Text: John Grier Varner, “Chapter 14,” Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence, dissertation, 1940, pp. 601-707 (This material is protected by copyright)

Chapter XIV

The Battle of Biographers   1870-1877

“Ah, dear Helen’‘, he once wrote, “I should so much like to see you! Shall I never see you more, my spirit's Palestine! My life creeps sadly on through routines of dull and uninteresting work, and like one receding from all that I loved. I wish I could set out on a pilgrimage. I think of you very often, and always at night as I come through the immense galleries, gloom and splendid, of the Treasury, How I wish you could see them! You would think of the arcades of Valtrek. They are probably three hundred feet long, ornate, Corinthian, with pillars and pilasters, moulded friezes and entablatures, all in shadow, with lights here and there, a mixture of gloom and gleam, and perhaps, vivid as the and of a long tunnel of shadow, the white tablet of a lighted wall. The effect at night, with the lights, the umbras and the penumbras, is very weird and grand, and I never move through them without dreaming of you, so sympathetically allied to me in the sense of such things. I must pause now and finish Sunday with some work. This is play! Have, you read Hugo's new book? It is divine. Write to me soon, dearest. It is the joy of all joys to hear from you. Your ever fond, ever true

“His account of his despairing and demagnetized state, after he had engaged to do it, was very funny. I had written that I hoped the angel had touched his life with a live coal from the altar. He writes that ‘he has not’, but ‘that the Devil has put him on a particularly hot gridiron. Sitting on which he has written 321 pages of MS. and expects to write the remining 600 before October’. I fancied you might faintly appreciate his positions. It is ridiculous (his antithesis) but very funny.”(1)

“O'Connor says I must read his book before it cones out. How can I”, she wrote Mrs. Freeman. “I shall have to “keep a private secretary and a private critic etc. — Yesterday I had to write an obituary on a Providence artist (!) to-day a puff for Leaves of Grass (!!!) the day before yesterday a poem for a young lady's album (I enclose you a printed copy) and tomorrow six letters to the South and West to people I have never seen.”(2)

“He (O'Connor) has just met Walt Whitman in Boston. He says there are incomparable things in the new edition. I have not read it, though the publishers have sent me an advance copy. He says ‘the great Walt is very grand and it is health and happiness to be near him; he is so large and strong — so pure, proud and tender, with such an ineffable bon-homme and wholesome sweetness of presence; all the young men and women are in love with him.’”(3)

— I have seen Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman — and like her. We had yesterday here to dinner Nora Perry, Wm. O'Connor, Dr. Channing, etc. — To-day Mrs. Davis had intended to take me out riding, but it is threatening rain, wind east and skies dark — so it will have to be given up. I like Mr. Davis very much. I am very glad I made this jaunt and visit — Love to you, Helen, Emily, and all.

“I would then proceed to collate all the fragments of biography extant regarding [Poe], and with the aid of your own contribution of 1860 try to throw together the disjecta. membra into one harmonious whole — under some such title as ‘The True Story of E. A. P.’ As to the faults which lay on the surface, I would treat them precisely as you did — He confessed then with manly sincerity — he bewailed them — He implored peace and charity. What more can be said after that? But as to the charge of habitual intemperance, it can easily be met and satisfactorily refuted — The brilliant list of his prose works — each of them manifestly involving a labor equal to the production of a trashy three volume novel, — and the clear firm and beautiful calligraphy, so carefully punctuated, of all his correspondence to the very last, are sufficient answer.”(2)

Nay more it is deliberate conviction that his assertion in the first letter to you was the simple truth, and that despite his marriage and his affectionate demeanor throughout to his wife, you were the first whom he ever truly loved with a passion worthy of the name. In my opinion you were his selective affinity, not to profane the term.(3)

“So many months have elapsed since I wrote the paper on Poe about which you write me that I am not able [page 610:] to remember what I said in it. I certainly had no intention to discredit any statement that you made in Poe and His Critics, and if I have done so, I am sorry for it, and ask your forgiveness. The truth is the more I looked into Poe's life the more I doubted. the truth of any statement about him in print. Griswold I gave up before I began, yet I had to trust him to a certain, or uncertain extent.”(1)

“The Poe letters you sent me are very curious, very curious indeed. I do not like one thing in (I think it was) the first one — an allusion to his dead wife, whom he intimated that he didn’t love, and merely married because she loved him. It wasn’t necessary to say it, and I hope it wasn’t true. The more I read and hear about Poe, the less I make him out. I haven’t the key to so strange a nature. I dare say it is because I really am a commonplace person. I never could. understand unusual developments of genius; therefore, I am unfitted to judge them. I can only admire and wonder. I suppose the angels are wiser. They must be; they can’t be so stupid as we are when we dissect each other.”(5)

“I am sorry that you condemn him for what he said to me of his marriage,” she continued, “He did not say that he did not love her, but that he married exclusively for her happiness. Assuredly he loved and very dearly but doubtless he felt there could be little reciprocity of thought or life between them.”(1)

“While I am gratified to know that you are preparing a Memoir of the great genius whose character has been hitherto chiefly known through Griswoldts distorted narrative, and while I shall be most happy to assist you in any way which you may suggest, I [page 613:] cannot but fear that you will find the facts of his life so elusive, the dates so contradictory, the details so perverted by relentless enemies and injudicious friends that you will have a very difficult task before you.”(1)

“As regards my wretched boyish verses”, he wrote, “pray, do not trouble with it, if you begin to amend [page 614:] you’ll never cease. I see you correct a grammatical error in ‘Lauralie’, but it is not worth your while. I will just trouble you with a. short autobiographical reminiscence and they drop the subject, As a child, before I could read — determined, as I looked at my fathers great books and saw how they interested him, to become an author and by the time I could sten words of one syllable I began to write, but in prose. One night when I was still a boy, I went into my own room, and for the five-hundredth time, began to read out of Routledge's little volume of Edgar Poe's poems. Suddenly, something stirred me till I shuddered and quivered with intense excitement. ‘I felt as if a star had burst within my brain’. I fell on my knees and prayed as I only could pray then, and thanked my Creator for having made me a poet! I seized a pencil and wrote a wild lyric ‘The Imprisoned Soul!’ For months after that — amid all the miseries of life I trod on air. I knew that I was a poet and that recompensed me for all the terrible trials I was then enduring. Day after day I wrote and wrote. At night I kept lucifer and a candle, pencil and paper by my side because I continually composed verses and fragments of what I thought in my sleep. At last I thought of publishing these pieces. I began by sending them to our best magazines. To my horror they were ‘declined with thanks’! Not daunted I tried oft and o’er, but always with the same result. At last a small monthly magazine was started, for verse only. I sent my latest piece together with one by my eldest sister (without her knowledge, though) — she had written from childhood. The editor wrote accepting my darling sister's poem (“The Lake” it was called. You shall have a copy in the next) but asking me to send something else because my thoughts were good, my metre was bad. Metre! I had never thought of that.”(1)

“Your letters stir up strong emotions in my mind”, he wrote March 31, 1874, “and in responding to them I find it difficult to restrain from indulging in personal and. autobiographical feelings instead of confining myself to researches in the life etc. of Edgar Poe. Your letters have become a joy to me, that I should be grieved to lose entirely. You cannot dream of the sad disasters which have haunted me through life, — nor of the terrible thoughts and intense [page 616:] depressions of spirit which I am sometimes the prey of. What more than all adds anguish to my agony is my mental loneliness. I have a loving mother and kind sister, but no one to comprehend me, or sympathize with me now. The res augusta domi have been but a small portion of our domestic troubles. It was terrible to lose wealth and all the comforts which it brings, but — that was slight compered with our other calamities.. I have already confided. to you thoughts and things untold to anyone else, and, therefore, dare tell, you what is not unknown alas but to too many — the terrible hereditary curse which overhangs our devoted house and which is, indeed, the only thing I tremble before.”(1)

“It is insanity”, he continued. “Four near and dear relatives have, one after the other, succumbed to it. First one aunt and then another and then My, poor noble father and now — within the last twelve months, one of my surviving sisters, — a girl of but twenty-four, has fallen under the curse and has had to be removed from home. My own mind .is as clear and acute as possible and the family curse appears unlikely to descend upon me especially if my worldly affairs jog along composedly, but still the mere knowledge of the taint in the blood is terrible. But there! I will not worry you anymore just now on those matters but return to Poe's life and works.”(2)

“What you tell me of the mournful heritage of your house filled me with unutterable awe and sozabow. There is then a closer bond of sympathy between us than I had yet dreamed. How sad and strange it all seems. My own life has been filled with constant anxiety by the fluctuating mental moods of one nearest and dearest to me — one gifted with noble intellectual powers and admirable moral qualities but warped through and through by a naturally haughty and dominant temper which from early, early years could brook no constraint and no opposition. This hereditary temper once, under circumstances of unusual excitement, developed into acute mania, which yielded, after a few weeks of retirement and hospital treatment to an accustomed state of health. But the constitutional temperament still remains, often compelling me either to lead a life of comparative seclusion, or obstructing and complicating all my social relations. It has been the mission of my life to harmonize and soothe this haughty and perverse spirit, united as it is, with so much that is exceptionally original, witty, sagacious and brilliant — nor this alone, but so much that is intrinsically good, sincere and generous. It is this blending of good and perverse qualities that has made my life so difficult. The fear of all fears to me, has been that this noble nature might become permanently overthrown by some unlooked for disturbance of its ever treacherous serenity. But, let us clasp hands in tenderest sympathy over these abysms of sorrow and trust that death will leave on the loved ones so afflicted on earth, ‘only the Beautiful’. Do not yield to depression — do not feel that your spirit can ever be alone.(3) [page 618:]

“Twenty nine interminable days of waiting made me sure, quite sure that I should. never hear from you again”, she wrote. “I resigned myself as I have long long ago learned to resign myself, to the inevitable, but my heart was heavy as lead. Not that I should have found the certainty of your death insupportable, for death (as our Milesian cousins might say) I have always looked upon as the best thing in life — but I feared for your lingering illness and the exhaustion of mind and body that so often succeeds to a prolonged mental strain in temperaments like yours.”(2) [page 619:]

“And your letters too which arrived today, enclosing those of O'Connor, have stirred ‘thoughts too deep for words’

But alas I can today only talk what you would, call nonsense. My nerves are all unstrung. I do not know what jealousy is — still — I felt a twinge at reading those letters “of Mr. O’C's. I have been so selfish with you and grown to look forward so eagerly for your letters that I began to think I had nearly monopolized all your leisure thoughts and, well, I find you a nearer and dearer and more tangible friend.”(1)

“I envy your new home in the old house which has so many a ‘coigne of vantage’ for the accomodations of ghostly visitors. I never have seen a ghost, though I once saw a beautiful luminous hand that [page 620:] wrote for me three initial letters, which I still preserve and look upon with awe and wonder: It was in a private house, and in the presence of the master of the house — my cousin — Wm. Power Blodget — and the celebrated medium Charles Foster.”(1)

