Text: John Grier Varner, “Chapter 05,” Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence, dissertation, 1940, pp. 135-180 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 135:]

A humorous epitaph written for Mrs. Whitman by one of her friends long before she was actually in need of an epitaph stated that her creed was to believe whatever she ought not to, that “excelsior” was her motto, and that her acquaintance was so extensive that it included friends in “Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Hades and Rhode Island”.(1) Facetious as this bit of doggerel is, it rather accurately describes Mrs. Whitman's attitude throughout life concerning conventional thought and custom, and it pictures truthfully her liberality and independence in the selection of her friends. She had been influenced in her revolt against tradition and convention by the forces which came with Transcendentalism, but that spirit of revolution which was being intensified in New England by this movement was not novel tor Sarah Whitman. A sense of rebellion had accompanied a love of adventure is the blood of her Irish-American ancestors; her Providence forefathers, even in their staunchest Calvinism, had taken a stand for freedom of conscience; and from her own father she had acquired a liberalism which she must have cherished. She even possessed something of that perversity which was so tragic in the life of her sister, but which contributed much toward making a literary priestess of herself. It was the unconventional thing which appealed to Sarah Whitman; it was the new thought, the unexpected revelation, [page 136:] which fascinated her in her search for truth; and it was the man whom the world condemned that she defended. Thus as a child she had avidly read that literature which her relatives feared; as a young girl she had fallen in love with a student who suffered the disapprobation of his university; later she had married the editor of a bachelor's magazine, a “bulwark” of celibacy, and then had gone to live among the most radical of reformers in the hub of the American intellectual revolution. And she referred to those people whom she met at this time as

On her return to Providence, therefore, she found herself bound by a rather narrow and prejudiced circle of friends, and she strained at the bonds of social and intellectual serfdom.

The ladies of Providence, however, had been sufficiently aroused to follow the example of some of their Boston sisters, and they now held frequent literary meetings, in which, to be sure, Mrs. Whitman assumed an active part. One of the organizations to which she belonged was a literary group known as the “Coliseum”, which sometimes met at a Mrs. Ives’ where they read and studied Shakespeare.(2) But the bold Sarah Whitman had progressed [page 137:] far beyond some of the ladies in this group during her sojourn in Boston; and there were those who felt that although the world of letters had opened to her a never failing source of gratifications this had possibly not always been innocent gratification. She had not been temperate in her readings, and the “mental cordial” had yielded sone of its poison. Consequently, Mrs. Whitman found herself in her role of Egeria defending authors whose moral looseness and religious speculations had brought local and frequently universal condemnation.

Anna Bartlett is precepts to some extent had been heeded. Sarah Whitman did pursue knowledge beyond fear of censure, though she night not have been able to agree with Anna Bartlett as to the propriety of the use in which she employed her talents., But then she and Anna had never agreed on literary values, and Anna was not to be blamed; she had belonged to a passing age. [page 138:]

Sarah Whitman simply could not agree to accept theories of genius., and she could not approve of some of the conventional literary idols. It is true that she ascribed supreme genius to Shakespeare and thus gave foundation to her literary opinion; but to some of the other authors who had been practical1y deified in America she attributed nothing more than mere talent or ingenuity, and she committed great literary heresy among American contemporaries by denying Scott's right to the claim of genius — Scott of whom even the American divines and Phi Beta Kappa societies were making an exception. She pored over the German metaphysicians, accepted doctrines of Goethe and Rousseau, and defended the English romanticists —.Byron, whose morals had provided much discussion among those who protected civic virtue; and Shelley, who besides having set a wicked example in his own private life had openly proclaimed his skepticism. Genius might have been admitted in these men, but genius had not been combined with sufficient orthodox virtue to make them acceptable in some local literary circles. It was therefore with some degree of boldness that Mrs. Whitman defended these poets, and with a display of intellectual freedom that she published her defense of Shelley soon after her return to Providence in 1833. In that year Albert Gorton Greene, feeling that Providence had sufficient numbers, wealth, and means of intellectual gratification [page 139:] to support a publication devoted to literature, had established in that city The Literary Journal and Weekly Register of Science and the Arts, and among his first issues of this magazine he printed Mrs. Whitman's criticism of the character and writings of the great English poet. The article was signed “Egeria”.(1)

Mrs. Whitman's defense of Shelley is of some significance in a study of her life in that it reveals both her talent as a literary critic and the process of her philosophical and spiritual development. It is Sarah Whitman's declaration of man's right to intellectual freedom; for although she did not for an instant defend Shelley's unbelief, she did defend his right to unbelief, and she placed the causes of the poet's infidelity beyond: his own personal responsibility. In Shelley she had seen one of the foundation precepts of her own morel philosophy. The will played little or no part in man's actions and beliefs — it was easy therefore for her to forgive the poet's errors. And it is worth remembering that Mrs. Whitman's facile attitude toward other poets who suffered the disapprobation of their contemporaries might be explained by this same conviction concerning the question of “responsibility”.

