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12. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 125
Feb. 27, 1874
My dear Mr. Ingram,
I wrote the enclosed in a great hurry. I hope to send the photographs tonight.
I have been very unwell & greatly pressed for time for the last few days. I have not yet received the article in the Mirror of which you speak in your letter of 11th instant — but suppose I shall do so soon. I have found N&Q in the Athenaeum (“The Fire Fiend” exposé). Thank you for pointing it out to me. It must be ranked with the Persian origin of “The Raven,” — The Shaver story of “Manuscript Found in a Barn,” etc., etc.(1) I have heard that the article in the North American Review was by a Mrs. Vale Smith, but I do not know whether there is such a person or whether it is an assumed name. I am inclined to think that it is. Mr. Davidson's article would not enlighten you much on facts. I had it long among my papers on this subject, but it is missing. I doubt if Mr. Davidson himself has a copy. He lost his books & MSS. in the Columbia fire, during the war — but I will ask him. Poe autographs are very scarce. With the exception of my own letters & papers, I know of none save a few in collections of autographs.
I gave away a letter of his written to Mr. Pabodie to Mr. Latto. I will write to him about it. It is simply a letter of thanks to Mr. Pabodie for his hospitality to him during a visit to this city in November, I think. I shall feeling [sic] anxious about the autograph letter I sent to you nearly a fortnight ago (I think) until I hear of its having reached you.
In speaking of the manner in which Poe “denounces any imputation upon himself,” he had reference to a passage of a letter which he read during the long evening spent with me in Providence, & which I will copy for you, perhaps to send by the next mail. I have been quite prostrated by neuralgia for the last few days. Do not fear to trouble me by questions. I shall be most happy to answer any question that you may put to me & do not think that I shall regard any question as an intrusion. Everything which you have written either in your letters to me or in the published writings, which you have sent me, assures me of your competence & of your earnestness. I trust you implicitly. I wish that I had sooner known of your purpose; so much that would have been valuable to you has been lost or given away.
It is very strange that so little is know of “the expedition to Greece.” It seems strange to me that I never spoke with him on the subject.
Mr. Gill told me that Mr. Clarke says that he did go to Greece, or did leave the country with that intention. And, in a letter written in the summer of 1859 by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt (then Mrs. Ritchie) to my friend & hers, Mrs. Julia Deane Freeman, Mrs. Ritchie says that having recently met Mr. J. R. Thompson at a party in Richmond, he [page 41:] told her that soon after Poe's return from West Point to Richmond he became enamoured of Miss Royster (afterwards Mrs. Shelton), &, it was said, was engaged to her.(2) Mr. Allan opposed the marriage & he and Poe had a violent quarrel which ended in Poe's departure for Greece. On his return by way of England Mr. Allan was reconciled to him. Miss Royster was married to Mr. Shelton. Mr. Allan had some time before married “a beautiful Miss Patterson of Baltimore,” the lady who is now his widow.(3) “Poe,” Mrs. Ritchie writes,
who had by this time fallen under the baneful influence which wrought his ruin, again quarreled with his benefactor. Mr. Thompson is not certain of the cause of the quarrel — nothing is really known, though there are scandalous tales afloat, for which there does not seem, so far as I can learn, any foundations. Mr. Thompson became acquainted with Poe in the summer of [18]47 or [18]48. (I cannot trust my memory as to the year.) Poe came to his office, introduced himself, talked in the calmest manner of his faults, & finally engaged to write for the Messenger. He & Thompson became quite intimate, & Mr. Thompson has a full appreciation of the fine points of his character. Mr. Shelton had died, leaving a will depriving his widow of all his property if she married again {He left one child, a boy ten years of age — SHW}. Report says that Poe courted her in spite of this barrier. Mr. Thompson says that he knew nothing of this from Poe, never having heard him speak of the lady. One day in [18]47 or [18]48, (I think it was but you must not rely on me for the date) Poe came into the office in a great state of excitement, sat down & wrote a challenge of which he requested Thompson to be the bearer. In explanation, Poe handed him a paragraph cut from the Examiner, then edited by Mr. Daniel, publishing Poe's reported marriage with Mrs. Whitman of Providence, & making some comment on the lady's temerity. Poe said he did not care what Daniel might say of himself, but Mrs. Whitman's name should not be dragged in. Thompson refused point-blank to carry the challenge. Poe sought an interview with Daniel, & the offensive paragraph was withdrawn. The following winter came a story of Poe's having appeared in church only a few days before his appointed marriage with Mrs. W. was to take place in such a state of intoxication as led to his consequent rejection by the lady. Poe returned to Richmond the following summer & led a more desperate life than ever. He left for Baltimore on Thursday, had an attack of delirium, was carried to the hospital & died there on Sunday. The first telegraphic dispatch Mr. Thompson ever received was an account of his friend's death. Mrs. Shelton went into widow's mourning — everyone believed that she was engaged to him & that the marriage was shortly to take place. This is an outline of what Mr. Thompson told me. Pray soften any harsh word that I may have said, in recounting it to Mrs. Whitman.