“I’ve no faith in ghosts or spirits out of literature,” he answered. “I believe in poesy, in nature, in intellect, in beauty, in women etc. — well that is all just at present. Spiritualism as such, is a myth and a sham, I am certain.”(2)

“If you had added to the belief in these divine things a faith in an all pervading, all-controlling spirit of love and wisdom,” Mrs. Whitman replied, “in ‘The Love that reigneth and ruleth’ I should have asked no more, not think for an instant from the words and phrases used in some of the sonnets that I believe in the dogmas of theology — of the churches. I believe in redeeming Love but it is in a redemption as inevitable and universal as creation itself. As for ‘Spiritualism’ it is not a matter of belief but a matter of knowledge with those who have carefully studied its alleged phenomena. It came to me without.my seeking there may come a time for you to believe it if it is best for you to do so.”(3)

“I thought that it was an admitted fact that whatever influences the mind has a reflex influence on the body,” Mrs. Whitman replied. “Is it not? I am inclined to believe in the stars. I have a conviction not to be shaken that the occult sciences cover great truths — dimly discerned and obscured by superstition doubtless but nevertheless truths. I recollect reading with an interest which few persons will understand, a work by Cornelius Agrippa on ‘Occult Philosophy! which has been edited by Morley. He believes in the power of names, and the significance of anagrams.”(2)

“As regards anagrams”, he wrote, “I look upon them only as a play of fancy — annsing but of no value beyond the usual value of mere amusement. Looking at the anagrams you form from S. H. Poer ‘Ah Seraph Lenore’, I must confess that I do not see anything peculiar in it. Forgive me for so saying, but I must tell the truth — look at the probabilities. What could not be found in. S. H. Poer Power Whitman? As regards my name now — one of the oldest unchanged names of Europe. You can perhaps see a curious co-incident in that when I point out that without any anagrams being needed, ‘Ingram’ means (tis Teutonic) “akin to’, or ‘son of the Raven. Ing has the force of Mae or O in the Gaelic, and Ram is the Raven. Ingram — of the Raven.”(4)

“My dear Sir John the Graeme, alias MacRaven! I am so glad that I have at last found a mystical significance, or synonym in your name affiliating you with the Raven!!! — I have tried so long in vain. But you are a tyro in the sublime science of telling fortunes by names and numbers if you think that the name which a married woman receives from her husband is to be taken into account in the evolution of an anagram that shall reveal the secrets of her destiny. That would be entirely out of rule”(1)

To

Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman,

Author of “Edgar Poe and His Critics,”

This Collection of the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Is Affectionately Inscribed

by

The Editor.(3)

“I think the general tone and temper of your Memoir is not less ingenious and impartial than it is brave and chivalrous. Strange that after the lapse of twenty five years, a young Englishman should be the first to present to the world an earnest protest and an effectual refutation of many of the disgraceful charges with which the unfortunate poet's memory has been relentlessly stained and clouded.”(1)

“I am sorry that your name was ever introduced into the Civil Service Review notice, although every one seems to think Stoddard's behaviour of you, the worst offence of all, especially after all you had suffered through Griswold's slanderous stow. But you are mistaken in supposing that readers will look in vain for Stoddard's attack on your veracity: In his ‘Memoir’, the one addressed to ‘English Readers’ he says, alluding to your account of Poe's affection for Mrs.. Stannard (sic) — ‘the memory of this lady is said to have suggested — it is far more likely, however, that she remotely suggested, etc.’ If that does not attack the veracity of the author of Edgar Poe and His Critics, I cannot comprehend English — that is, such as Mr. Stoddard writes, sad. Poe been all that Griswold declared him to be I should have infinitely preferred him even without his genius, to these scurrilous, belittling, libellers of all who dare assert what they at least believe to be the truth. But I thoroughly scorn and despise these loathsome reptiles and. would rather have their enmity than their friendship. For myself — I fear no min and defy the world, I could enjoy martyrdom, had I a few who believed in me.

So you see I shall never make a good American! From childhood upwards, from my father's words, my sister's love, and my own aspirations, I looked upon America as the land of liberty and her children as the elect, but of late, from their own lips, I have been so disabused of my ideas that once or twice I have asked myself ‘Are there any good men in America?” Swinburne, to whom I put the query, says, these are his exact words ‘As to the character of Americans generally, my otm. Impression., (confirmed by experience) is that they are either delightful or detestable — the best and the worst company possible, there is no medium’. I suppose they are like women. Angels or devils. Only I prefer real brimstone devils to sneaking back stairs supernumerics. Mais c'est assez pour cela!”(1)

“I think it would be as well for you and I would wish it, as you are on friendly terms, to write to Stoddard, and say that you have not given any authority for the remarks made in the Civil Service Review — he has seen it — and that the use of your name therein was without your sanction, or authority, and that he is at perfect liberty to make use of your words. This may put you right with him and spare you any annoyance. It cannot possibly injure or annoy me, and as long as I know that your heart is with me, I do not wish for anything else. In writing to Davidson you might kindly say the same thing — he is a friend of Stoddard's and may fear the use of his own name.”(1)

“Have I said or done anything to annoy you?” he wrote in May, 1875. “You cannot believe bow I cling to you and your good opinion. I have endured mental agonies and real terrible troubles in my little life, enough to overthrow a strong one reason and through my desert of existence there have been but few cases, — but what I have undergone I cannot again undergo. My barque must have pleasant sailing in future.”(1)

“Sometimes my mind becomes a complete blank on matters that I should be quite au fait with and I grow so nervous I don’t know what to do”, he wrote Mrs. Whitman in July.(2)

“I do so dread softening of the brain. I would rather die a dozen deaths then become insane — but it is too terrible to think about! Forgive me if I am incoherent. I am just now so overworked and worried I don’t know what to do and yet I’ve so much to say, what do you mean by saying ‘I cannot quite make you out’. Once upon a time you could make me out to an iota — it is that prickly Rose has been shaking your preconceived opinions.”(5)

“You see I am getting very tired”, she reported. “I have said nothing of my health for I am unwilling to weary you with useless details of suffering. I am sometimes very anxious to escape from ‘this fever called living’ and. the time seems long — the years of trial and suffering — But I know well that the life which awaits us will make the troubled dream of the present seem lighter than a Summer cloud.”(2)

“Griswold represents him, after the death of Mrs. Poe, as calling at the house of a lady to whom he was engaged to be married, and conducting himself in a manner so gross as to occasion his expulsion from the parlor. The inference is that he was in a state of brutal intoxication. This is possible, but not likely. On the contrary, Mr. O. G. Burr, who was intimate with him at that date, assures me as a result of one of Poe's bursts of confidence, that he accepted the idea of a second wife only for the sake of his mother-in-law and guardian angel, Mrs. Clemm. The lady in question had some property; and although he could always earn enough with his pen to keep him from want, he was willing and anxious, in order to soften the declining years of one who clung to him through good and evil report, to give another the place of the lamented Virginia the Annabel Lee of his most beautiful ballad. “To this and he visited his affianced on that fatal evening when his malady once more overtook him and pulled dolm the new castle of life he had erected upon the ruins of the old.”(3)

“But have you seen the October Scribner containing’ Francis Gerry Fairfield's “A Mad Man of Letters”? in which Poe is presented as a favorable specimen of the epileptic type? Now for the animus of this medley: this Farago of mendacity and. metaphysics. Scribner is the publisher of Stoddard's Bric-a-brac series, and Stoddard doubtless can get anything inserted in the magazine that he likes. Fairfield is an impecunious author who has heretofore made Poe an idol. In 1871 he advertised that he was about to publish tan edition of Poe's masterpieces; to contain also a, critical estimate of Poe's claims as the representative of a literary originality purely American.’ Not finding a publisher ready to undertake his work he has within the present year a book called. Ten Years With Spiritual Mediums. This book assumed all the alleged phenomena of Spiritualism to be true and referred all to ‘Epileptic neurosis’. This book received very harsh treatment from professional ‘alienists’ on the one side, who scouted him for accepting the [page 634:] facts of Spiritualism even though he attributed them to ‘epileptic nerve auras’ and was ridiculed by those who believed in spiritual intervention for declaring that in the presence of a medium he had seen a hand evolve itself out of a nebulous cloud and play one of Mendelssohn's airs on a piano when no one was in control with the instrument. He was next spoken of as having prepared an analysis of Poe's physiological and mental peculiarities and now presents it to the public as a perfect type of the epileptic temperament. Now this article has been six months in the hands of the Editors of the Magazine and has doubtless been modified to suit his patrons. ‘One of the masters of the century’ as he formerly designated Poe is now simply to “A Mad Man of Letters’. Observe, too, that Griswold and Stoddard are quoted as ‘the sole authorities for the facts of Poe's life so far as they are possible. I should think’ even Stoddard mist shrink from such a. co-partnership. I have answered this precious specimen of ‘epileptic lying’ and will send you a copy by the next mail if the article appears in time.(1)

“Sir:

Mr. F. G. Fairfield, a gentleman who has the temerity to pass ‘ten years among spiritual mediums’ in the cause of science; having demonstrated that they are all more or less afflicted with epileptic mania, has recently turned his attention to poets and men of inspirational genius, and finds that they too, from Ezekiel to Aeschylus, from Aeschylus to Coleridge are all mad as March Hares. If there is method in their madness there is also madness in their method. He frankly confesses in his book of mediums that he has himself had personal experience of the malady. He has studied it in all its phases. He intimates that ‘habitual lying’ is one of its most trustworthy exponents.”(2)

“While no one can more thoroughly appreciate the delicacy with which controversy with a lady should be conducted,” he wrote, “I must, nevertheless, solicit the opportunity of a brief rejoinder to the communication from ‘S.H.W.’, printed in today's Tribune concerning the article on Poe.”(1)

“It occurs to me that as you will be unable to attend personally, that you might be represented in a poem written for the occasion which I would feel honored in being permitted to read. Would it not be possible? With the subject, ‘Genius Immortal’ some grand sentiments could be portrayed in verse, by a pen so skilled and sympathetic as yours, and my voice would bound with new life, in ringing the peals of triumph in the ears of the dead and living vilifiers who have sought to sully the fair fame of the revered Poe. Will you not consider if the writing could be possible, and this add a last and crowning tribute to your unflagging devotion to the cause of truth and justice, that has guided you in the defense of the persecuted. poet.”(3)

“Pray excuse my undue exhibition of zeal. You know I have no half moods, and I am heart and soul devoted to Poe and to all who hold his memory dear.”(4)

“Dear Madam:

Your most kind and gratifying letter conveying to me an invitation to be present at the unveiling of the monument to the memory of our great American poet was duly received. I need not say to you that the generous efforts of the association in whose behalf you write, have called forth my warmest sympathy and most grateful appreciation. The work was long delayed and has been consumated [[consummated]] at the right time through the most congenial and appropriate agencies.