To Sarah Whitman, Shelley was a true poet and a man of genius, a profound metaphysician and an admirable classic scholar who had investigated both moral and [page 140:] metaphysical truths with ardor. Completely independent in both thought and actions he had held the greatest contempt for prejudice and had been indifferent to any opinion which opposed the conviction of his reason. He had questioned religion and philosophy, both Christian and pagan. He had studied the Bible, had held the precepts of the Saviour in veneration, and had conformed strictly to the Golden rule even in its most liberal interpretation; yet he had been unable to hold a faith in the Scriptures as a divine revelation. Furthermore, seeing injustice and wrong perpetrated under the sacred name of religion and law, he had been led by hatred of hypocrisy to the very opposite extremes of infidel and revolutionary principles. For this liberality of thought and feeling Shelley had been condemed but in this very liberality and in the enlarged philanthropy which inspired every line of the poet, Sarah Whitman had found his principle charm. And deeply as she regretted the blending of true and false in Shelley, she found praise for the former and justification for the latter.

Mrs. Whitman argued that it was not a matter to excite surprise that a mind so peculiarly constituted as was that of Shelley should in its first eager but enlightened survey of life have been betrayed into inconsequent reasoning and have arrived at false deductions — that it should have been darkened by doubts, and [page 141:] perplexed by apparent inconsistencies. The principle obstacles to Shelley's faith had been in those speculations on the origin and existence of evil, and the apparently partial distribution of happiness and misery. These were difficult uroblens which Sarah Whitman herself had mused until thought grew dizzy, and her mind was lost in labyrinth of contradictory and perplexing speculations.(1) These were not difficulties to be met with intolerance such as that which had confronted Shelley. Mrs. Whitman felt that Shelley had possessed a mind open to conviction, and that had it not been confirmed in error by severity and intolerance, had his pride not been interested in the support of those opinions for which he had incurred so much obloquy, he might and doubtless would have renounced them. Reason and observation would have taught him the secrets of that divine alchemy by which apparent ills are transmuted into real blessings, and by which partial evil tends to promote universal good.. “More enlightened view of the economy of nature would have prepared his mind for the reception of the divine truths of Revelation; and in every arrangement of Providence, he would have recognized unbounded benevolence and infinite wisdom.”

Mrs. Whitman's plea for tolerance and her condemnation of religious bigotry become of unusual significance when we consider that she was one of the first American women to assume the rôle of Egeria, and that [page 142:] she dwelt still in a New England which had not completely disentangled itself from the severity of Jonathan Edwards’ Calvinism. She must have recalled with some pride that her forefathers had stood with Roger Williams in opposition to the Presbyterians of Boston Bay, and she had ever before her that motto which old Captain Power had assisted in placing in the First Baptist Meeting House.

There can be no doubt that Mrs. Whitman's forefathers drew stricter limits for this liberality of conscience then did Sarah Whitman in her defense of Shelley, but the moral was the same. “Persuasion, not force”, might have corrected the errors of the poet.

Sarah Whitman would not attribute to intolerance all responsibility for the liberalism and errors of Shelley. Much was due to the very genius of the man, for genius was sometimes a fearful thing. She had learned of its hazards from Montaigne. The Frenchman had shown it to be seldom united with circumspection and order, and he had observed that all who were possessed of any rare excellence or extraordinary vivacity of intellect indulged in some license of opinion or of morals, Intellect was a piercing sword, dangerous even to its possessor, unless he knew how to arm himself with it discreetly and soberly. It was curious; it was eager. One sought [page 143:] in vain to bridle and restrain it, but it escaped by its volatility from the restraints of customs, laws, and religions, of precepts, penalities [[penalties]] and rewards. Mrs. Whitman frequently referred to Montaigne's warnings concerning genius,(1) and she apparently arrived early at the conclusion that one must expect moral and intellectual freedom to accompany men of great intellect. Yet none realized better than she the truth of Montaigne's words, and she saw in Shelley's intellectual history a striking example that “the tree of Knowledge” is not “the tree of Life”, of the first great truth taught in the garden of Eden — that truth which had it been received on the word of God without a reference to stern experience, might have saved the race from its inheritance of sorrow. It was only after she herself had ceased to search for the roots of life through the tree of knowledge, when she had adopted a doctrine of resignation, that she had arrived at a serenity and a hope of immortality.(2) She had learned that Quaker resignation which left no choice — “to acquiesce without understanding the reason”. It was a feeling which Emerson shared.

The world had perhaps been severest in its condemnation of Shelley's node of living and his personal [page 144:] life — yet here again Mrs. Whitman felt that more tolerance was deserved. In Shelley's personal life she merely saw a man who had unhappily married a beautiful woman whose dissimilarity of tastes, habits, and disposition rendered their union unhappy — and they separated. To Sarah Whitman the tragedy was not in the separation, but in the fact that Shelley had been deprived of his own children after his wife's suicide. In Shelley's very mode of living Mrs. Whitman found much virtue. He had practiced great self-denial, and he was liberal almost to a fault in his charities. Emulation and ambition appeared to have been false principles to him; and revenge, malice, and envy found no place in his candid, gentle nature — and Shelley had constantly inculcated. a doctrine of universal love and unbounded charity. Herein Mrs. Whitman felt lay one of the chief virtues of the man Shelley had taught that the fit return to make to the most enormous injuries is kindness and forebearance [[forbearance]], and an endeavor to convert the injurer from his dark passions to truth and love. These were great virtues to Sarah Whitman, and she could not contemplate such sentiments without regretting that a heart so gentle as Shelley's, a soul so generous, should pass through a weary life without the consolation of re1igion and the hope of immortality.

