brief period of her life. That same order of household that her father had known was there — that remarkable chivalry and unbroken politeness of her grandfather. It is said that Captain Power nursed his family in sickness with his own hands, and that in him there was blended a woman's tenderness with a soldier's daring. No reproaches or words of dissatisfaction ever came from him, and he so filled the house with pleasantry that the very sound of his horse's hoofs as he neared the door brought cheer to all within.(1) From her grandfather Sarah Power was to acquire a sense of tolerance and a zeal for progress which became a definite and essential part of her personality.

In 1806 Susan Anna, a third child, was to Nicholas and Anna Marsh Power.(2) Then one day in January, 1808, Captain Power died and was borne off to the Old North Burial Ground.(3) Sarah Power was thus early introduced to mortality, and at the obsequies of her grandfather she perhaps gazed for the first time on those wide-eyed tombstone cherubim which appalled her [page 29:] imagination with thoughts of disembodied spirits and of other worlds.

The passing of Captain Power marked a great change in the destiny of his kinsmen. Captain Power had always provided for his immediate family, and he had given assistance and annuities to his relatives, in one instance adopting the daughter of a kinsman to his own home. He had possessed all of the pride characteristic of his family, and he had labored hard to keep them all in circumstances worthy of respect.(1) But this same consideration was not to be found in his son Nicholas, who, despite his fine education and alleged galantry [[gallantry]], apparently lacked some of the more noble characteristics of his father; and the Powers were to suffer hard times, some anxiety, and a shadow of scandal because of his future conduct. So when Captain Power was borne off to the old North Burial Ground, a new life began for Sarah Power.

This new life commenced amid the waning splendor of a passing age, amid the fading luxuries of those “Canton” merchants who had brought the culture and trade of the Orient to New England shores, and who had built up the wealth of both Providence and Boston. Among these merchants was the Providence firm of Snow and Munro, “merchants who rode in their carriages, when carriages were an exceptional luxury, who built and [page 30:] lived in great houses, who had their warehouses on Long Wharf, and whose ships sailed from India Point to the far East. It was across the great bridge into one of the Snow houses located on the corner of Westminster and Snow Streets that Nicholas Power carried his family on the death of his father, and here Sarah spent a short period of her childhood. Concerning this old home and its effect on her childish imagination she wrote:

Toward the close of the eighteenth century Captain Samuel Snow had built a home in Cranston, which represented a style of magnificence not previously known. After the bankruptcy of the firm of Snow and Munro this home had passed into the hands of the Hon. Edward. Dexter Esq. “It was as the guest and playmate of his only daughter — a fragile little girl, who soon died there of consumption”, Mrs. Whitman wrote, “that I passed some of the most memorable holidays of my childhood.” This association with a sickly child amid the decay of former splendor left a melancholy impression on the mind of Sarah Power, and she early learned to contemplate those vanishing luxuries with a feeling of deep depression. She wrote:

The early childhood or Sarah Power was therefore spent in somewhat romantic surroundings. But Nicholas Power did not keep his family long on Snow Street. He soon moved them to the Grinnell Houses, a place evidently down by the river and near the marshes. The marshes became unhealthful, and in February, 1809, little Susan Anna died.(2) Consequently, the Powers again changed residence, this time moving to the Angell Tavern, a place in the center of the town which had been famous since Revolutionary days. In the rear of the tavern, at the foot of the garden, Nicholas kept a boat moored, and he would sometimes take the little girls for a sail on the Great Salt Cove, thereby winning from them loud praises. He also was fond of horses, and at this time kept nine which he frequently drove to Boston.(3)

The education of women in the early nineteenth century was in many cases rather sadly neglected, but Nicholas Power had no idea of bringing his daughters up in abysmal ignorance, nor did he propose to leave their training, as was often customary, to the elder [page 33:] female members of the family. Consequently, when in 1810 Mr. Moses Noyes announced through the pages of the Gazette that the state of his health had rendered it necessary for him to open a school exclusively for females, the Power children were enrolled, and a man named Joe Cheese was engaged to row them regularly across the Great Salt Cove and deposit them at Mr. Noyes’ door.(1) Mr. Noyes taught spelling, readings writing, English grammar, and arithmetic; and when there were students sufficiently advanced in the above subjects, he taught them the use of the artificial globes, astronomy, geography, and history — all of this without additional expense.(2) There is no record as to the extent of Sarah Power's proficiency at this age, but one might suspect that she was more interested in the vacations coming at the end of each twelve weeks, when she could wander off over the hills, than she was in the precepts and lessens of Moses Noyes. Nevertheless, she did like to read; and as we have seen, her reading was not restricted to such sober literature as that which had nourished the mind of her Aunt Rebecca.