“I know the ‘young and too enterprising’ publisher is just as I read him; he urged patticipancy to which I objected to the last as I feared he was not of the Guild so you say. He then said ‘he should be present even if he did not take part’ and in this way out came Prof. Elliot, with perhaps the added pressure of a present of his ‘Lotus’ or ‘Laurel Leaves”, which fact Prof. E. incidentally dropped. I preferred having no one read anything Poe had written, appearing as it did to offer, in the very presence of the shade of the poet, a touch of arrogance I did not like. This is strictly “entre nous”.: I said it all to Prof. Elliot and to the Committee but have been cautious elsewhere as I did not wish unnecessarily to expose the eagerness Mr. G. displayed. I did not Ince his rendition of Le Corbeau at all; surely never mortal man had such a chance to read it, the whole assemblage waited to he impressed and hallowed into the very mood to receive the poem in its generic spirit. But it is over, the papers did not highly eulogize it, he himself may find some way of having it commended; he also informed Prof. E. that he had been requested to read ‘Annabel Lee’ at the grave on the pedestal of the monument. I should have inquired the name of the person making the request but Prof. E. seemed willing to do anything Mr. G. desired. So he read ‘Annabel Lee’ but the winds alone heard his possibly mellifluous tone.”(1)

“Miss Rice, who has always been most active in the work, read letters from our own poets who were unable to attend, and also one from Alfred Tennyson; and Mr. W. F. Gill, of Boston, who has done much by his earnest vindication of the poet's memory, to remove false impressions, gave the finest rendition of ‘The Raven’ to which we ever listened. The large audience was absolutely spell bound by his perfect elocution: and his resemblance to the recognized [page 640:] ideals of Mr. Poe himself, made the personation of his horror and despair almost painful.”(1)

“While the Monument was being unveiled, a dirge was sung, and a superb wreath of laurel and choice flowers, the contribution of the dramatic profession, of which Poe's mother was a member, was placed upon it; after which ‘Annabel Lee’ was recited in the same masterly manner by Mr. Gill, and a lady gave a very good rendition of ‘The Bells’”.(2)

“Now I could not think of making a special point of Mr. W's presence, reflecting in so doing upon the absence of any, I wish the memorial to be sweet and tender, to recognize sympathy tendered but not to cast a single pebble of reproach towards anyone. And then too if I may speak to you quite confidingly, as I shall to no one else, except the gentleman who is aiding me in publishing, I do not wish in the ‘Memorial’ to touch upon disputed ground in the recognition of Mr. W's writings. Whatever views I might have, I do not wish in the ‘Memorial’ even indirectly to signify them. Had Mr. W. written to me I should have given his letter place with those from other celebrities; this would be as much as I should do for any.”(1)

“I have a secret which is only for you at present. Widdleton has written to accept with thanks my offer of the present memoir for his next forthcoming Memorial edition. I am only afraid that he will print before he can get a much revised and [page 643:] corrected proof. I hope not, as it will make all the difference between completely routing the foe, and leaving several weak points open to attack. Mind, therefore, that this is sub rosa. ... Entre nous Widdleton's publisher if it is not too late for the revised copy will be carrying the war right into the enemy's camp, both Gill and Stoddard will be ‘smote on the hips’, Gill having I been Widdleton's adviser hitherto apparently!”(1)

“It should be stated that a considerable portion of Mr. Ingram's Memoir is gathered from material previously used by Mr. William F. Gill in his lecture, ‘The Romance of Edgar A. Poe, written in September, 1873, which formed the first complete vindication of Poe from the calumnies of W. Griswold. Mr. Gill has kindly permitted the use of the material derived from this source, in order that Mr. Ingram's Memoir might appear in its original form. Credit is also due to the International Review for the use of such portions or the ‘Memoir’ as appeared in its number, March-April, 1875.”(4) [page 644:]

“At the close of the publisher's ‘Preparatory Notice’ he has inserted as you perhaps already know, that ‘It should be stated that a considerable portion of Mr. Ingram's Memoir is gathered from materials previously used by Mr. William F. Gill in his lecture, ‘The Romance of Edgar A. Poe’ written in September 1873’. I fancy the Romance was never made public.”(1)

“I don’t think Gill will ever do much anyway and may go over to the Stoddardites, but he is too weak to do much harm.” And in the same letter he added: “You see Stoddard's attack appeared before the C. S. Review — but ‘Don Felix’ (Ingram) is ready for the fray and has but one flaw in his armor — he cannot and will not appeal to his best and most loved guardian spirits — Mrs. W. and Mrs. H.”(2)

My dear Mrs. Whitman,

I cannot express to you the intense disgust with which I heard from you the words relatitig to Mr. Gill's [page 645:] scandalous charge in the “Memorial Volume” — I have now just received the volume itself from Mr. Widdleton, with a copy of his correspondence with Gill and an endeavor to excuse himself for having inserted what he knows is a lie; he says he put it in because Gill is a publisher and he wished to make peace: I have written to the Athenaeum a short letter detailing the facts of the case and not referring to anyone but Gill and Mr. Widdleton, extracts from whose correspondence prove that Gill is a most unscrupulous liar. As our publications are honest this statement is certain to appear, and I and I shall reprint it, and send copies to such American and European publications as are likely to notice it. I emu sent it by Saturday's mail. If such an impudent scamp as Gill lived in the “Old World” he would be ejected from the abodes of every decent person, but of late I have but too clearly seen that such rogues are not only tolerated but even feared in the United States: even you yourself condone his in alts, and his lies to you and appear to deem his conduct quite natural. I fear he is but one of many, and, I therefore think I had better wipe my hands of such a crew for it is hard to touch pitch and not be defiled to difficulties are to me only incentives to labour but to have ny name dragged through the mire by such filthy scum as this detestable Yankee I will not endure. Only a few days ago, a friend and correspondent of yours wrote to me about Gill saying “even your grand-children will curse the day in which your name became connected with that rogue's” and I laughed at what I deemed ridiculous exaggeration but now too plainly I see that he knew the man. I can understand why poor Poe found the United States, as Baudelaire remarks, but one large prison, I have had enough of it. I so gladly sacrificed literary and pecuniary rewards to try and work out this vindication — my health has suffered and yet I should not have repined, knowing that I had cleared a noble and unfortunate man's fame; I would have fought and have won against all the tricks of your Stoddards, Didiers, Fairfields, and like, but it is quite impossible to sully my name, which is untarnished, by having to have it connected with this Gill's — he is an unmitigated scoundrel and yet, as you see, able to do just as he likes — I see but one course open to me after having disproved his allegations (which are even worse in his letters to Widdleton than any I have yet heard of having been made public) — he accuses me of deliberate perjury — and that is to give up having any more to do, or say, in connection with Edgar Poe. If you know of anyone [page 646:] whom you know to be honest, I will deliver to them as a present my own collection and give them headings of the papers belonging to other people which I must return to them, unless they will permit of their delivery to the person named by you. Do not place any reliance in the memoir in this “Memorial Vol.’‘ as Widdleton says the revised copy came too late but that he had ventured upon making some alterations in my sketch says he has also substituted my sketch for Griswold's in the complete edition of the works and asks if I will forward such further material as I may have and he will endeavor to make good use of it. Of course, I shall not condescend to notice this but return him his Gill correspondence without any remark.

I shall always be glad to hear from you on any subject, but you are the only Northern person connected with literature whose words I can place any reliance on — as a rule!! I have found my Southern corresuondents strictly honorable, not answering questions when they are uncertain. I am thankful that I have met and known some honest Americans or I should deem the nation populated by devils. Good Bye, my dear friend — may you obtain an abler — a more faithful confederate you cannot obtain — than your eternal well wisher,

P. S. I have delayed until today's mail in order to have the “Disclaimer” ready. I shall circulate it widely, through my correspondents in the United States. Mr. Widdleton seems ashamed of himself and has sent me his correspondence with this Gill, who does not hesitate to charge me flatly with the most deliberate perjury. I wish I could get at him by law.

I trust that I have not said anything to wound your feelings but you cannot fail to see that I have been most disgracefully treated,

My dear Mr. Ingram

The tone of your letter of Jan 13, received last evening has so profoundly grieved and surprised me that I hardly know how to reply to it.

I can well understand your indignation at Gill's presumptuous claim that you were indebted to him for a considerable portion of your material: can-not understand your assumption that I am in any way responsible for his offences. You must strongly have misunderstood my letter if you thought that I countenanced or excused them. I simply attempted to account to you for the antagonism which had induced this preposterous and incredible and uncredited claim.

I returned no answer to Mr. Widdletonts letter introductory to the volume, (a copy of which I send you) simply because 1 would not seem to endorse this statement of Gill's, which he, Mr. Widdleton, may have had pecuniary reasons for inserting.

I could not have written anything for publication on the subject without telling a long story and invoking a bitter controversy and one which would have been attended with a painful notoriety.

Moreover, Mr. Gill's claim to have written an unpublished Romance, the first complete vindication of Poe from the slanders of Griswold, a part of which he had permitted you to use, was [page 648:] not a claim to injure you, so preposterous and improbable was it. You exaggerate the importance of the Boston publisher whom you seem to accept as the representative rule of “the North” — “one of a crew whom you think it would be better to wipe your hands of, and give up having anything further to do or say in connection with Edgar Poe”, in whose attempted vindication you say you have sacrificed time and money and health.

For all this I am sincerely and profoundly grieved; in truth I have been anxious from the beginning. If you will look at my first letter to you, written in reply to your of Dec. 73 asking for information as to the facts of Edgar Poe's life, you will see that I warned you that you had a difficult task before you, — that you would find the facts of his life singularly elusive and difficult to authenticate.

Since your very first paper on the subject I have watched your course with interest not intermingled with intense anxiety. You will remember how repeatedly I urged you to “keep cool” to curb your impetuous spirit and not to believe every new story or resent every supposed wrong or insult. Your success has surpassed my most sanguine hopes.

I will not say how earnestly I have sought to further your wishes in everything that lay in my power and now that you are about to wipe your hands of all your Northern friends I should not cease to care for your prosperity and success in any new literary enterprise to which you may devote your genius and your talents.

Did you receive the paper I sent you on your article in the London on Politian? — It was much talked of.

Did I mention to you in my last hurried note that the lady in whose album (as Mr. Didier claims) the Scribner Fac simile poem was written, was Mrs. Judge Balderston?

I knew nothing of the Poe letter or letters of which you wrote having been published in the Graphic, and have not yet seen them.

Gill has had no new facts from me since the winter of 1873-4 when you first wrote to me, but [page 649:] there are some interesting papers in his Laurel Leaf article. I wish I had a copy to send you, and now my dear friend I subscribe myself for time and eternity (dastardly Northerner though I am)

P. S.

I have not had a line from Rose since she went away from us. Her father told me last night that she was well.(1)

“I am profoundly grieved that I have so wounded your feelings as the tone of yours dated the first shows that I have, but pray forgive me. It was not the mere fact of Gill's impudence, nor the audacity of Widdleton giving my apparent sanction to the claim, but what wounded me to the quick, was your apparent indifference. Had your letter contained a single sentence of disgust at Gill's conduct I should have felt satisfied, but seeing, so it seemed to me, that although you expressed your disbelief (Not positive knowledge, which, however, you had —) of his, said “Romance of Edgar A. Poe” having been written, you took his claim as a matter of course, I felt utterly despairing of having done, or being able to do, anything towards proving my theory of [page 650:] Poe's life. I read and reread your letter, but vainly sought for any expression of disapprobation of this Gill's behavior. It seemed to me that I was being placed on a level with him, and so long as I worked for the same and it did not matter who, or what I was, or how my character suffered. Had you but expressed disgust at the man's conduct I should have felt you were true to me, and with your sympathy I would have been encouraged to continue the fight. Quickly following your information. of the claim came letters from American correspondents expressing sympathy and assuring me, long before any “Disclaimer” could reach them, of their disbelief in Gill's claim, and asking me to write something for them to pub. lish in contradiction. Since the “Disclaimer” appeared, strong expressions of confidence in my veracity have reached me from unknown readers in France and this country.