But Shelley had found some hope of immortality [page 145:] in a doctrine came to be a definite part of Sarah Whitman's faith. He had developed a firm belief in the perfectibility of human nature, and in the final prevalence on earth of virtue and happiness over vice and misery. This faith had served faintly to cheer those moments of dejection when the pressure of existing and present evil, and fearful doubts of the soul's immortality weighed upon his mind. Mrs. Whitman never lost her faith in the perfectability of human nature; she always felt that virtue and happiness would overcome vice and misery, and often she held a confidence in individual human nature when others had given up all further hope. It was such a faith that made it possible for her to defend Shelley, and later Goethe, Byron, and Edgar Poe.

Much of Sarah Whitman's life was spent in encouraging young poets and in finding the good in those whose personal lives had brought upon them the world's condemnation. “St. Helena”,(1) she later came to be called by one of her friends. And it is of some interest to note that she used the same method in defending Shelley that she employed many years later in defending Poe. She admitted the poet's weaknesses and then stressed his sincerity and moral earnestness. In all of Shelley's poems she saw a pursuit of some philosophical or moral truth. It was his very philanthropy which led him to desire earnestly the reformation of all those errors which custom and authority alone had sanctioned in religion, [page 146:] laws, governments, and social conditions. Apparently, she felt that a man's sincerity was sufficient justification for his errors. But there were some of Mrs. Whitman's Providence friends who could not perceive philanthropy to such skepticism and rebellion, and these friends were greatly displeased with her for her bold defence. Upon publication of the Shelley article, the Ives and the Goddards grew cool.(1)

By 1834 literature had come to be more than an idle pastime for Mrs. WHitman. In this year she spent a great deal of time reading with Mrs. John Larned, and Mrs. Larned gave her introduction to Park Benjamin who was an editor of several magazines and annuals, and to Peter Parley (Goodrich) who published and paid her for sone of her poems.(2) Furthermore she became personally acquainted at this time with a great literary figure who exerted much influence in the formation of her moral and intellectual philosophy — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In the winters when Emerson was delivering his first Boston lectures, he came to Providence and repeated his discourses. In 1835 he lectured in Mr. Hawthorne's little semi-circular school room on Union Street. George William Curtis, Who heard the Concord sage at this tine, said that te seemed to speak as an inhabitant of heavens and with the inspiration and authority [page 147:] of a prophet.(1) Sarah Whitman later remarked that Emerson was the most profound thinker and inspired seer of her time.(2) Her coming in contact with him proved to be one of the cardinal points of her early life, and the deep seeds of Emersonian philosophy did much to make her the confirmed independent that she was. She listened to him, and her philosophy grew with the acquisition of the Emersonian doctrines. One of Emerson's subjects on the occasion of his Providence visits was “The Over-Soul”, and like her friend Curtis, Mrs. Whitman absorbed the theories of this lecture and made it a portion of her own philosophy. He spoke of the river of our being descending from he knew not whence, a flowing river which pours for a season its streams into man. He told of that Supreme Critic of all errors past or present, the only prophet of that which must be, that great nature “in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere”. Within man himself was the soul of the whole. It was something which breathed through man's will, forming genius; it was something which breathed through man's will, forming virtue; again, it was something which flowed through man's affections, forming love. The soul circumscribed all things; it contradicted all experience; it abolished time and space. Man was often made to feel that there is another youth and age than that which is measured from the year of his natural [page 148:] birth. Before the revelation of the soul Time, Space and Nature shrank away.(1)

Sarah Whitman must have sat in rapture at the speech of Emerson. And from Emerson's doctrines of unity and of revelation she found the necessary answer to those questions which she had vainly asked in her search for eternal truth. She learned that if she should abandon her heart to the supreme mind, she would find herself related to all its works and would travel a royal road to particular knowledge and powers. There were no mechanical aids to understanding and truth. It was intuition which judged of the true and the beautiful in both poetry and philosophy; and it was through the Soul that man received the communication of truth. This announcement of the Soul, its manifestations of its own nature, man distinguished by the term revelation.(2)

The doctrines of Emerson became deep-rooted in the mind of Mrs. Whitman, and formed a portion of the fabric of her later spiritual philosophy; but ever alert, she meanwhile indulged in new speculations which Emerson would have scorned, but which furnished the basis for her future belief in modern Spiritualism. She now became actively interested in mesmerism.