By this time Aunt Rebecca had perhaps returned to Providence. She was the youngest, handsomest, and most attractive of Nicholas Power's sisters, and she had inherited much of that adventurous Irish spirit which was a part of her brother's character. Her dark [page 34:] wealthy Southern husband had been murdered by one of his servants, and as the Widow Air she had come back to Providence, still handsome, and possessed of an annuity and a slave. Her great personal charm and the romance surrounding her life made Aunt Rebecca's hand still eligible among the toung [[young]] bachelors of Providence. In 1815 she married Joseph L. Tillinghast, a man ten years her junior; and as this second venture proved successful, later she sought to convince Sarah Power that the happiest marriages were those in which the wife was the elder.(1) The Widow Air must have been a romantic figure in Providence. There were surely whispered stories of her life in the South, and she herself had stories to tell. She had a confirmed assurance of the nobility of her family, and she passed a certain vanity and pride of family on to Sarah. Then too she no doubt told Sarah of the “green and laughing earth”, of the birds and flowers in her old garden, and of the old gardener who had traveled over the world: A great friendship existed between Sarah and her Aunt Rebecca; this friendship lasted, and their interests remained somewhat the same until the death of Mrs. Tillinghast in 1860.

But shadows were beginning to gather above the Power household, and significant changes were soon to take place. In March, 1811, the home was cheered by [page 35:] the birth of a son, Nicholas 7th, but this child died before the close of the year.(1) Then in 1812 there came a severe blow. British hostilities and interference having become intolerable, President Madison declared open warfare upon the high seas. So much of the life of the city had depended upon those ships which moved continuously in and out of the harbor that the President's words were received as a death warrant by the merchants of Providence. The bells of the several churches tolled during the greater part of the day, and shops and stores were generally shut. The flags of the ships at the wharves as well as the one on the great bridge were displayed at half mast, and the whole city wore an aspect of mourning.(2) These were dark days for the Power home. In recent years the business of Power and Blodget had prospered and they had sometimes offered “the largest and most valuable assortment ever exposed for sale in this town”, but they had also advertised “cash liberally advanced on goods deposited for public or private sale”.(3) The guiding hand of old Captain Power was apparently needed at this time, but Captain Power was gone. Power and Blodget failed.(4) In 1812 the Providence Gazette announced that the concerns of this late firm had been settled and cleared. William Blodget now established himself alone as an auctioneer and commission merchant;(5) Nicholas Power looked about for other [page 36:] means of support. The old brick store at No. 10 Cheapside passed into the hands of Watson and Gladding who operated under the sign of the “Bunch of Grapes”.(1)

It was under these distressing circumstances in 1813 that Anne Marsh Power bore her last child which she named after little Susan Anna who had died over in the home by the river marshes.(2) A greater shadow than that of distressing external circumstances hung about the birth of this child. She was and “elf” child, and throughout her life, which lasted until the year 1877, she was a constant source of anxiety to her family. Years later, when on her death bed, Mrs. Power, realizing the helplessness of Anna, begged Sarah to take care of her sister;(3) and Mrs. Whitman's continuous self-sacrifice and anxiety throughout life concerning Anna was often compared by her friends to the martyrdom of Charles Lamb.(4) Anna inherited peculiar mental twists which were manifest more than once among her maternal kinsmen. She was “eccentric”. She possessed a naturally haughty and dominant temper which from her earliest years could bear no restraint or opposition. Once some years later, under circumstances of unusual excitement, this hereditary temper gave way to an acute mania, which only after a few weeks of retirement and hospital treatment yielded to an accustomed state of health. Ever after, there was a fear that some unlooked for disturbance [page 37:] might cause a permanent overthrow of her mentality, and she was allowed to have her own way.(1) She became sole arbitress of the house.