Having to publish the “Disclaimer” has been a very bitter pill to me, because it seemed to me, as if I were striving to abrogate to myself the sole right to vindicate Poe — as if I were jealous of others attempting to rival me there. On my soul, I was never inspired by such feelings! Had any properly qualified person have undertaken the task of writing Poe's life I would willingly, and without hope or wish for any kind of reward, have assisted hin or her, and have given every scrap I possessed about the poet. When Gill asked me for information I sent him such published papers as I had, and would have sent him more had I have been able to trust him. However, enough of this subject. Gill is bankrupt, I see, and, I suppose, will take to some method of living. I have been very unwell since I wrote to you — am still so, and have had cares and worries numberless, but the more I have thought over it, the less feel able to resign the completion of my work. I must finish my memoir of Poe. My mind can never rest until it has disburdened itself of the accumulation of ideas it has made on this subject. But I am still willing to take a partner in the work if I could only and anyone in America willing to labour on it as I have laboured here. But I feel that health and every thing urge the speedy completion of this work, so I have began to gather together rapidly the scattered ends of my story. You will be astounded at the immense amount of reliable data I have garnered together. By the way, the name of the person. who supplied Stoddard's rigmarole of Poe's early life was a Mrs. Dixon of [page 651:] Richmond, but he altered and garbled it very much. I presume you know that Gill offered. to write the Memorial biography and was refused by Mr. Widdeton. I have heard from Baltimore that he forced himself upon the Memorial Committee.”(1)

My dear Mr. Ingram

In your letter of 19th Jan, you remind me that some of your questions are still unanswered — that I have never denied the authorship of that letter “to Mrs. Oakesmith”.

I think I told you that I had no copy of Mrs. Smith's article on Poe. I vaguely remember that either in a private letter to me, or in a published article on Poe, perhaps in both — she said that Poe, with all his charm of manner impressed her as being insincere!

I think that I earnestly controverted this charge, admitting that he had faults, but that a want of sincerity was not one of them,

If I ever said or wrote to her anything in relation to his faults it, was in this connection.

In truth he was not a Sir Galahad, nor

He could, doubtless, have said with Hamlet: “I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious.” His letters are eloquent — with expressions of heartfelt contrition and remorse.

It is enough that his faults and his errors were not of a nature to alienate heart's love and. loyalty. There are faults of baseness and perfidy and dishonor which would inevitably change love and loyalty into sorrowful indignation and disdainful pity.

I will copy for you the letter of Mrs. Oaksmith to me, after reading the little volume which brought to me the pleasure of your acquaintance, — a friendship uninterrupted for two years, until an impalpable cloud from some wild weird clime out of space, out of time seems to have overshadowed it. Sic transit.

In relation to your introduction to certain portions of Mrs. N's paper. You will remember that having urged me to criticize your memoir, saying: “There must be so much you could suggest for revision, omission, or addition” — I pointed out the passages which seemed to me “too painful” for publication in Mrs, N's interesting paper — In your reply, dated March 14, 1875, you say:.

“Mrs. N. was as I have said, the ‘author of the sixpenny Maga. paper. Now, strictly between ourselves and the Post I cannot rely very much upon either ‘’the accuracy or the friendliness of either the Dr. or his wife. I trust I am not misjudging them.”

Certainly I had no idea of quettioning Mrs. N's friendliness to you when I expressed my regret that these papers were retained in Widdleton's volume. The article was in many respects admirable and in objecting to certain passages I certainly had no idea that I was wounding your feelings or transgressing the critical license which you had so generously asked me to exercise.

I frankly explained to you my relations with Mr. Gill when you first sought information from me — I have dealt frankly and openly and disinterestedly with both:

I believe I told you in my last that Mr. Gill had had nothing from me since the winter of 1873-74. [page 653:]

I think he sincerely regrets the impulsive and aggressive letter which he wrote to Widdieton, but he is a Northerner and what can be expected of him. As for me, my Southern relatives before the War, were “thick as the leaves in Vallambrosso”. I was even named for the wife of a Governor of South Carolina and a Senator from that State to the Congress of the United States — that is to say, for my Aunt Sarah Power wife of Gov. David R. Williams — so that I.ought to have some claim to consideration.

But enough. I am too sad for jesting.

And so, bonsoir

P. S.

I have answered the questions you proposed to me — Will you tell me what friend and correspondent of name it was who wrote to you that “even your grandchildren would curse the day that your name became associated with that rogue's”? He is a bankrupt in business, and doubtless in reputation, but so are all, or nearly all the “solid men” of Boston and New York — even the capital of the Nation is suspected of having some people of problematical reputation in its marble domes. It's “a bad lot”, as you Englishmen say, n’est-ce pas?

There are so many arrows in your two last letters that I had almost forgotten one of the sharpest. In your letter of the 13th. Jan. you say: “I have found my Southern correspondents strictly honorable not answering questions where they were not certain.” Is it, then, that your Northern correspondents have willfully misled you by answering questions where they were not certain?

Semper Idam (1)

I have read with regret and amazement your reply to Mr. Ingram's “Discaainer”. It were far better to have abandoned a claim which you must acknowledge to be an untenable one, and which in your recent interview with me I thought you frankly admitted to be so.

The only evidence you adduce of Mr. Ingram's having been permitted by you to use ‘material previously assigned to you’, is assumed to be presented in extracts from two of my private letters containing three several requests.

The request cited is:

“Will you lend me for a few days the extract which I gave you from the literary recollections of Mr. Gowans, the New York Bookseller. I have recently received a letter from an English gentleman who has written on Griswold's Memoir of Poe, which he tells me will shortly appear in an English, Monthly. He asked my aid as to certain points of Mr. Poe's history, and it is in furtherance of his request that I wish to send him the favorable testimony of ‘the truthful and uncompromising Scotch Bookseller’. I will return the copy in a few days.” [page 655:]

The article in question was a cutting from a New York newspaper, The Evening Mail, I had no idea that in asking permission to copy it for an English correspondent, I was violating any law of courtesy or copyright, as a paragraph in your published “Reply to Mr. Ingram's article in the London Athenaeum. for January seems to charge me with doing. On the contrary I thought you would be glad to give farther publicity to testimony so valid and so favorable, Your prompt compliance ‘with my request, which I gratefully acknowledged, was unaccompanied by any inttmation that the request was an unreasonable one, Your second citation from the same letter is an incorrectly quoted request for the return of a letter addressed to me in the autumn of 1849 — a letter which I had lent to you with other papers for your private perusal and under the strictest injunctions of secrecy — a letter for the detention of which you had apologized three months before I had any correspondence with Mr. Ingram. Yet you have quoted my request for its return as evidence that you had permitted Mr. Ingram to use material which had been assigned to you — which had been “asked and obtained of you on his account’.

Your third and last citation from my letters was a request to be allowed to copy an autograph letter from Mr. John Willis of Orange Co., Virginia, one of Poe classmates at the University.

I had promised Mr. Ingram to ask for a copy of this letter.

It was the only request ever made of you at his suggestion. But you will remember that you never complied with this request. You had an undoubted right to withhold a copy of the letter, since I had given it to you unconditionally, nor did I blame you for withholding it; but was it right in quoting my request to leave it to be inferred that you had complied with it, — that you had permitted Mr. Ingram at least in this instance to use ‘material’ which exclusively belonged to you? I appeal from Philip excited to Philip sober — from the rival author and publisher to the man — was it right?

This was the only request ever made by him through me for the use of material in your possession and this request was never complied with.(1) [page 656:]

I rather think that my surprise upon receiving your letter more than equalled your ‘amazement’ upon reading my reply to Ingram. I came away from your house fully impressed with the conviction that you conceded all that I claimed regarding the Ingram matter. The evidence quoted from your correspondence is only corroborative of course of my allegations. You did not specifically inform me at the time why you wished me to return your letters. I learned afterward the reason in a way that wounded me deeply as I have previously advised. Nevertheless the fact remains the same, that in order to have the letters for reference, I was obliged at great inconvenience to copy all of them, while, had it not been for Ingram's request for them I could have used the originals at my leisure. Which, summing up, places the whole matter just where it should be placed. All that I claim must be conceded from the facts of the case. The material was unquestionably placed in my hands previous to Ingram's application for it. According to every precedent, while I was contemplating using it, in any way, this priority of use gave me the first claim as far as he is concerned. I cannot see that it is a point for you to settle or to interfere with as you suggested doing. I cannot see wherein I have disobeyed your counsel. I have written just what I intended, and what I mean you to underbtand I should write. I made alterationS in my printed slips after seeing you changing the only points that seemed to cutmmul alteration, from my understanding of your suggestions. You must admit that I have a right to protect myself from the charge of copying from Ingram. In the controversy between us your actions are not called into question. Certainly not by me. I appreciate your many kindnesses and esteem you as a friend.. I only regret that your conclusions are erroneous sometimes. I admit my own faults as many and grievous. I do not attempt to screen them.(1)

“They are filled with indignation against him and intend to hold him to a strict account”, Mrs. Whitman wrote Ingram: “The popular feeling is entirely against him. The publishers phamplet in which he inserted his ‘Reply’ has ‘no circulation” — so I was informed by a Bookseller of this city — nothing that he could say could injure you. If he does not clear himself from his present business ‘complications’ (to speak mildly) he will not have the temerity to return to the charge against me. For I have shown him that it is with me that he will have to measure swords in this contest, and though I shrink from ‘Broil and battle’ I can meet him in the cause of truth and justice in a fair fight.”(1)

“I am not surprised at the concluding passage in your letter and really do think better of my powers of divination ever since the ‘enterprising publisher’ has so entirely filled out the idea I had of him at first. I can imagine the collapsed state he will be in when his sails shall be un-winded by one whom I feel sure can accomplish the feat with perfect ease.”(1)

“While I deeply feel the wrong and the pain inflicted by the tone of your last letters”, she told Ingram, “your resentment of my disposition to make some allowance for the irritation Gill felt in finding that you had forestalled him in his desire to write the life of Poe seems to me somewhat more intelligible.”(2)

“I cannot understand you when you say in your letter of February 14th, that I took Gill's claim ‘as a matter of course’ — was there not .an. exclamation point to indicate my surprise at the assertion? It was to me so palpably absurd a pretension that I may not have thought it necessary even to indicate my surprise in any.way — I had told you frankly from the beginning of my correspondence with you all that I knew or thought about the proceedings of author of ‘The Romance of Edgar Poe’! and about the inception and progress of the work. I did not suspect that you were in any doubt about what I might feel or say on the subjects.”(3)