Democracy in religion had brought on high speculation and “fluidic” theories of life; and its possibilities began to reach all stages of pseudo-scientific [page 149:] perversion. One gets the feeling that the early nineteenth century had just about reduced the universe to a system of fluids.(1) There suddenly burst upon New England in the early part of the century theories of a magnetic fluid which streamed through the universe. theories which Father Hall and Anton Mesmer had promulgated. a century before and which might be traced back through the long tradition of witchcraft and alchemy.(2) Then there came blendings of phrenology and mesmerism; Buchanan presented “Nervaura”, an impalpable fluid both mundane and spiritual which made it possible for an individual to “operate upon a nation and transmit his influences through succeeding centuries”. Grimes introduced “Etherium” which connected the planets and communicated light, heat, electricity, gravitations and mental emotion from one body to another, and from one mind to another. There was “Psychography”, “Pathetism”, “Electro-Biology” and “Pantalogy” — and the whole universe spread itself about in a fluidic mass. Stories were rife of miraculous cures by means of magnetic treatment, and of strange visions by means of clairvoyance. Persons in a clairvoyant sleep could see through the very pores of their skin, the chief point of vision being the epigastric center. Diseases were diagnosed through means of somnambulistic second sight, and cures could be thus suggested. A French restaurant seized [page 150:] upon the fad and advertised personal somnambulistic services along with and included in the price of meals. A nervous, gullible age credulously drank in the stories that were circulated concerning the marvels of magnetism, and eventually that brilliant little satirist, Edgar Poe, took the opportunity to perpetrate another hoax. “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” told the story of a mind arrested on the death bed by means of mesmeric influences, while the body proceeded to dissolve. One wonders if its satire night not have included the last few lines of his story where, on release of the mind, the body of the hypnotic subject floats from its bed in a mass of “fluidic” putrescence.

Sarah Whitman without doubt read “The Facts in the case of M. Valdemar”, but one feels that she did not get the point of its captivating author. But then Sarah Whitman was by this time a believer in mesmerism. Always anxious for new revelations, she had become a disciple of the magnetic science which her friend, Dr. Robert Collyer, M. D., taught could bring about a mysterious mental connection by even so simile a means as that of two people merely gazing into the same bowl of molasses. Collyer's conviction was sufficiently strong for but to assure Poe later of his belief in the verity of the story of Valdemar,(1) and one night note with some interest that it was Sarah Whitman who first convinced [page 151:] CoIlyer of those doctrines which he came to style “Psychography”. Years later when his proud chest bore more than one gold medal for scientific achievements, and he was with some boredom receiving more official recognition, he wrote Mrs. Whitman:

More recent authorities give Collyer no such credit. One wonders just how much credit he really did receive from the medical profession in his own days for the opposition of this body to the employment of mesmerism in order to give relief from pain in surgical operations was singular. And the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether and chloroform in 1846-7 finally deprived the mesmeric trance of what might have been its most obvious utility.(2)

It was perhaps in 1837 that Sarah Whitman first became convinced of the plausibility of the magnetic science. Transcendentalism had given to genius the power of second sight, and it had taught of a common fluid which pervaded the universe; but true Emersonians had never approved of soul wanderings for the [page 152:] sake of satisfying the vulgar sensual curiosity. it was left to Charles Poyen to popularize a more artificial means of soul elevation and revelation; and his reception was cordial. Poyen began his lectures in Boston in 1856, but soon, on demand, he went farther afield.(1) He lectured in Providence and was entertained in the home of George Richmond where Mrs. Whitman made his personal acquaintance. At this reception Mrs. Whitman also net for the first time William J. Pabodie, who for years shared her interest in occult sciences.(2) The whole city beams interested, and it was not long before Providence was one of the leading centers of the science, the attention of the “magnetic” world being somewhat centered upon that city because of the miraculous case of a Providence lady, Miss Brackett, whose spirit seemed capable of leaving her body under magnetic influence and travelling to any distance demanded by the will of the magnetiser.(3) During the following year Poyen lectured in Belfast, Maine, where he met a curious young man, one Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who for some time followed him about from town to town, trying his own powers on any friend who could volunteer to be a “subject”. It was twenty-four years before Quimby practiced Poyan's principles on his most famous subject; in 1862 Mrs. Daniel Patterson (Mary Baker Eddy), who had a habit herself of falling into trances, came to him for “treatment”.(4) [page 153:]

Sarah Whitman was interested in the science that Poyen preached, and the intensity of her interest worried her old friend, Mrs. Hale, who being more concerned with female propriety than female speculation, wrote Mrs. Whitman on March 3, 1837:

There were no doubt other friends who felt that Sarah Whitman's enthusiastic attitude toward the mesmeric science was inconsistent with the delicacy and dignity; but it would have taken more than social scorn now to persuade her to remain within the limits of propriety and withhold her name from the investigation of such a challenging science.

One appealing thing about magnetism was its curative effect; it was upon this phase of the subject that Anton Mesmer had concentrated. Miss Brackett of Providence was supposedly a very good example of the wonders of magnetic healing, for, having received a blow on the head some years before, she had lost voice, eyesight and hearing; but she had been rescued from the grave by magnetists, and they had succeeded to some extent in restoring that of which she had been, deprived.(2) Two other sick woman who exerted great power on their contemporary world, particularly because of their interest in magnetism, were Elizabeth Barrett and Harriet Martineau. The influence of these women increased as their health improved. Miss Barrett was credulous concerning theories of magnetism, and Miss Martineau later gave to the science full credit for her cure.(3) A recent psychological [page 155:] critic sees in Harriet Martineau a pure Freudian complex — her own contemporary medical world saw in her a pure fraud. If her ill health was the result of mental conflict, then one might believe that mesmerism effected her cure; on the other hand, if her illness was a physical condition, then one might be inclined to agree it her physicians that they had already accomplished her cure before she abandoned them for the more mysterious science.