The Powers came early to realize that Susan Anna had inherited more than her share of family weaknesses, and they looked upon her fluctuating mental moods, her baseless antipathies, and her blending of good. and perverse qualities as simply a mournful heritage of the house. use characteristics which constituted her eccentricities were in many cases merely family traits which bad in this child become exaggerated, and many of Anna's qualities might have been found also in her sister Sarah. Sarah possessed all of the wit, brilliance, and sincerity of Anna, and at the same time she had something of that haughty and dominant temperament which in her case often took almost as severe a form of perversity and determination as it did in her sister. Neither constraint nor opposition produced violence or mania in Sarah; but once she had definitely set her mind upon the accomplishment of some purpose, she could not easily be deterred. Both she and Anna were self-reliant in their “reprobation of servile arts and customs’ iron reign”, and no manner of opposition or suggestions of common sense would bring them to be the servants of public opinion.(2) Sarah too had that certain almost exaggerated pride of character [page 38:] which carried with it a peculiar sensitiveness. Both sisters luxuriated in natural beauty, and both lived in the realms of romantic imagination. Together as children they frequently wandered over the brown hills in search of elves and fairies; and when both were little old women, they still roamed together, drinking in the beauties of a New England summer or autumn scene.

Sarah Power to some extent inherited that perverse spirit of determination from her natal ancestors; yet it would be a little unfair not to give some of the credit for this quality to those descendants of the Irish Roger le Poer. On the other hand, that sensitive pride of character, and that reckless love of romance and adventure which were always an inherent part of her nature, came rather directly from her father, “Nicholas of the beautiful face”, Sarah resembled her father to a great extent in both character and appearance. She had both his daring and his confidence, and there can be no doubt but that his independent spirit and his thrilling experiences had a telling influence on her life.

Soon after the birth of Susan Anna in 1813, when Sarah was a mere child of ten, Nicholas Power left his family and sailed for the Carolinas.(1) It is more than likely that he had wearied of his wife, who seems to have been endowed with more than a sufficiency of [page 39:] common sense, and to have supplied at times a certain strength of character which was not always present in her romantic daughters and their restless father. One can but suspect that Anna Power had grown less pleasing to her husband, and now that she had borne him five children, he wished to rest awhile from the wearisome entanglements of an injudicious marriage. On the other hand it might have been simply a roving disposition and the lure of those white sailed ships riding in the harbor which took Nicholas from his home in Providence. And again one might find an immediate excuse for his departure in the wrecked state of business affairs. Power and Blodget had failed, and in his efforts to obtain money Nicholas had executed mortgages on his father's estate — and he apparently did not have a clear legal title to this estate.(1) Meanwhile Mrs. Power's brother, David Marsh, having left an estate in North Carolina to be settled, Nicholas set sail for the South with the purpose of taking care of this property.(2) He did not remain in North Carolina, however, but continued to the West Indies where his vessel was seized by the British and he became a prisoner of war.(3)

The Powers had again moved in 1813 to the Halsey House over Round's Store on Main Street, and it was here that they were living when the town celebrated the close of the war of 1815.(4) The news was announced [page 40:] by the firing of a cannon and the ringing of bells, and in the evening the town was splendidly illuminated in testimony of the joy of its citizens. But the joy of the Powers was short-lived. Nicholas Power was of course released by the British, but the “brave knight of chivalry” seems not to have “revived itself” in him, for he did not return home until some nineteen years had elapsed, and his family had long since given up hope of seeing him again. In truth his reappearance in 1833 was perhaps more of a shock to his family than had been his original disappearance, and it gave inspiration to a couplet on the part of his eccentric daughter Anna who had no remembrance of a father who had departed during the first year of her life.