I was then in New York preparing & revising the pages which Carleton published at the close of that year. Mrs. Ritchie had years before been a friend & correspondent of mine. Mrs. Freeman, who knew that I was anxious to obtain some authentic information about Poe's last days in Richmond, wrote to Mrs. Ritchie, who was then in [page 42:] that city, on the subject, & the above extract was received by her in reply.
There is some confusion of dates in her report; it must have been in the summer of [18]48 that he wrote the challenge to Daniel, I think. I was not at that time personally acquainted with Mr. Poe. He had seen me, but I had no acquaintance with him until the September following. In December of the same year occurred the rupture of our betrothal, under circumstances very different from those reported by Thompson or by Griswold, which you shall hear from me hereafter. It is true, as Dr. Griswold says, that our names had been often mentioned together. Mr. Poe, before going South, had delivered the lecture on the poetesses of America (from which I sent you an extract) in Lowell, & had spoken much of me to his friends in Lowell, New York, & Richmond. This must in some way have led to the obnoxious paragraph in the Examiner. It was in the summer of 1849 that the rumor of his engagement with Mrs. Shelton was first circulated. I will tell you what I know of this another time. I have seen the letters which he wrote to Mrs. Clemm during the brief period of his engagement to that lady. She sent them to me in 1859, that I might know all that could be known of his feelings and views in entering upon this engagement. At the same time, Mrs. Clemm asked me to give her an autograph of his writings to send to Mrs. S[helton], that lady having informed her that she had not a line of his writing in her possession, & wished greatly to obtain one. This seemed very strange, & if true, the engagement between them must have been of very short duration. An inextricable difficulty seems to attend every attempt to get at the precise facts & dates of Poe's history. I send you a minute which I have just found, which I wrote down from the letters of Dr. Maupin & Mr. Wertenbaker. Mr. W. says Poe wrote his age in the matriculation books of the college in Feb. 1826, “Born Feb. 19, 1809.”
I wish I had time to tell you how much I enjoyed the Symbolica. I took up the book at a late hour a few nights ago, when very tired, & was held by it till past midnight. I have no strength & no time now to tell you how it fascinated me. I will write soon, by the next steamer if possible.
For the present I can only say may heaven prosper you in all things,
Sincerely your friend,
Sarah Helen Whitman
Friday, Feb. 27
I enclose an article from the Journal for its allusion to Gautier's allusion to Poe. Do not return it.
I am disappointed again in getting the first unmodified copy from the daguerre tonight. Will send it if possible next week. The one in the [page 43:] oval is taken from the same original, the “Thule” — but, as I said, is modified. The other is from the faded picture which was taken for me a few days after.
It is the best the artist could get from it.
1. Ingram refers to this story on p. 84 of The Raven (London: George Redway, 1885), remarking that among the most self-evidently absurd fabrications of the origin of Poe's poem was a story that had found its way to England, after running the rounds of the American press, and had been republished in the London Star in the summer of 1864 to the effect that Mr. Lang, the well-known Oriental traveler, had discovered that Poe had translated, almost literally, “The Raven” from the Persian. On July 29, 1870, the New York Tribune reprinted a letter from the New Orleans Times, July 22, 1870, in which the Rev. J. Shaver called attention to a paragraph in Littell's Living Age, July 8, 1870, p. 105, which stated that a manuscript found in an old barn in a New Jersey village was that of a letter written by Poe to a Mr. Daniels of Philadelphia on Sept. 29, 1849, in which Poe confessed to have stolen “The Raven” from a contributor, Samuel Fenwick, of New York. Item 550 in the Ingram Poe Collection.
2. Mrs. Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie (1819-1870), actress and writer, married James Mowatt in 1834 and William Ritchie in 1854.
John Reuben Thompson (1823-1873) was a poet, journalist, as well as owner and editor of the Southern Literary Messenger from 1847 to 1860. He was acquainted with Poe and after Poe's death liked to pose as his rescuer, in a lecture he delivered here and there, “The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe.” Thompson certainly is responsible for some of the more sordid stories about Poe's behavior. His lecture was edited by J. H. Whitty and J. H. Rindfleisch in 1929; 150 copies were published by Garrett and Massie in Richmond.
Mrs. Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton (b. 1810 or 1811, d. 1888) is generally regarded as having been Poe's boyhood sweetheart in Richmond. When they met and parted again in 1849, almost certainly they were engaged to be married, a fact Mrs. Shelton denied for many years; as Poe's fame grew, her reticence about their last relationship decreased.
3. Mrs. Louisa Gabriella Patterson Allan (d. 1881) of Elizabeth, N.J., and Richmond became the second wife of John Allan on Oct. 5, 1830.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PHR, 1979] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Poe's Helen Remembers (J. C. Miller) (Entry 012)