Sarah Whitman believed in Harriet Martineau; but then Sarah Whitman believed in the magnetic science. Once she wrote an essay on Miss Martineau which Mrs. Hale liked very much, and later she spoke of the cool, practical, good sense of this lady, recommending her essays and letters on magnetism to skeptical M.D.'s for study.(1)

One of Mrs. Whitman's friends who shared her enthusiasm for the curative effects of magnetism was Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, who stands best known in the literary world for her amusing play “Fashion”. Mrs. Mowatt was attended by Dr. Walter Channing for an affection which finally resulted in congestion of the brain; and when mesmerism was tried upon her, she developed into a remarkable somnambule. It is said that she could often be seen walking about Hoboken in a somnambulistic trance, accompanied by an attendant and heavily veiled in order to conceal the peculiar position of her eyes while in [page 156:] this state. Though quite timid, she was known to have stooped to pet a snake while mesmerised, and in 1842 she submitted to a dental operation while in a hypnotic state.(1) Writing to Mrs. Whitman in this year, Mrs. Mowatt spoke of how her health had been wonderfully improved entirely through magnetic influence, and she suggested her confidence in the power of this “heaven-blessed” science to apply “balm to one-half the mental and bodily ills of suffering humanity” so long as it was placed in the hands of a high-minded, feeling, and scientific man. Mrs. Mowatt continued that she felt the subject must be of great interest to Mrs. Whitman, since Mrs. Whitman herself had been a magnetizer, but that she wanted Mrs. Whitman to reflect upon what a charm it must be to a woman who had had a thousand pains soothed, a thousand annoyances, not to say griefs, banished, vigour restored to every limb, almost life itself given back, and a holy calm shed over her whole existence through the happy medium. Of magnetism, Mrs. Mowatt continued that she had learned from Dr. Channing that Mrs. Whitman was not herself immediately susceptible to the influence of magnetism, and she now begged her not to be discouraged on this account, urging her to consult a magnetizer for her own physical ills.(2)

The “fluidic theory” of magnetism was to prevail for some time yet in America before giving way generally to doctrines of Spiritualism, and the full [page 157:] possibilities of magnetism were not to be realized until many years later when Mary Baker Eddy, applying those principles of Poyen, developed a healing theory which grew into a religious cult. Meanwhile, mesmerism was merged in some instances with “Phrenology”, and a new “science” of “Phron-Mesmerisn” was developed, the discovery of which was disputed in American by Dr. J. Rhodes Buchanan, Dr. Robert Collyer, and the Rev. Laroy Sunderland; and in England by R. G. Atkinson, better known as the “Mentor” of Harriet Collyer soon recanted in his views, but Buchanan published a complete exposition of his system in 1854,(1) at which time Mrs. Whitman was sufficiently interested to send him her copy of Poe's “To Helen” for a psychometrical sketch — a treasured, gift from Poe which Buchanan lost.(2) But for some time Mrs. Whitman's interest in phrenology seems to have been confined to her circle in Providence, where she heard enlightened discussions on the subject from John Neal and Margaret Fuller.

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The Providence group of literary women, which doubtless centered in the organization known as The Coliseum, was a species of incubator in which was being hatched some of the most prominent if not the finest of later female literal talent; and it was this group which afterward formed a portion of the nucleus [page 158:] of the New York literati which gathered weekly in the home of Anne C. Lynch. It was perhaps the lure of such literary association, second only to that of Boston, which drew Anne C. Lynch to Providence in 1834 to teach young women in her home. The house of Miss Lynch early became a gathering place for the literary minded, and she developed a passion for poetry and for people of genius which was the seed for those brilliant gatherings in her New York home in the early forties.(1) Sarah Whitman's literary evenings either preceeded [[preceded]] those of Anne Lynch, or what is more probable, grew up simultaneously with them, and her association with Anne Lynch soon brought into her life events and people of outstanding importance.

On the other hand the group which represented Transcendentalism in Providence often assembled in the home of Albert Gorton Greene, and it was here that Mrs. Whitman met and frequently gathered with some of the profound thinkers of New England. Concerning Albert Gorton Greene and pleasant evenings spent in his home Mrs. Whitman once wrote:

“A compound of folly and atheism,” the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School had branded this address which so inspired Sarah Whitman, and it was twenty years before Emerson was again asked to speak at Harvard.(2)

It is worth noting that among those early acquaintances of the Providence literati, Mrs. Whitman lists Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood who was at this time a resident of Providence. Mrs. Osgood had already obtained a reputation as a poet of sentiment, and she is as truly representative of the “age of tears” as any of her sister poets. But besides being a poet, Fanny [page 163:] Osgood was first a woman, and a rather coquettish one. She knew those feminine attributes which were still expected of women, and she used her feminine power to advantage. It is doubtful if the influence of Fanny Osgood as a literary woman was ever felt by Sarah Whitman and Mrs. Whitman being a woman of somewhat superior intellects her philosophy and attitude toward life could have been but little affected by Fanny Osgood. On the other hand the influence of Mrs. Osgood in the eventful affairs of the next fifteen years of Mrs. Whitman's life has never been properly estimated. when she again came into contact with Mrs. Whitman during those eventful years in which Edgar Poe was the dominating figure in the lives of both women, Fanny Osgood was no stranger to Sarah Whitman. Their apparent friendship had been one of long standing, and, according to the custom of their day, each felt a sort of right to interfere in the intimate affairs of the other.