Little is known of the whereabouts of Nicholas Power during the long years of his absence, for his family seem to have been content to allow Anna's couplet to be the chief monument to his memory. There is a possibility that he spent some of the time with his sister Sarah, now Mrs. David Williams, whose husband was governor of South Carolina during the war of 1812. David Williams hated the English, and once expressed the wish that they were all at the bottom of the sea; his attitude would. have been balm for the [page 41:] wounds and indignation of one who had suffered imprisonment on a British man-of-war.(1) On the other hand there is evidence that Nicholas Power spent a part of the time in the west Indies, for not only does Anna's couplet place him at St. Kitts, but a letter sent to him some years later by his son-in-law is addressed to St. Bartholomew. The fact remains that for practically two decades, he preferred to absent himself from Providence. Outside of economic difficulties and wounds to the pride of his family, Nicholas Power's utter disappearance could have seemed hardly tragic to Sarah Power and her sisters, all of whom were quite young at his departure; yet his absence did cast a shadow over the Power home, especially during those years when they were constantly expecting his return; and one can but sympathize with Mrs. Power's cautions attitude in later years when other males made attempts to attach themselves to her household.

The absence of her husband complicated matters for Mrs. Power, and she found herself struggling to support her small family of three, each of whom no doubt possessed idiosyncrasies sufficient to make her life a burden. She therefore from time to time called for assistance from her relatives, sending the children to the homes of her kin for visits of varied lengths. In a newspaper article of later years Mrs. Whitman recalls [page 42:] one of her early visits to relatives in Newport, an almost interminable three days of gloom to a homesick child:

A visit of greater length, which brought more pleasure and proved of much importance in Sarah's childhood development came when at eleven years of age she was sent to the home of her mother's sister, Mrs. Cornelius J. Bogert, who lived at Jamaica, on Long Island. These were formative days in the life of the young girl, and during her visit with her aunt she came under influences which were to become an integral part of her character. Concerning her visit and the people whom she met, Mrs. Whitman wrote:

Sarah Power must have sat enraptured, while her elders discussed without restraint that impetuous poet who was setting the fashion for American poetry, and in some instances for manners and wearing apparel. She remembered these conversations when she attempted [page 45:] to defend Byron against the caustic condemnation of later generations. And one might note with interest the developing character of this child of eleven who chose to name her doll for the bloody fingered and pagan Gulnare rather than the more passive Medora. But far different must have been the discussions which occupied her school hours, for during this short visit in the home of her aunt she was placed under the tutelage of John Griscom, a Quaker.(1) One wonders if she could have acquired this early from John Griscom something of that same “Inner Light”, something of that “acquiescence without understanding the reason” which Emerson was to learn from the Quaker Mary Rotch, in 1828. It was a doctrine of tranquility and absolute assurance of higher direction which both Emerson. and Sarah Whitman possessed all of their lives.

There were few attachments that she held. during her entire life which were more secure than that which Sarah now formed for her cousin, Anna M. Bartlett, who in turn felt great affection for the child.(2) “I would give a great deal to see you again, my dear Sarah,” Anna Bartlett once wrote, after Sarah had returned to her home in evidence, “again to hear you address me by the tender appellation of ‘Mother”; again to clasp you in my arms, and imprint your cheek with affection's kiss.(3) And at another time she added: [page 46:]

But attached as she was to the child, Anna Bartlett made no attempt to alienate her affection from her own mother, with whom there was great sympathy on the part of all of Mrs. Power's relatives. She once wrote to Sarah:

Little did Anna Bartlett know of the demands which Mrs. Pier was later to make upon her daughter. Yet the effect of her cousin's words always remained in Sarah's heart, and she gave in to her mother's decisions and spared her all pain when she herself was thereby to suffer sad consequences. Mrs. Power required and had [page 47:] a right to all of the attention which it was in Sarah's power to give, and Mrs. Power made her demands.

The ceremony which had changed Anna Bartlett's “name and station” had made her the wife of H. W. Warner, and she later gave to the world two daughters, Susan and Anna Bartlett Warner, both of whom became well known nineteenth century lachrymal artists. Susan wrote “The Wide, Wide World” and thereby brought more tears from her contemporaries than any other writer of the period unless it be Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe; her sister Anna wrote several volumes of religious hymns and moral prose, thus doing her bit to “cheer the hour of sorrow or console the heart in its moment of affliction”.

It was the mother of these two women who helped shape the moral and religious attitude of Sarah Power. And one can but feel that during her association with Anna Bartlett she was subjected to many of the restrictions and admonitions which Susan Warner later depleted in the “Wide, Wide World”. Children were moral prodigies in Anna Bartlett's day, and they spent much time in discussing death and happiness in Jesus Christ.