“Pray let us dismiss this Gill affair for all eternity and be as we were of yore, I have been very unwell — the thought of being regarded by you merely as an instrument to be used for a purpose and then cast aside broke me down utterly. You must bear somehow with me. I have suffered such mental torments in my short life as few mortals undergo and remain sane. I clung to your friendship as a short (?) anchor and then, the utterly heartless way in which you seemed to regard me wrung my heart. But enough! Forgive and forget. [page 659:] As regards Gill — he sees that he cannot expect you to shield his falsehoods and misrepresentations. Pray do not be drawn into a correspondence with him.”(1)

“I am sorry that you are not well and that you have had ‘worries and annoyances’ — I have never for a single moment wavered in my loyalty to you as a trusted friend. I have never uttered a word of disparagement or of criticism about you or your work to anybody; on the contrary I have always spoken of both as you would like to have heard me speak. I have been perfectly sincere with you about Gill from the beginning — and I thought you ought to have known me better than to have written to me as you did, but I will not say another word, nevermore. Forgive the grammar and all my sins small and great and take my heart's blessings.”(2)

“Do not deem that it is your criticism of my deeds — my writings — that I fear. You could not speak more severely of my weak attempts than I can and have done myself. No one could scarify my writings as I could, and when anyone flatters, or speaks well of my writings, I never feel as if I could thoroughly believe them. From my friends — from -mu, I should never feel annoyed at dispraise for my literary efforts, nor for pointing out my shortcomings. I speak trutbfully, my friend. But what ‘riles’ me — what turns all my hot blood to steam is to find myself made a tool of — played with to suit someone's purpose. Anl the fact that I loved you so truly — admired and reverenced you so faithfully — made my thought that you were wearied with me — regarded me only as a puppet to be played with — red hot agony. In some things I am as proud as, Lucifer. I cannot speak of myself as great as any being that ever breathed this world's air. I would not change my entity for Shakespeare's or Shelley's — and often I feel half mad to think that I have ever published a line, knowing that I have written [page 660:] nothing worthy of living, and yet knowing that my thoughts are so grand — so daring. I can but judge myself by what I feel, and it is gall and wormwood to know that the few — how few! — whom I love and reverence can misjudge me — not by what I have attempted but by what they deem me fit.”(1)

“Your ‘Rejoinder’,” she wrote on April 4, “I handed to two gentlemen who happened to be present when I received it, and who had read with high approval your Civil Service ‘showing up’ of Stoddard's Poetic Enterprise. They read also, with apparent zest your ‘Rejoinder’. Doubtless it is very pungent and exasperating — damaging not only to Poe's too ambitious champion, but to the testimony, such as it is, presented in his behalf. Doubtless, too, Gill deserved all this, not only for having published documents which I had expressly forbidden him to publish and for neglecting to submit to me his Lotus Leaf Ms, as he had promised to do, but more especially for having put forth his audacious elsin to have “kindly permitted you to use material, etc. etc.”, which had been previously used by himself! That was a felicitous allusion of yours to the embryo lecture and tells the whole story.”(2)

“I am grieved to the heart by what you tell me of your ill health and other annoyances”, she wrote [page 661:] Ingram, “Above all I am sorry that my causeless suspicions should have added to your troubles or given you a moment's unnecessary pain. I should not have been so stirred by having my testimony, doubted if the letters received from you last winter had not so deeply wounded me. But it is over and I will not distrust you Pily more. Your friendship and sympath.y were very dear to me in the strange isolation of my life and I should be sorry indeed to lose them. You know something of the anxiety of .my life; these have increased alarmingly ‘within the last year. It is true that I have hosts of friends and correspondents who look in me for sympathy and cheer, for counsel and inspiration. But they are not near enough to react on my own spirit, which would often be desolate indeed but for the few who understand and love me, And these few are often excluded by the morbid moods, and baseless antipathies of the one whose peace of rind it is the object of my life to preserve at any sacrifice. You will understand and will keep sacred the confidence I repose in you. But my whole life seems sometimes a sacrifice to this object. It may lead you to understand much that may otherwise seem incomprehensible. Yet I doubt not the whole will seem in that life which awaits us not only just and right but supremely beautiful and good.”(1)

“The publication of the book has been delayed on account of some negotiations with that man Gill, who, it appears, has got together a lot of rubbish he wants to publish”, Didier wrote Mrs. Whitman October 24. “He applied to me to incorporate it with my life. I declined positively. Mr. Widdleton seems to fear him and is now trying to buy his stuff — not for publication, but ‘merely to get it out of the way’. So I am completely in the dark as to when the book will be published.”(3)

Dear Mr. Gill

In relation to what I wrote about your controversy with Mr. Ingram and your misuse of my letters, you say that under the influence of provocation impulsive. people are sometimes betrayed into doing things which their cooler judgment would condemn —

This I am ready to admit — But then one must be on one's guard with peoPle Who are telApted on provocation to.betray the confidence of correspondents — N’est-ce pas?

Now, if you have prepared any paper for publication on Poe in which you are intending to speak of me I must urge it upon you as you value my countenance and my friendship to submit the MS to me before publication.

Then you have done this I will communicate further with you about the portrait.

You say that you would not willingly part with my esteem. Your prompt compliance with my request will prove to me that you sincerely value the friendship of one who would fain be

To Wm F Gill

“It is my hope to make something however, very different from all these sketches. I wish to paint a living, breathing man — to feel with his [page 668:] feelings — suffer with his sufferings — succeed with his successes. Data, of course, I need, but I now feel that I know the man and if I do not reproduce Poe as he lived and felt then it will not be from want of knowledge but from want of power. To you, and to you only do I say this thing, for if I fail to add more than a few paving stones to the fabled inferno I do not want to proclaim this fact from the housetops. A Biography — fit meat for the multitude at least — I can produce.”(1)

The Baltimore memorial portrait is, doubtless, very good for Poe in those latter days. Didier's is a vulgar copy of the Osgood one, in fact, Didier seems to vulgarize all he touches. I prefer Griswold's ghastly, gaunt, and even fiendish portraiture, to Didier's man-milliner sort of puppet. As for his data, as you of course, have detected, they are more mischievous and misleading than those of any work on Poe yet published — scarcely a page but is full of errors — he has copied my vindication extensively, as you see, but even then, he has either copied me when I have been in error, or has made a ‘muddle’ of my facts. ... From birth to death the book is unreliable, untrue and some statements are, evidently, purposely mistold. ... What I object to most is not the errors of fact — and you must not accept aught in the book without corroboration — but the tone. I would rather see Poe enveloped in clouds of horror and mystery than made a dandified Minerva — press hero. My Baltimore friends are, apparently, of my way of thinking. By the way, how comes it that Didier boasts of the acauaintanceship of Neilson Poe, and many others who knew Poe — classmates etc, (who have given me correct statements) and yet makes such stupid mistakes? This looks queer. Besides Mrs. Clemm could not have told him some of the things here.(2)

“You wind up your terrible letter with remarks about Didier, and say that, you are not aware that he has ever spoken ‘an unkind or disparaging word’ about me” he wrote. “Nor am I. Why should he? He has, indeed, been very careful not to make a single allusion to the Mr. Ingram whose researches he has not only availed himself of but whose writings he has copied — paragraph after paragraph without the addition of even inverted commas. Facts are everybody's when published, and although want of courtesy or honesty may cause the acknowledgement of their authority to be omitted, the ideas of other people are only appropriated by rogues. Poe's cause can never be aided by making him out, either, to have been an industrious, commonplace dandy. As regards the letter I sent you of D's, and the accompanying information, I did so in remembrance of what you had said in former days, that you were so afraid of things not by Poe, being imputed to him. Poe may have composed “Alone”, but any court of law would decide.that Mr. D. wrote the Ms. of which facsimile appeared in Scribner's. He has taken what he deems is a popular side now but his whole conduct is beneath contempt while his facts are as fictitious and, therefore, as hurtful as Griswold ‘s. My data were not always right, but, I never, knowingly, misstated.

Goodbye for a few days — an this reaches you I sincerely hope that you will be free from the misguiding influence, and once more be prepared to look upon, as your ever faithful friend,

P. S. I have written to Miss Peckham and had reply and written to her again.(3) [page 671:]

“An ‘Introductory Letter’ by Mrs. Whitman whose ‘Edgar Poe and his Critics’ is laid under heavy contributions, follows the Preface”’, the reviewer wrote. “It is, of course, written in an authoritative tone, but in following out some such subtle researches in the domain of ‘antenatal influences’ as those which inclined Mr. Shandy to forebode misfortunes for Tristram, the lady has been somewhat out in her reckoning; it would scarcely be safe to carry such delicate investigations back further than nine months, even for such a phenomenal person as Poe, who was born on the 19th. of January, 1809 — Just 276 days after his parents appeared as the leading characters [page 672:] in an English version of Schiller's ‘Robbers’. A lucky coincidence, truly, for the admirers of ‘prenatal influence.’”(1)

To one who calls himself my “friend”.

In your letter of March 19, ‘77, you informed me that you had lent Didier's Memoir which I sent you, to “a friend”, that I should find his notice of it in the London Athenaeum for Feb. 10. On Saturday April 3, the day after I mailed my reply to you, I went to our Providence Library to look at the notice.

As I entered the reading room Mr. C. Fiske Harris, who was standing near one of the alcoves, came to meet me and asked if I had seen your attack on me in the London Athenaeum.

I thought at first there was some mistake. The paper had been removed from the reading room for later issues; but Mr. Harris presently procured me a copy rom the Librarian..

That you should have directed my attention to this singular performance surprises ine. Mr. Bartlett has just procured me a copy from Cambridge, the periodical being furnished here only to subscribers — and I have re-read the virulent article with renewed astonishment.

Of course these gentlemen who are devotedly my friends felt that no friend of mine would have written or authorized such an unprovoked assault.

Let us not revert to it. The matter itself was of little moment; but the animus of it gave a rude shock to all my previous impressions of the young Englishman who in his generous advocacy [page 673:] of an American poet had invoked my aid, sought my confidence and my criticism, and hailed me as his “Providence”!

It was not an enemy who had done this — it was my trusted friend and correspondent — a gentleman of whom no one had previously written to me or spoke in my presence a single word which might not have been written or spoken to one known as your faithful and inviolable friend! It was a startling and strange revelation, — a wound that time cannot heal.

Let me briefly revert to your letter. You say you did not know that I was acquainted with Miss Blackwell! It seems incredible that you should so soon have forgotten all nat I have told you in relation to her. Not very long ago I sent you a brief note from her, dated Sept 1848, in which she speaks of her regret at not having been well enough to see me when I called at her hotel in the morning with E.A.P., and. makes playful allusion to the Rose-garden, asking if the roses were still blooming. Apparently you have returned her note to me without reading it.

And now you tell me you do not think Poe was in Richmond until June 1849, having “pretty full knowledge of Poe's whole time for 1848.”