But perhaps the most dominating figure of that early Providence group was that strangest of characters, Margaret Fuller. The passing years have brought to this woman the distinction of being the prominent literary woman of her period, and she stands out as one of the leading figures of the nineteenth century. A strange, hardly understandable character, she touched Mrs. Whitman's circle with a definite influence; and one [page 164:] continually finds phases of Mrs. Whitman's character and philosophy which show a similarity to the character and philosophy of Margaret Fuller.

Mrs. Whitman had known the ferment of Boston in those early days when Margaret and her father used to walk into town over the West Boston bridge discussing the higher mathematics. But she had not known Margaret at that time — a time when Margaret's father, ‘contenting himself with the most distant social mirage, had set about educating his daughter in the most thorough manner”.(1) It might have been greatly to Margaret's advantage to have known Mrs: Whitman in Boston, for it must be remembered that Sarah Whitman had both social position and literary prominence long before Margaret appeared upon the horizon; and Sarah Whitman was perhaps the most profound of the woman writers until the advent of Margaret Fuller. But the acquaintance of these two ladies began when, in 1837, after Mr. Alcott's Utopian theories of education failed in Boston, chiefly because of his rather advanced ideas of racial equality, Margaret was transferred to the Greene Street Academy Providence. Her experiences in Boston had taught her independence, and when she came to Providence she made no effort to hide her liberal views. It is said that the lavender window panes of Boston had trembled with the shock of Margaret Fuller as she passed, and citizens sat tight [page 165:] behind these panes. And the panes of Providence were to tremble with equal shock, for she changed neither character nor manners when she came to that city. She called herself the “Lady Superior” of the Greene Street Academy, and she went to political meetings and envied the orators. When a French man-of-war anchored in the bay, her imagination was stirred, and she thought how much she should like to command such a vessel, despite all of the hardships and privations of such a situation. Furthermore, she horrified Hiram Fuller, and no doubt watchful Providence citizens, by attending a Whig caucus, and she wrote a friend, ‘It is rather the best thing I have done.”(1) The schoolmistress had begun to feel herself a citizen of the world, and her conception of world citizenship made sex no limitation.

Tongues wagged and Margaret was ridiculed. But Sarah Whitman was drawn to this woman who dared champion unpopular truths, and “heeded not the pointless shaft the bigot hurls”. Each was attracted to the other by a common spirit of adventure, by a perverseness and persistence of character, and by a willingness to investigate truth and justice against all opposition. They pursued the science of mesmerism together; they discussed art and philosophy and religion and love — both human and spiritual. And along with them in their discussions were drawn other thinking people of their day. [page 166:]

In her diary Margaret Fuller describes one of those pleasant evenings spent in the home of Albert Gorton Greenest, when both Sarah Whitman and her old friend John Neal were present;(1) concerning this same evening Mrs. Whitman has left the following record:

John Neal, having made a thorough investigation of the science during his travels abroad, had become convinced of the general truths of phrenology, and he was now interested in magnetism and clairvoyance; and like Margaret Fuller he had come to Providence at a time when Miss Brackett was at her zenith.(2) Margaret was not hesitant in her investigation of magnetism, and her association with the Providence group helped to bring about a conviction which made her later declare that she shared the belief along with those minds deeply alive, that there was such an agent as is understood by the largest definition of animal magnetism — that there was a means by which influence and thought might be communicated from one being to another, independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision rarely attained through these. She believed that within fifty years a new spiritual circulation would be comprehended as clearly as the circulation of the blood was at that time comprehended. “But,” continued the wise Margaret, “there is not yet any man who is entitled to [page 168:] give himself the air of having taken a degree on the subject.”(1)

Margaret Fuller preferred not to have her own views too closely scrutinized by others, and she was a dominant woman whose soul was deformed by pedantry. She felt that the Providence circle which surrounded Mrs. Whitman was a bit narrow, that they were too close together, and consequently jostled too much to see one another fairly. She later confessed to Mrs. Whitman that she was greatly annoyed in the circle by habits of minute scrutiny to unknown in wider circles and injurious to fairness of view. There was one friend there who was inclined to insist, persist, and dogmatize too much in conversation. All of which was no doubt true! But the sane characteristics in Margaret had become especially noticeable during her stay in Providence; and for some years it became fashionable to ridicule her, at least in part, for the these characteristics. However, Margaret's lack of congeniality with the Providence group in 1857-8 had not escaped her own notice, and several years later she wrote Sarah Whitman that she had become more good-natured than when she had known her, because at that time she had had no leisure, less sympathy and less congenial pursuits. She wished to return to Providence in order to show herself in a more favorable light.(2) [page 169:]

A string of diverse events and circumstances had created in Margaret Fuller and Sarah Whitman two different types of women, and naturally there were some things in which they were not congenial. Nevertheless, this lack of congeniality was not an evidence of a lack of friendly feeling — it was simply a lack of understanding between two women of large intellect. In many ways they were temperamentally similar; in other ways, different. Sarah Whitman was a women of personal charm; the less that might be said of Margaret Fuller's personal charm, the better. Their pursuits were often the same; but their understanding, and interpretation of these pursuits differed. Some years later, after Margaret Fuller had come to her spectacular end at Fire Island and pieces of her “amazing” diary had been patched together and published, Sarah Whitman wrote to William Ellery Channing concerning the work:

One might find in the above lines a clue to the difference in the nature of the two women. The bleak space with the wide open landscape which Margaret chose held no attraction for Sarah's eyes; and where Sarah saw beauty, Margaret saw only dead leaves and deep earth. They were both disciples of Jean Paul to whom the love of nature was one of life's greatest pleasures. But at this period of Margaret's life, the glowing color [page 171:] and radiance of the real world of Jean Paul fatigued the attention, and his philosophy and religion seemed too much of the sighing sort.(1) Sarah Whitman on the other hand could never be fatigued with the color and radiance of the real world, even if it consisted only in the dead leaves and the damp earth; and her philosophy like that of Jean Paul was yet something of “the sighing sort”.

These were pleasant days for Mrs. Whitman. She was surrounded by a congenial group of intellects, and often visited by profound thinkers of other cities. And she was able to discuss with real intelligence some of the perplexing problems of her day. Transcendentalism, Magnetism, Abolition, Fourier! And there were still those frequent walks about Providence which she loved — walks with Anna, with Margaret Fuller, Anne Lynch — walks “along the brow of the hill or through the winding paths at its base, to the wet swampy land behind the old mill, where grow in their season, the martigan lily, the blue gentian and the scarlet lobelia”. She never forgot these walks — the “wooded bank of the Woonasquatucket”, the “pine woods”, the “crimson and yellow maples”, particularly when “the low October sun kindles through their flaming tops and fills all the air with shimmering gold”. All of this with Margaret Fuller and Anne C. Lynch! And sometimes there was Ellery Channing, nephew [page 172:] of the great old William Channing.(1)

In Ellery Channing she enjoyed that same companionship which so fascinated Emerson. He was a truly original character, “always playing hole-and-corner, tearing back and forth to the Western prairies or hiding at Aunt Beety Atkins’ in Newburyport”. Channing had refused to take a degree at Harvard and had built himself a log-hut in the wilds of Illinois, refusing to have commerce with the “bottomless stupidity” of the Bostonians. A poet, a botanist, and a fine conversationalist, he was a great companion for a walk. In the words of Van Wyck Brooks,

Mrs. Whitman liked this strange poet who married Margaret Fuller's pretty sister, Ellen. And together they walked the by-paths of Providence or rode to the Swan Point cemetery discussing the various metaphysical topics of the day.(2) But she was amused at the whimsies of the man, and when in 1843 Edgar Poe wrote his humorous, biting review of Channings poems, in spite of her loyalty to the poet she had to laugh with the critic — for she had to admit that what Poe said was true.(3)

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After the death of John Winslow Whitman, his wife had continued her intimacy with her husband's family, and had frequently visited his relatives in both Boston and Pembroke; furthermore, the Whitmans, apparently holding Sarah in great esteem, sometimes came to Providence to take her home with them.(4) Mrs. Whitman must have cherished these relations, for she found still in her husband's family that comfort of respectability which her own family to some extent had been forced to forfeit became of the unexplained and no doubt unexcusable [[inexcusable]] actions of her father.

Nicholas Power had now become simply a source of humiliation to his wife and daughters. In 1835, after two more years of “fine times”, he returned from his visit [page 174:] in South Carolina. Whether from choice or from some stronger source of reasoning, he did not return to the home on Benefit Street, but instead maintained his residence in another section of the city.(1) Mrs. Power, embittered, perhaps made his return to her home either impossibly unpleasant or unpleasantly impossible. Living with her was Mrs. Bogert, who had witnessed her sister's humiliations and deprivations, and she could make up her mind just as forcibly as could Mrs. Power.(2) The house was small, and the Powers occupied only one side of it;(3) but one scarcely feels that it was either a lack of space or a sense of chivalry on the part of Nicholas that persuaded him to take up residence in another part of the city. It was more than likely the determination of his family to live in an atmosphere of respectability in spite of what they had to live down. At least there is one thing we can be sure of — Mrs. Power's relatives had no faith whatsoever in Nicholas, and they had no intention of ever again allowing him to obtain further control of his wife's property.

In 1838 Mrs. Power's sister, Ruth Marsh, who was dying, opened a vein and hastened her end.(4) Shocking as this suicide must have been, it did provide the Powers with some financial independence, for they inherited her estate. Ruth Marsh, ever aware of the menace of Mrs. Power's coverture, and conscious of the fact that [page 175:] Nicholas Power might “reduce to possession” any property which came into his wife's hands, had provided clauses in her will which would prevent any interference ever on the part of her sister's husband. This will, which was admitted to the Probate Court in Providence October 5, 1838, is entered on page 166 of the will book as follows:

For some years Mrs. Power's family had been cautious about leaving property exposed to the whims of her husband, and the care which Ruth Marsh now took in safeguarding her sister against her coverture was not a novel move on her part. But this added bit of precaution is of significance not only when viewed in its present application but also when considered in respect to Mrs. Power's future attitude concerning the status of her property. Through bitter experience she had learned the disadvantages at buying her property subject to coverture, and this was an inconvenience that she would not have her daughters endure. Consequently when such a danger later did threatens she took steps to provide for a security that she herself had been for so many years without. None of her property was ever again to become subject to the will of either her own husband or of any other male who might attach himself to her family. In this natter she apparently decided; and one might readily understand why she would remain adamant.