One is strongly reminded of the moral principles of little Ellen, in Susan Warner's novel, who, struck dumb because the hired man had offered her a swing in exchange for a kiss, rushed into the house, and after copious weeping seized her Bible and hymn book and spent half the day on her knees asking God to make her a good child.(2) Susan Warner's novel is to a great extent autobiographical, and we may be sure that the training which she has depicted was first tried upon Sarah Power. Strangely enough Mrs. Bogert was herself not a Christian,(3) but what virtues she lacked in this respect were well accounted for in Anna Bartlett, who even complained at the writing of family letters if this were done on the Sabbath day.(4) Anna's words came to mean much to Sarah Power who was only eleven years of age at the time of her visit at Mrs. Bogert's. They were to her what her grandmother's samplers had been to her aunt Rebecca in those days in the house down by the river. She never forgot then, and though her philosophy of life came to be a rather elaborate specimen of spiritual mosaic by the time of her death, there remained always as a part of the centerpiece those bits of spiritual advice which she had received from Anna Bartlett. Anna advised her in everything. She guided [page 49:] her in little things of life, correcting her posture, and requesting and enjoining her to a methodical disposition of her time, “for”, she said, ‘with that you will find an opportunity for everything, without it you will be obliged to omit half the things you wish to do.” And she continued, “Time now wasted will be in vain regretted hereafter. Youth, I know, is generally considered, but in opinion improperly, as the season for enjoyment. It is the season as I have often told you, for improvement, for acquiring that information and establishing those habits by which the character of the adult will become admirable or otherwise”.(1)

But Sarah possessed an inherent perversity, and she was not always mindful of the sound advice which had been so freely offered by her relatives. Once in 1816, after she had returned to her home, and her sister Rebecca had taken her place at her aunt's, Mrs. Bogert wrote Mrs. Power concerning Sarah's delinquence.

Perhaps the one thing above all others in which Anna Bartlett found young Sarah's mind least responsive to her moulding advice was the matter of reading. It was the fashion for children to read such books as “Pilgrim's Progress”, “Ministering Children”, and “The Bible in Spain”. Much of one's physical well-being depended upon the type of mental food digested, and journals of health warned young ladies that they should not lounge all day by the fire reading novels or sickly love tales, nor should they indulge themselves in thinking of the perfidy of false swains or the despair of pining damsels; but they should bustle about domestic concerns, walk or ride in the open air, rub the furniture, make puddings — .and then during those periods when they were unoccupied by business or exercise, they might read good-humored and instructive works, “calculated while they keep the mind unencumbered with heavy thoughts to augment its store of ideas [page 51:] and guard it against the injury which ever results from false perception of mankind and of the concerns of life”.(1)

But the mold of Sarah's reading tastes had been set; she had read Shakespeare and Gothic romances while still a young child; and her interest had soared beyond “Pilgrim's Progress” and “The Bible in Spain”. She passed many hours in the home of her father's sister, Mrs. Blodget, where she had access to a large and valuable library. Here she later read French and German authors and stored her mind with treasures of thought which she brought into use when German literature became fashionable.(2)

After her return to Providence in 1815, Sarah read a great dealt, and she wrote back Anna Bartlett, confiding the pleasure of her reading. Anna was disturbed. In January, 1817. she wrote her fourteen year old niece:

Later in the year her fear for her young cousin seems not to have subsided, and she continued:

Poor Anna Bartlett! Little Sarah did not cease reading poetry; but Anna died long before Sarah “misused’ those talents God had given her in defending poets who not only excited the fancy but turned fancy into a mental whirlwind.