If you have still in your possession the copy made at your request of Poe's long letter to me dated Sunday evening and which I understand will soon be published by another collector of autographs. (sic) We seem to have been “like ships that speak each other on sea

I little thought that the day would come when I should receive such a letter as that you have just sent me although the tone of your previous one should have prepared me for it. It is only another illusion dispelled — another of the few joys I had left in this world gone — to find that I deceived myself in believing you my friend. In parting from one from whom I have never swerved in sincere respect and affection, and to whom I shall ever display a loyal fidelity's it ill becomes me to refer to tokens — known or unknown — I have invariably given of the truth of my professions but, with regard to what you call “an attack upon you”, but in which I fail to see anything but a kindly allusion, I here declare that the words are not mine, not that it matters now. I see that you wish to be free from me and one way is as good as another. I will take an early opportunity of lookiug out all that I have of yours, and will return it. I trust that your next protégé will serve you as faithfully as I have ever done. Do not think, however, that this time I relinquish the work I have long meditated upon. I shall not be false to myself in that, and, as it will be impossible to omit your name, I trust you will still permit me to avail myself of such matter relating to you as has already been published.

That amid my many works, griefs, and occupations, I should have prottem, overlooked what you have said about Miss Blackwell, only those most prejudiced against me could have been surprised at, but that Miss B. and Mrs. Nichols, who says Miss B. certainly never stayed at Fordham, should have forgotten events in their own lives does seem strange. I am quite willing to accept your testimony — as you well know — that Poe was in Richmond in l848, although it can only have been for a day or two and, probably, without Mrs. Clemm's knowledge — not indeed, that I am likely to take her evidence without additional testimony. You know in your heart of hearts that I never doubted your words but that I was mistaken in your ideas with regard to myself, I frankly confess is a fact. I was so foolish as to deem you actuated toward me with the same feelings of regard and friendship that I. felt towards you.

That you deem Mr. Didier a representative of “manliness, sincerity and courtesy” certainly proves how different are our gauges of such characteristics. A man who obtains money under false pretences and steals other person's property would not, according to my standard, be a chevalier sans reproche. [page 675:]

You do not say that you received the letter of Mrs. Clemm which I enclosed but I trust it reached you safely. I cannot palter with words any longer, and only pray that if there be any protecting spirits to this most wretched and deplorable sphere they may ever guard, you, and be as truly faithful to you as has ever been,

P. S. I have twice requested Mr. Davidson to obtain and forward you copy of Mr. Didier's “Life”. If he has not done so I will obtain and return the one you sent.(1)

“I have it is trues seen in the course of my emu.. responAine with bi’rt many instances of his petulant and impulsive temperament”, she told Davidson. “His restless enterprise and avidity in — the accumulation of facts unsupported by any due discrimination in their selection or presentation mat be apparent to every critical reader. He frankly confessed to me in sending me the first edition of his collection of Poe's words, that the Memoir had been ‘hurriedly patched together’ in consequence of illness, that he felt far from satisfied with it, and waited anxiously for my verdict — that any suggestion which I might make should be attended to in, the second edition.”(2)

“In a nature so perturbed, irascible, and unbalanced,. I should be “surprised at nothing. I am truly and heartily sorry for him, but I have no power to minister to a mind subject to such strange fluctuations. I should be sorry to give him a moment's unnecessary pain and I could not reply to his letter sincerely without paining him. With all the inevitable faults of his hurried and often self contradictory sketches, he has brought many things to light which a more careful record would probably have sifted out and which yet when duly weighed have other value.”(2)

I sincerely wish you every success. With all its faults, (and you know I think it has many and that I shall never cease to regret that you published so precipitously, and without my consent or supervision matters entrusted to you) I like the tone and spirit of the book and think it will serve to correct false impressions.(2)

“You know my fastidiousness in these matters, “she wrote Gill in’October. “I would rather you would take my life than my portrait in any hasty or (by me) unauthorized way. I should protest, and the artist would prosecute. Be advised, and don’t waste more money on the attempt.”(2)

“You must not wonder”, she wrote, “that I an unwilling to trust these books out of my hands to one so confessedly careless as you are. In witness of your carelessness or forgetfulness, let me remind you that my copy of the third volume of Redfield is still shorn of the pages containing Mrs. Osgood's recollections of Poe, which I cut out from Griswold's Memoir, you having for three years neglected your promise to return them. Again, the extract from one of Mrs. Clemm's letters which you requested for a facsimile, you have not returned. You tell me that you are less careless than you used to be, but your statement about the engraving which you wished to obtain my consent to your publishing does not accord with this.”(2)

My dear Mrs. Whitman,

I had thought to send you the block upon which your picture is engraved without a word, but a few days time his softened the asperity of the feelings your letter induced, and I feel that without loss of self-respect, I may write a few explanatory words. I had forgotten none of the details mentioned in your last letter, but in spite of them all what was there to prevent your taking the picture if you wished. True I did offer to run all risk, and you permitted it and sent me the copy. The fact of my not offering to use the picture as engraved, showed you tlat I was faithful to the trust. I had lost so fearfully by the fire that it came to me remembering your mention of your book of poems to ask if the picture might not be useful to that book. There was it seems to me nothing improper in making the suggestion, and where the “dishonor” comes in, is still less apparent. Sensitive as you are, pray do not forget that whatever faults others may have, they may still retain’a sensitiveness as acute as any felt by you. Well the block is yours now — to ‘burn if you, like. My printer will tell you that no cast has been made from it. There is no duplicate of any kind. Mr. Ingram has made a savage onslaught on my book in “The Athenaeum” puffing himself pleasantly in the article. He must have sent over here for one, expressly to tomahawk it, as none have yet been sent to the English papers. I am thankful that I can say that I never received his memoir.”(1)

“I think that selection is as necessary in the wtiting of a Biography or Memoir, especially the biography of a poet — as it is in the modelling of his statue or the painting of his portrait. We want the ideal — the large general effect of the subject, not the petty, ignoble details and external blemishes. We do not want for instance to hear of the wigs and paint of a Queen Elizabeth, or the dilapidated wearing apparel of a poor poet, but to know something of his essential attributes and idiosyncrasies.”(1)

87 rue de Rome

Paris, April 4, 1876

Madame

I do not know if this letter will precede or follow by a few days the arrival in Rhode Island of a copy of Le Corbeau that my collaborateur, Manet and myself have felt it not less a duty than a pleasure to offer you.

Whatever is done to honor the memory of a genius the most truly divine the world bng seen ought it not at first to obtain your sanction?

Such of Poe's works as our great Baudelaire has left untranslated that is to say, the poems and many of the critical fragments, I hope to make known to France, and my first attempt of which you will receive a specimen, is intended to attract attention to a future work now nearly completed.

I trust that the attempt will meet your approval, but no possible success of my design in the future could cause you, madame, a satisfaction equal to the joy, vivid profound and absolute — one of the best that my literary life has yet procured for me — caused by a fragment kindly sent me by Mr. Ingram from one of your letters in which you express a wish to see a copy of our “Corbeau”.

Not only in space, which is nothing, but in time, made up for each of us of the hours we deem most worthy of remembrance, your wish seemed to come to me from so far! and to bring with it the most delicious return of long cherished memories ever experienced by me, for, fascinated with the works of Poe from my infancy, it is already a very long time since your name became associated with his in my earliest and most intimate sympathies. [page 686:]

Receive Madame this expression of my gratitude such as your noeticue (sic) soul may com-prehe:ad for it is my inmost heart which thanks you.

Madame,

Je suis confus d’etre à ce point en retard avec vous; mais si je m'accuse, et parle de longs travaux au moment où votre lettre m'est arrivée, puis de voyages, — vous qui êtes le pardon et la bonté mêmes (comme me le dit toute ma sympathie) ne me croyez qu'à moitié coupable. Le Plus nègligent des éditeurs, celui du Corbeau, n'a pas encore en tirer au clair cette affair de l'envoi à Rhode Island de votre publication et de sa perte pendant le trajet. Si bien que dans le cas où je ne saurais rien de nouveau d'ici à Novembre, je vous enverrai moi-même un des rares exemplaires [page 688:] que je possède; et toutes les prècautions seront prises par moi pour qu'il ne s'ègare point. Ainsi tout en aura été pour un an presque de perdu; ce qui est beaucoup: mais le remords constant que j'éprouvais de ne pas hâter cette solution et ma pensée qui peu à peu prenait l'habitude de se tourner vers vous, (non plus comme vers l'être idéal seulement que j'avais respecté toute ma jeunesse, mais avec le sentiment nouveau èprouvè pour une telle personne qu'une rare circumstance heureuse de la vie vous a fait connaître même de loin) tout cela, de mon côté au moins, n'est pas à regretter, n'est-ce pas? Vous me permettrez de vous dire que quelqu'un à Paris pense bien frèquemment à vous, et s'associe au culte profond que vous gardez au gènie qui fut peut-etre le dieu intellectuel de ce siècle. Sa mèmoire est aujourd'hui vengée, grâce à la noble biographie de notre ami Ingram, et au zèle pieux mis par Miss Rice à l'érection d'un monument expiatoire, J'adresse au mémorial que publie votre compatriote deux sonnets d'un de mes confrères et de moi, ainsi que quelques pages admirables de Baudelaire, enfin un portrait de Poe par Manet, fait d'après celui, qu'a publié Ingram. Cet hiver, ou ce printemps au plus tard, je compte publier une traduction complète des poëmes. Pardon de ces quelques dètails; ils ont (le dernier, du moins) un but intèressé ici. Je voudrais vous demander à l'initiation de J. H. Ingram, que vous me permittiez de vous dèdier, chère Madame, cette traduction, comme à celle vraiment qui soufrât à Poe. Ne me refusez pas ce que je regarde comme l'accomplissement pour moi d'un devoir, aujourd'hui que je vous connais et que c'est possible; surtout quand je vous dirai que c'est un de mes plus anciens désirs; et que je l'eusse’ fait autrefois, sans avoir le bonheur d'être en relations avec vous et a tout hazard.

Adieu, chère Madame, veuillez ne m'imiter pas dans mes longs silences, caus´es par de despotiques rêveries et de grands travaux à présent en train. Vous me parliez, dans une de vos precieuses lettres que je conserve, d'une amie à vous habitant Paris; mais y est-elle encore: et n'ai-je pas par ma faute laissé échapper cette occasion unique de parler de vous ici? Je mets à vos pieds mes sympathiques et respectueux hommages

“... the last stanza — however valuable to us — the students — is not a happy ending for those who read poetry only for its sound and should, therefore, be kept separate.”(4)

“Mr. Walter F. Brown, a young artist of our city, will hand you this note. He is on the wing for Paris, that Paradisal city, where, as one of our humorists says, ‘All good Americans hope to go when they die.’ Mr. Brown is not dead. On the contrary, he trusts to spend the winter there in preparing himself for immortality, I know that he [page 690:] will have great pleasure in making your acquaintance, and that the pleasure will be a reciprocal one.”(1)

Chère Madame,

Mille excuses de mon silence; je m'appartiens si peu et vous devez être de celles qui pardonnent toujours, je le devine.