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On his return from Charleston, Nicholas Power had taken up residence in one of the city hotels down on Main Street, and, possibly to the great embarrassment of his family, he had included among his associates [page 177:] some of the actresses who frequented the city.(1) It must therefore have been with a renewed mortification that Mrs. Whitman's relatives viewed her own interest in theatrical matters when in 1838 a proposal was made to construct on Dorrance Street a theater which would be suitable in structure as well as a credit to the city. But Sarah Whitman had always been interested in the drama, and she was never to lose this interest. Her childhood experience in the old Providence theater, her friendship for the Tremont actors in Boston, and possibly the entertainment of the mad Booth, who amused Providence frequently with his most eccentric performances, had left her with an enthusiasm for the stage. Consequently when the proposal came for the construction of Shakespeare Hall, Sarah Whitman was delighted.

There were others who were not equally pleased with this new project, and there was much opposition to the proposal; for some were not yet convinced. of either the public virtue of or civic necessity for theatrical companies, and there were others who even still cited the tragic burning of the Richmond theater as an “act of God” and a “manifestation of Divine displeasure”. At length, however, the opposition was over-ruled, and on November 27, 1838, Shakespeare Hall, “a theatre of dazzling splendor” was opened to the public.(2) It was a gala night, but only those could attend who dared brave some social and religious condemnation, and lusty youths of Brown University [page 178:] were forced to resort to disguise before they dared enter these portals of supposed evil.(1) Nevertheless an audience did assemble; and when the curtain was lifted, Mrs. Haeder, the formerly celebrated Clara Fisher, stepped forward and read an “elegant” prologue, written for the occasion by Sarah Helen Whitman.(2)

It was quite natural that Mrs. Whitman should lend her support to such an enterprise as the Providence theater in spite of the opposition it was meeting. In the first place, her love of the theater would have made her enjoy the challenge offered by the more conventional antagonists; furthermore, serious as the opposition came to be, she would have been amused by the absurdities which grew out of the efforts to thwart the new theatrical enterprise.

Chief among the opposition had been the Second Baptist Society, an organization generally known as the “Muddy Wharf Baptists”, whose meeting house stood too close to the proposed structure for them not to fear that they would be affected by the proximity of such a competitive evil. After the opening of the new theater, this society continued in active opposition. Chagrined by the fact that they, contrary to anticipation, were not really disturbed by their theatrical brethren, they held more frequent meetings in an effort to be distracted, and the church bell was rung long and often with the evident purpose of disturbing the dramatic entertainments. [page 179:] This disagreeable performance was silenced by the theatrical folk when they announced that the ringing of the church bell in the opposite steeple would signal the approaching hour for the beginning of their own theatrical performance. The Baptists then began the disagreeable custom of preaching against the stage and actors in such loud tones that the sound entering the windows of the theater made it difficult for the company in the boxes to hear the plays. A revivalist of stentorian lungs and untamable zeal was engaged, and he “bore testimony with such violence against the sinfulness of the theater; particularizing the performers by name, that he was near occasioning breaches of the peace. A distinguished tragedian when playing an engagement in Providence, was the especial object of the diatribes of this zealot, who indulged in personalities with such virulence and so angered the actor, that he entered the meeting house, and in. the face of the worshippers rebuked the assailant.

Having sanctioned this theatrical enterprise with one of her poems, Mrs. Whitman possibly enjoyed frequently here some of the finest performances of American and English tragedians. And she met have chuckled at the bickering of those Baptists whose type of bigotry she had long since denounced. But before the close of this particular theater she was possibly forced to cease both attendance and approval; for, as in many other American theaters of this and later generations, the enthusiasm [page 180:] often grew to rowdyism, and opportunity was taken on occasions to show active disapproval of actor, attitude, and nationality. Sometimes the actors were showered with hoots and jeers; sometimes they received a deluge of fruits and vegetables of a soft variety; and even the animal kingdom was invaded for compliments when the actor Slade was hit with a live cat, hurled with some force from the balcony. In l844 Shakespeare Hall was consumed by fire, and, as if in very spite, the flames leapt out and ignited the steeple of the Muddy Wharf Baptists.(1)

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Mrs. Whitman was now well established in the social and literary circles of her native city. Furthermore, she enjoyed more than a local literary reputation. We have seen that when in 1838 Mrs. Hale edited the first of the ladies’ gift books, in which she sought to glean the best of the feminine writers, Sarah Whitman was included in that group, and she was invited by Mrs. Hale to make frequent contributions to future numbers of that book as well as to Godey's Ladies’ Magazine.(2) Moreover, when in 1841 Anne C. Lynch and Hiram Fuller published The Thode Island Book, a collection of the “literary pickings” of that small state, they printed not only several of Mrs. Whitman's poems, but a portion of one of her essays which definitely established her as a woman of fearless, independent thought, and a student of German literature.(3) [page 181:] Sarah Whitman had won a recognized position as one of the leading feminine thinkers of a group had declared old revelations superannuated and worn out, and sought new revelations and prophesies. She was now a Transcendentalist.