In the spring of 1815 Sarah Power contracted a fever and ague, a form of malarial fever which was very little understood, and from the effects of which she never fully recovered. For this reason she had been sent back to Providence in order that she night receive the medical attention of Dr. Pardon Bowen, and her sister Rebecca was now sent to the Bogert home at Jamaica.(2) The Bogerts were a great assistance to Mrs. Power at this time, often sending her food and helping her with complicated business affairs. “Mr. Bogert has heard nothing further from N. Carolina,” Mrs. Bogert wrote Mrs. Power concerning her husband in January, 1816; “he will send on the order and when he receives the money will apprise you of it — it is doubtful whether he will meddle with you or not, perhaps he will now that Mr. Bogert has engaged to indemnify him in case of any difficulty — if you once get it in possession it then remains a [page 53:] question between you and your husband whether you retain it or not, as the law gives it to him, however, I dare say Nicholas would have no objection to your keeping (sic) for whatever use you pleased.”(1) If the estate of David Marsh in North Carolina had yielded anything to his sister, Mrs. Power, it had immediately become the property of Nicholas Power by right of his marriage, and Mrs. Power's title was therefore not sufficiently clear for her to obtain money from her on inheritance without indemnification. Furthermore, it is doubtful if she could obtain much assistance from her husband's family in Providence. One of Mrs. Bogert's letters to Mrs. Power speaks of the queer conduct of Mrs. Tillinghast, and of the estrangement between Susan and her aunt, Mrs. Blodget. Then Mrs. Bogart adds, “It is terrible to be estranged from all one's relations.”(2) There was land in Ohio that night have brought sore financial assistance, but it could not be disposed of at the time.(3) The financial conditions of the Power family were serious.

Mrs. Power now moved her family to the “Reynolds’ House”, on the corner of Church and Benefit Streets where they remained for many years, paying the small rent of ninety dollars per year, Sarah objected to this house because it was painted red, but she was quite pleased with the handsome woodwork of the interior. Again, she was happy over the fact that there was a garden in the rear which extended all the way down to [page 54:] the walls of St. John's Cathedral.(1) She never forgot the wild cucumber vine which threw its “spell of beauty” over the crumbling walls,(2) and in her garden she indulged her passion for flowers, a privilege which she had possibly not experienced since leaving the tower home on Main Street; from this garden came many of the blossoms which were to supply inspiration for her future poetic sentiments. She now had at hand two of the requisites of an early nineteenth century poetess — a garden and a cemetery; and a third requirement was to be fulfilled in the next few years. She was to suffer.

There was further education to be obtained, and Sarah was now expected to attend a school kept by the Misses Tillinghast, sisters of the man her Aunt Rebecca had married.(3) But she for some reason apparently did not attend this school, going instead to a Miss Sterry at 25 South Main Street.(4) Here she was probably instructed in all branches of knowledge, “literary, useful, and ornamental”; and in due time would have been returned to her mother “fully accomplished in body, from corsets, braces, stays, bandages, and boards”, and no less accomplished in mind. But Sarah did not wait for these achievements. She did not like school, and she left Miss Sterryls, planning to continue her studies at home. This decision worried Anna Bartlett, and Anna wrote her cousin that she regretted that she had removed [page 55:] so far from the school, and that she feared she would not pursue her studies at home with as much order and application as she should. Anna continued:

“It is now the spring time with you dear; and recollect that if you attend more to its enjoyments than its cares, if intent only on its flowers and birds, its fragrance and its harmony, you neglect the toilsome preparation and culture of the ground, your summers will be without fruit, and your winter weary indeed.”(1)

And later she added: “I feel anxious to know, my dear, how you employ your time, now that you do not go to school.”(2)

Sarah employed a great deal of her time in reading novels and poetry in the home of her aunt who had married William Blodget. She apparently did not suffer that antipathy which her sister felt for Mrs. Blodget, and in the companionship of her uncle she found a congeniality and a literary sympathy which she had not discovered in Anna Bartlett. In her scrapbook she has left a clipping which pictures her uncle and the elegance of the Blodget home which she so enjoyed on Smith's Hill. [[:]]

Much of the girlhood of Sarah Power was therefore spent in acquiring a background of literature which was to contribute greatly toward her literacy development of later years. But she also played games with others of her age,(2) and she entered into the general social activities of her sister Rebecca after the latter had returned from Long Island.