Vos deux lettres, l'admirable histoire du poeme d'Ulalume et le billet où vous craigniez d'avoir d'abord mis une adresse incomplète, me sont arrivées, en même temps; comme un double bonheur, ce qui est bien rare. Puis la nouvelle lettre m'annoncant la visite bienvenue de votre jeune ami, M. Brown; et contenant le mot que je viens de remettre à Miss R. Peckham. L'accuei1 de cette dame et de sa soeur a été charmant, merci mais surtout merci de m'avoir mis à même de voir, chez elles, un portrait de vous, d'après un beau et bien beau tableau. Ma première pensée a été que je voudrais avoir seulement aujourd'hui à traduire To Helen pour la première fois; ii me semble que je le ferais mieux et en conaissance de cause; ah! laissez-moi vous presser la main.

Peut-être, puisque le mal est fait, et que ma traduction de ce divin poëme date de l'epoque où je traduisis les autres, avez-vous reçu déjà la publication que j'en fais dans une de nos revues. La dédicace et la preface viendront en dernier; j'tattends avec bonheur le portrait de Poe dècoupè par vos mains pieuses,et les quelques lignes extraites d'un journal (sont-elles [page 691:] de vous) m'ont paru parfaites. Votre silence exquis et plein d'attente voilée, relativement à ce malheureux exemplaire du Corbeau, je l'ai compris, mais avec tristesse; la faute ne vient pas de mom. Croyez-le bien, chère Madame, si ce fatal et fantasque oiseau erre si longtemps autour de votre demeure, sans se prècipiter par une croisèe (ouverte aux doutes et au mystère). L'èditeura, un homme en train de faire de mauvaises affaires et que je vois peu, m'avait jurè des grands Dieux l'avoir envoye une seconde fois; et j'ai retrouvé le prècieux paquet dans un coin chez lui, oubliè. J'ai moi-même prevenu une agence, qui l'a fait prendre et expèdier: cette fois j'espère que tant de contretemps et d'absurdités vont avoir leur fin. Si non je vous enverrai mon propre exemplaire; ce finirait même par vous le porter: non, mais je le confierais à une amie que vous connaissez, car c'est beaucoup en parlant de vous que nous nous sommes d'abord rencontrés, Miss Louise Chandler Moulton, qui habite Paris et retourne en Amerique à la fin de l'hiver Toutefois j'espère que le noir voyageur vous parviendra auparavant, peut-être même pour la nouvelle amie, alors je le chargerais de tous mes souhaits respectueux et profonds. Si noble et si touchante gardienne de vos souvenirs qua vous êtes, vous qui représentez aujourd'hui pour tous ceux qui l'aiment, un des êtres les plus magnifiques qui aient honoré cette terres, un des monarques de la Pens´e et de l'Amour humains, vous devez, en effet, vivre longtemps encore, avant qu'on ne vous voie plus, vous et lui, que dans l'éclat idéal d'une double immortelité vengeresse du destin mauvais.

Pardonnez-moi ces lignes émues; mais à tout mon esprit quoique éstranger, Poe est si intimement mêlè, que si jamais je fais quelquechose qui vaille, je le lui devrai; tout mon voeu est que vans sayez là pour le savoir. La relique précieuse que sera pour moi votre rare volume, vous le devinez; et cela seul me ferait impatiemment attendre M. Brown que j'attends encore et pour vous et pour lui.

Remereiez M. O'Connor d'voir bien voulu prononcer sympathiquement mon nom dans une des lettres qu'il vous écrit; oum polutôt je vous remercie.

Je mets, chère Madame, à vos pieds mon ardente et respectueuse sympathie, avec mille homages.

Je viens de recevoir de Miss Rice un journal m'annaoncant que le Mémorial a paru ou va paraître; et j'y vois avec une joie bien grande que l'admirable Memoir de notre ami Ingram a enfin remplacé, là, comme en tête des meilleures èditions, les abominables notices qui ont couru par le monde depuis plus de vingt ans. Je ne puis ne pas penser à vous, chère Madame, en me rejouissant de cet acte tardif de justice: au revoir encore et mes voeux de nouveau pour 1877 qui commence.

“Mallarmé has sent copies of La République des Lettres. He will send the Corbeau by Mrs. Moulton or my friend Walter Brown. He is indeed, as you say, ‘a noble fellow’. He says beautiful things of you and has, I know, a most sweet and gegarous [[gregarious]] nature.”(2)

Chère Madame

On m'assure que vous pouvez être en possession du Corbeau depuis qualques jours; et quoique j'attende [page 693:] qu'une lettre de vous rassure mon espoir toujours hésitant à cet égard (le grave oiseau ne s'est-il pas livré à quelque nouvelle fantasie de fugue et d'èvanouissements?) j'ai tant ci vous à remercier le premier, que je prends les devants sur votre réponse peut-être en route à l'heure qu'il est.

J'ai vu M. Brown, à qui une lègère indisposition et un travail acharné m'nt empêchè pendant quelques jours de faire tout l'aceuei1 qu'il méritait et pour lui et pour vous; mais nous nous sommes revus et je crois qu'aujourd'hui nous sommes de trées-bons amis.

Le precieux cadceau dont il etait chargé, votre livre, a été un de ceux que j'aie jamais reçu avec émotion; j'avais tant rêvé de cette oeuvre, mais Poe and his critics sont de ces pages qui, quelque intèrêt de longue date qu'ait excité leur titre et votre nom, surprennent encore par un charme inattendu et une pénétrante beauté, loin d'apporter la déception qu'ont en elles quelquefois les oeuvres dont on a beaucoup attendu avant de les connaître. J'ai donc lu ce ce premier des écrits vengeurs de la mémoire de Poe, avec un profond et double respect, en même temps qu'avec la joie de tenir un exemplaire offert par vous même, et, bien plus! vivant et intime grâce aux notes exquises et prècieuses dont vous avez bien voulu l'enrichir à mon intention. Merci, mille fois merci.

Vous parlez avec une éloquente sympathie d'un passage célébré d'un livre que j'ai beaucoup aimé, Vathék: vous savez probablement que Beckford l'ècrivit en français et que l'anglais ne possède qu'une traduction qui n'est pas même de lui, bonne mais cent fois inférieure au texte publié dans notre langue. J'ai l'en dernier, donné ce texte français, avec une Preface explicative; et restitué l'oeuvre à notre littérature. Je vous demande la permission de vous offrir un exemplaire, qui a cela pour lui d'etre un des cinq que m'a, seuls, donné l'éditeur; car l'ouvrage est tiré à petit nombre et pour les bibliophiles. Savez-vous si Poe a jamais connu Vathek; je m'étonne qu'il n'en ait pas prononcé le nom dans les Marginalias; ce livre eut pu le séduire.

Ma traduction est fort retardee (sa publication, du moins) par un grand travail — un drame à faire jouer à époque fixe — qui joint à une vie trop affairée, me sumène et me brise, et donner au public français les poëmes de Poe, c'est là une de ces choses que je voudrais accomplir dans un pieux et parfait repos d'esprit; qui reviendra, je l'espère, avant l'hiver prochain ou tout au moins a cette époque, votre nom, qui plane sur le livre futur, m'aidant et me ramenant à plus de paix. Le Mémorial a paru: ne faites pas attention à un sonnet de moi que je n'eusse pas envoyé si j’avais su que ce serait les seuls mots de français contenus dans le livre, presque les seuls vers (et très-mal placés); encore sont-ils pleins de fautes typographiques qui les défigurent. Je replacerai cela en tête de ma traduction, après la dédicace qui vous sera faite.

Au revoir, chère Madame; pardon de ce grifforage aligné tout à la hâte; je pense à autre chose (trèsfatigue d'écrire que je suis en ce moment) par exemple, que près de vous, je cause pendant une heure de calme.

“I have so many things to thank you for! Since I wrote you the ‘Corbeau’ has become my room-mate, my fireside companion a presence as real to me as any dream while you are dreaming it. Two of the etchings illustrate the walls of my boudoir; one, where he is seen swooping down over the roofs of the towered city toward the open window of the poet, and the other where he sits enthroned in shadows on the bust of Pallas. These are wonderfully unique and impressive. As for the one where we see of the Raven only what purports to be This shadow on the floor,’ it is so far out of the range of my appreciation that I hardly know where to class it. Entre nous I should like to do with it what the [page 695:] Greeks did with their honored dead, i. e., cremate it. Would the new school of artists forgive me?”(1)

“Your translation is wonderfully true. I am a little in doubt about the translation of the words (stock and store) by the bagage. To the English reader it ‘suggest’ something perhaps a little too palpable and tangible, n’est-ce pas?”(5)

“Despairing of plain words as an adequate medium, Mallarmé, like Verlaine, took refuge in their Symbolic and musical allusiveness. This is the chief point of agreement between the two schools. But Mallarmé held with Ghil that every element of a poem must figure in the total ‘instrumentation,’ a poem must be an enigma to the vulgar, chamber-music for the initiated; further, the chief Idea or metaphor be attended by numerous clustering minor images. Which in with the central theme; and these analogies are, in his later work, crowded together with such compression as to break the molds of syntax and violate every principle of clearness. An example of such crowding, though less enigmatic than usual, may be found in the lines on ‘Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe’.”(1)

Bien Chère Madame,

Que pouvez-vous penser de moi, qui tous les jours ai pensé à vous? Une charmante question posée par votre dernière lettre, à savoir si j'avais dê moi quelque photographie, m'a fait hésiter à vous répondre jusqu’à présent, au risque même de paraître n'avoir pas suffisamment compris tant ce qu'avait d'exquis d'autre part le fait de votre traduction de mon pauvre sonnet. Merci toujours, c'est le refrain de mes lettres trop rares: car vous me comblez tout! Cette photographie, comme tout ce que se fait attendre solennellement, est très-mal venue, si j’en juge par l'épreuve qu'on me communique: peut-être m'ên enverra-t-on de meilleures après demain seulement, et je garde cette lettre ouverte jusqu'alors; quant à recommencer, non je me souviens combien j'ai eu de peine à trouver la minute de mon rendez-vous avec l'objectif. Tant pis! si une autre ne serait pas meilleure; puis je dois vous avouer mon but secret, en accèdent à votre aimable désir jusqu'à poser chez un ami dernièrement (ce que je lui refusais depuis dix ans): c'est que j'aie un droit à vous demander votre carte à mon tour, celle que j'ai revue chez Mesdemoiselles Peckham ou une autre toute actuelle.

Serez-vous assez bonne pour ne pas rejeter ma prière? j'ose insister. [page 699:]

Quant au sonnet, je sais par coeur votre très-belle imitation, que j'imprimerai à la fin de ma traduction de Poe avec une autre version que m'avait quelques jours auparavant remise mon me amie Mrs. Moulton: me voilà bien riche. Vous me demander le mot-à-mot de ces vers: je craindrais de le trop mal faire en Anglais et de les défigurer complètement; et à vrai dire je ne vois rien qui puisse être amélioré dans votre si poétique adaptation. Une simple erreur à corriger, en supposant que cela n'ôte rien au tour de votre vers: dans la (sic) second quatrain, c'est

Je veux dire que son siècle accusa Poe d'avoir trouvé dans l'alcool et le délire la cause d'une inspiration trop subtile et trop pure pour le présent.