The Power home on Benefit street stood too near Brown University for the students of that institution to be unaware of the attractiveness of Rebecca Power, who was not quite seventeen when she returned to Providence. Consequently Rebecca had several admirers who were often in the home on Benefit Street, Among this group were William Staples, Winslow Whitman, and William Patten, the last one of whom was very much in love with Rebecca. Sarah was interested in her sister's suitors, but at first she merely amused herself by writing humorous rhymes about them; however, it was not long before her own personal attraction began to draw some of the attention from Rebecca. Among those who favored the younger sister was Winslow Whitman, a frail but attractive young student who was preparing to enter [page 57:] the profession of law.(1) Winslow Whitman had known Sarah since those troublesome days when her father had sailed out of the harbor for southern seas, and he had always received from her a “sister-like attention”.(2) But now the child, having grown, had become more interesting, and he was very much impressed by her vivaciousness and wit. Being a man of some poetic talent, he was interested in Sarah's verse, and his fun-loving nature responded to its humorous turn. Sarah seems to have singled him out for an onslaught of her wit, and once when the lights had been put out (a frequent trick at their parties) he seized the young girl by the shoulders, and addressing her as a hussy, accused her of writing some particular verses. It was this sort of thing in John Winslow Whitman, this fun-loving nature, which pleased Sarah Power, and from that time on her interest in him came to be more than a passing amusement. She was in love with him. He was no longer a childish playmate, and she became self-conscious in his presence. She was very much chagrined therefore when some time later he discovered her sitting on an inverted tub, under which she had imprisoned an old black cat. Giving him one look, she fled from the room.(3) ,

As Mrs. Power's attitude toward men could have been no longer very tolerant, and might speculate as to what her thoughts were concerning those youths who were interested in her daughters. They were not to [page 58:] be listed among the most serious of the students in Brown University, and they were sometimes involved in the rowdyism, vandalism, and often riot which held sway under President Asa Messer. Stones were frequently thrown into the tutors’ windows, and ashes were sometimes placed in their beds. Then when the “Hell Fire Rummaging Club” was organized, they went so far as to remove doors, furniture, and even the pulpit and carry them off from the old College Edifice. Perhaps the most serious disturbance came on a severely cold late in November, 1817, when the sleeping citizens of Providence were aroused by loud cries of “Fire!” and men rushed with their fire buckets toward the College Edifice which seemed enveloped in flames. Their rage was beyond control when they discovered that their slumber had been disturbed by an unnecessary alarm, and that the flames were coming from an old “privy” which the boys had moved from next the president's hog-pen to the center of the campus and there set on fire. Action, was taken and a long series of investigations was set afoot. Eventually one of the culprits made a confession, and all secrets of the affair became known.(1)

Nineteen-year-old Winslow Whitman, having started for Boston, had paused at the “Half-Way House”, when he was handed a warrant for his arrest for participating in this college prank. He was somewhat mortified; [page 59:] but he was guilty. His first thoughts were of Sarah Power, and he immediately wrote her an apologetic note which he sent by Henry Ward Bowen who had brought him as far as Fuller's Hotel.(1)

The Hon. Kilborn Whitman made an effort to save his son from that disgrace which he now so confidently expected; he suggested to president Messer that the deed was small, and that after all the outhouse was only a nuisance. But Messer's reply was that the flames from the outhouse, which had been filled with [page 60:] cornstalks, had risen as high as the College Edifice, and that it was considered no small thing in Providence to alram [[alarm]] ten or twelve thousand people in the night by the cry of “Fire!” He assured the Honorable Mr. Whitman that the relation which his son held to the college was undoubtedly critical.(1) Then on Dec. 19, 1817, President Messer appeared before the chapel, and after the usual lengthy prayer announced the results of the inquiry respecting the authors of the fire. Henry Bowen had been found to be the leader, and he was expelled; John Winslow Whitman was next in line of guilt, and he was rusticated until the final examination of the senior class; George Binny and others were pronounced guilty in various and lesser degrees. The least of the offenders were fined.(2)

Winslow Whitman was under the disgrace of the University of which he was a member. He was a rowdy and an outcast. Yet all of the adventurous spirit of the roving Nicholas must have filled the veins of Sarah Power when she learned of Winslow's participation in the disturbing affair. One wonders if she did not pen another humorous verse. The culprit night have “outraged the purity” of the young girl by “imagining” that she would forgive, but certainly he did not lose her esteem. He did not deserve her forgiveness, but — earth was still occupied by one “angel”. She forgave him. [page 61:] In fact it was not many years before she made plans to marry him.