Telles qu'elles sont, avec leur élan et leur musique, vos quatre belles stances, chère Madame, m'ont été le cadeau le plus précieux que j'aie reçu jamais de loin; et je ne saurais vous dire en quel honneur je me tiens de l'avoir mérité ou obtenu.

Le Corbeau vous a plu: j'en suis heureux; ce que vous me dites de ma prose où j'ai tenté de conserver quelque chose du chant originel, me charme: quant aux illustrations si intenses et si modernes à la fois, je pensais bien que vous les aimeriez, dans leur realité toute imaginative. L'ombre de l'oiseau, dans la dernière ne me déplaît pas. Comme mobile et juste: mais j’aime moins la présence de la chaise, et comprends que ayez trouvé le tout trop sommaire. Manet appartient complètement au mouvement artistique contemporain; et (quant à la peinture) il en est le chef. Le jour où j'aurai le bonheur, que je cherche depuis longtemps, de trouver une correspondance régulière à faire dans un journal américain, je vous tiendrai mieux au courant que par des lettres hâtives de tout ce qui se prépare pendant ces dernières années du siècle, car j'y suis moi-même un peu mêlé. Hélas! je dois fermer ma lettre au moment où j'allai causer; mais excusez-moi comme vous m'excusez toujours, bonne et chère Madame, car si j'ecrivais tout à l'heure que c'était toujours: Merci, que j'avais à vous dire, je me trompais; non, c'était encore; Pardon.

Recevez, avec mes souhaits de bonne santé, mes compliments affectueux.

(Tous vos avis bienveillants et tout de mots exquis à propos de mes traductions, de Vathek etc: je n'y réponds pas, étant: fort en retard; mais j'en fuis au fond de moi de la reconnaissance et de l'amitié, chère Madame.)(1)

Bien chère Madame,

Que j'aime cette merveilleuse, profonde et poétique image, vrai portrait destiné à être mis entête d'une édition de vos oeuvres, que vous m'avez envoyée, l'autre jour; et quelque vivement attendue que soit l'autre, votre ressemblance d'aujourd'hui, empreinte probablement d'un autre charme contenter de la premiere carte, toujours par moi regardée. Mon remerciement que je vous écris dans une de de ces heures où, par hazard, je retombe sur moi-même, fatigué et las, et qui sont mes seules heures de loisir, restera quelques jours à la maison, afin d'avoir quelque chance de contenir aussi toute ma gratitude nouvelle, à la reception de l'autre photographie. Causons donc un peu, quoique [page 701:] trop brièvement, toujours: d'abord j'ai des semblants d'excuses a vous faire, quoique je sois persuadé que vous ne les accepterez pas, comme oiseuses. Peut-être avez-vous vu dans un numéro du New York Tribune qui me tombe sous la main, une phrase trés-injuste relative a votre belle imitation de mon Sonnet sur Poe: cela m'a fait de la peine de trouver cette tache dans un article, du resta, bienveillant pour nous autres poëtes français et pour moi en particulier. A ce propos, j'ajoute, pour vous répondre, que, non, je n'avais pas songé specialement au poëme d´Annabel Lee, en parlant de ce dernier chant que la mart se charge toujours d'interrompre sur la lére altérée des poëtes: ce fut, de votre part, une ingénieuse explication historique.

Vous vouliez bien me demander où en est mon travail dramatique? i1 avance, quant à moi, du moins; mais la grande tentative d'un théâtre entiérement nouveau à laquelle je m'adonne, me prendra plusieurs année, avant de montrer aucun résultat extérieur. Trop-ambitieux. Ce n'est pas à un genre que je touche, c'est à tous ceux que comporte selon moi la scéne: drame magique, populaire et lyrique; et ce n'est que l'oeuvre triple terminèe, que je la donnerai presque simultanément mettant comme un tison le feu à trois coins de Paris. Il y a là un monde d'efforts, mental et matériel; et ma paurve traduction de Poe en souffre. Non qu'elle ne soit faite, la voici dans un carton à côté de moi, mais je ne me sens pas la force de chercher à l'heure qu'il est un éditeur, toujours bien difficile à rencontrer pour une traduction de vers éstrangers surtout publiée avec le luxe pieux que je désire. Ma seule consolation gît dens votre immortelle jeuneese d'âme qui vous parmet d'attendre l'heure favorable, à vrai dire, ma vie se hérisse en ce moment de difficultés il me faut la solitude absolue pour mener à bonne fin mon vaste labeur théâtral, et même (je dirai) me faire oublier ici pendant une année ou deux, afin de reparaître, mes trois drames en main, absolument comme un homme inconnu et nouveau; si bien que je perds volontairement de ;'influence que je puis avoir chez les éditeurs et sur les journaux, au point de vue quotidien.

Je cherche, pour tout concilier, au loin, comme en Amérique, qualque travail de journalisme, anonyme, une chronique parisienne mête dans une publication peu importante mais payant un peu; et [page 702:] peut-être qu'un conseil de vous, bien chère Madame, qui devez avoir tant d'expérience en ces sortes de choses, pourrait me mettre sur la voie. Pardon de ce souci d'un instant que je vous cause; ou même n'y songez pas une minute, si ma demande d'un bon avis vous paraît indiscrète. Mais je bavarde beaucoup et vous fatigue; ma lettre du reste est finie si j'en juge par le papier, et cela sans vous avoir répondu an sujet d'Ingram, ce qui vaut pent-être mieux, puisque ce sujet, qui me peine, vous peine. Au revoir, chère Madame, jusqa'à l'arrivée de votre seconde mhotographies. que (sic) suivra ma lettre, accumulant ici pendant ce temps-là: les bons souhaits silencieux, *sans son enveloppe Huit jours plus tard. Votre second portrait,chère Madame, ne m'nest [[n'est]] pas encore parvenu, et je crains que vous n'attendiez trop longtemps mes remerciements pour le premier. Cette lettre va done partir, emportant les voeux nouveaux que je fais pour votre chàre santé; ainsi que non admiration du beau poëme “Science” que j'avais lu et que j'ai reln plus d'une fois: quel regard d'aigle; planant haut et libre!

Chère Madame,

Avant de partir pour les environs de Fontainebleau où je vais, chaque année, tout oublier pendant [page 703:] deux mois, excepté mes amis du loin (mais, paresseux là, je songe à eux sans leur écrire un peu comme toujours;) je veux répondre à votre bonne dernière lettre, et vous presser respectueusement la main.

L'ardeur avec laquelle je travaille à toute une vaste entreprise dramatique, un théâtre absolument neuf, cela au milieu des embarras de toute sorte que crée l'idolement volontaire, suffirait à me faire différer sans fin la publication de notre traduction (elle vous appartient comme à moi) des poëmes de Poe; sans la crise où les fautes politiques de notre gouvernement jettent pour quelque temps l'edition et la librairie fransaises. Il faut un grand calme et beaucoup de dilettantisme desinteresse a ‘an libraire pour entreprendre une oeuvre qui, aux points de vue intellectuel et matériel, lui paraît purement de luxe. J'en gémis.

Quart an Sonnet, vous êtes mille fois trop bonne: je joins à cette lettre une traduction probablement barbare que j'ai faite mot-à-mot de ses quatorze vers. Mais ce rien vaut-i1 vraiment la peine que vous vous dégrangiez une seconde fois? c'est à me rendre confus: pardon, vraiment.

Je n'ai pas lu et j'aimerais lire le Memoir de M. Didier; le court fragment que vous m'avez adressé m'ayant paru d'un grand intérét.

Quant à ce vous me dites de tentatives faites peut-être par vous, chère Madame, près de quelque journal qui n'aurait pas (surtout à la veille de l'Exposition de 1878) un Correspondant à Paris; vraiment, je ne sais comment vous remercier: et cela vent-il à aboutir, je ne sais pas si parmi la grande joie que j'en ressentirais ii n'y aurait pas un peu de tristesse à cause du dèrangement que vous vous seriez donné.

Merci encore de vos bons soubaits pour la réussite de mes projets de théâtre: il y a des montagaes à souliner: et une fois tout fini littérairement (ce qui n'est pas près d'arriver), il faudra presque tout commencer, matéariellement. Qualques bonnes sympathies remplaceront souvent, dans ma pensée et mon effort, les forces dont je viendrai à manquer.

Au revoir. Ceci devait n'être qu'un pressement de main, hâtif, et je vois que j'écris presque [page 704:] une lettre sans avoir rèpondu à chacune de vos questions bienveillantes. A propos d'Hugo, notamment; il faut lire tout le dernier recueil, celui qui contient la Sieste de Jeanne: et 1'Art d'Etre Grandpére, un miraculeux volume où vous trouverez bien des choses exquises à traduire ...

An revoir, acceptez tous les voeux que peut imaginer ma respectuense et lointaine amitié chère Madame.

(J’attends toujonrs la photographie) (1)

“Si noble et si touchante gardienne de vos souvenirs que vous êtes, vous qui représentez aujourd'hui pour tous ceux qui l'aiment, un des êtres les plus magnifiques qui aient honoré cette terre, uu des monarques de la Pensée et de l'Amour humairm, vous devez, en effet, vivre longtemps encore, avant qu'on ne vous voie plus, vous et lui, que dans l'éclat idéal d'une double immortalité vengeresse du destin mauvais.”(2)

Madam:

I have been touched as well as made happy by your sending the portrait of Mrs. Whitman.

It is a true act of devotion on your part to have thus perpetuated the expressive features [page 706:] which you have so often looked upon, and which I could but imagine.

But I must first of all thank you for having thought of me in the bestowal of the precious token, and of having (just as she whom we mourn condescended to do in her life-time) treated me as a friend of this noble woman; a friend who will now be yours Madam if you are willing.

I am pleased to summon from the past, while reflecting upon the beautiful and gifted. one recalled by the image which you have given me, the lines of the poet To Helen of a night.

Thank you for all these recollections once more revived by your kindness Madam; and believe me,

“Quant au sonnet, je sais par coeur votre très-belle imitation que j'imprimerai à la fin de ma traduction de Poe avec une autre version que m'avait quelques jours auparavant remise mon amie Mrs. Moulton: ...”,

“Cet hiver, ou ce printemps au plus tard, je compte publier une traduction complète des poëmes. Pardon de ces quelques détails; ils ont (le dernier, du moins) un but intèeressé ici. Je voudrais vous demander à ;'initiation de J. H. Ingram, que vous me permettiez de vous dédier, chère Madame, cette traduction, comme à celle vraiment qui sourit à Poe. Ne me refusez pas ce que je regarde comme 1'accomplissement pour moi d'un devoir, aujourd'hui que je vous connais et que c'est possible; surtout quand je vous dirai que c'est un de mes plus anciens désirs; et que je l'eusse fait autre-fois, sans avoir le bonbeur d'être en relations avec vous et à tout hazard.”(1)

“A la Memoire d’Edouard Manet

ces feuillets que nous lûmes ensemble.

S.M.”(2)