Rustication carried with it none of the serious consequences of expulsion. It simply meant that a student must repair to some appointed divine and there do privately and under fewer temptations the work which he might have done had he remained in college. Old Asa Messer, signing his letter “Yours affectionately” directed young Winslow to a Reverend Dr. Richmond of Dorchester.(1) Consequently his work was satisfactorily completed, and the following September when the stagecoaches had brought the gay throngs into Providence to follow the commencement procession down the hill to the First Baptist Meeting House, John Winslow Whitman was in that procession, marching to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts.(2) Some of the gaiety of the throng was missing, for liquor was no longer dispensed from the meeting lot, and a sheriff followed the procession for the preservation of order; but the band played a spirited tune, and the crowd assembled for a literary feast. The service was somewhat the same as that which Nicholas Power had witnessed — there was a long prayer, music, speeches, and debates. But on this occasion the subject of the oration was more daring, and the orator, equally bold as his subject, had also distinguished himself as the class poet, The title of the oration was “The Atheist”; the [page 62:] orator was John Winslow Whitman.(1)

John Winslow Whitman, or “Winslow” as he was called by his family, was a man who held a natural appeal for Sarah Power. Born in 1799, he was four years her senior. A son of Judge Kilborn Whitman of Pembroke, Massachusetts, he boasted descent from old John Whitman of Weymouth, and through the maternal side, Edward Winslow, first governor of Plymouth.(2) At the age of nineteen young Whitman completed his course at Brown, and began the practice of law at Barnstable, Massachusetts, later taking up his profession in Boston.(3) John Winslow Whitman was never strong, yet a portrait of him painted as a youth by the artist Alexander, shows him to have had handsome, delicate, and clear-cut features. He was a man of some brilliance, and possessed a spirit of boldness and daring. He wore Byronic collars, wrote sad, morbid poetry, and was considered the wit and orator of his class.(4) Winslow Whitman was alive — very much so — and he possessed a fund of humor that appealed to the fun-loving Sarah. Her romance with him was a flesh and blood romance. Her love for him had grown with excessive flights of poetic imagination, but it was a, spontaneous love which showed no traces of having been bolstered with reason or philosophy. Sarah had known Winslow Whitman since she was a child of ten and he a lad of fourteen, and her love for him was a “dream [page 63:] of youth”; her life with him was “that life so strangely fair, ere yet one cloud of memory had gathered in hope's golden air”. This was a young and physical love, and a love which she was later always forced to deny the poet Poe, though she sentimentalized over him and accorded him a warm affection, but an affection which compares more favorably with the love which Margaret Fuller defined scientifically as a love which women night feel for woman, or man for man; a “love of angels” in a land where “sie fragen nieht nach man und weib”.

The next few years could not have been altogether happy ones in the life of Sarah Power. As time passed, her mother's difficulties increased. She had evidently received permission from her husband to sell some of the property, but there was other property that could not be disposed of without his signature.(1) And apparently this signature could not be obtained. Mrs. Power nay have had some idea as to where her husband was during the early years of his absence, but had she been able to persuade him to return to Providence, there were obviously reasons Why he could not do so. Nevertheless, Mrs. Power's relatives were now taking care that no more of her own property should fall under the coverture of her faithless husband. A letter written to Mrs. Power on February 4, 1822, reveals their means of avoiding such a difficulty in the future: [page 64:]

Bitterness, anxiety, and sorrow rust have rankled deep in Mrs. Power's heart, for by 1824 she had manifestly given up hopes of seeing her husband again. She is listed is the Providence directory for this year as “Anna Power, widow, 50 Benefit Street”. But there were other problems for Mrs. Power to think of now than that of the desertion of her husband. Her own daughters had taken into consideration the problem of husbands. In 1821 Rebecca married William Staples, one of the students who had frequented the Power home soon after Rebecca returned from Jamaica.(2) 1824 found Sarah [page 65:] Helen still in love with that second student who had once been a suitor of Rebecca — and in this year she announced her engagement to John Winslow Whitman.(1) Mrs. Power was now left with the probability of one daughter to provide for — Anna would never marry.

The passing years witnessed changes in the Power family which would have been of interest to Nicholas Power. But he was forced to learn of these changes from sources other than that of his immediate family. If they knew where he was, they made no further effort now to keep him informed. He had forfeited all right to their consideration. And now, to all outward appearances, they considered Nicholas Power as dead.(2)