Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 019: John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman, Mar. 6, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 62-66 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 62, continued:]

19. John H. Ingram to Sarah Helen Whitman

My dear Mrs. Whitman,

In the first place, I have not yet received the vol. of poems mentioned in your kind letters of the 19th & 20th of Feb. I shall institute inquiries in the Foreign Dept. of our G.P.O. & let you know the result in this epistle: if the book arrives safely, I will write at once. In future, when I send any valuable enclosure, I shall register it. I need not tell you how precious your letters are to me, but I cannot help feeling that I have been disturbing your repose — perhaps endangering your health & rest by my troubling you. Pray forgive me, and, although every letter contains something of value to me, do not let me cause you to risk health, or happiness, in writing so much & upon, doubtless, so agitating a subject. As regards my wretched boyish verses, pray do not trouble with them; if you begin to amend, 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 & then drop that subject. As a child — before I could read — I determined, as I looked at my father's great books & saw how they interested him, to become an author, & by the time I could spell 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 vol. of Edgar Poe's poems. Suddenly, something stirred me till I shuddered & 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 & 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 & that recompensed me for all the terrible trials I was then enduring. Day after day I wrote & wrote. At night, I kept lucifers & a candle, pencil and paper by my side, because I continually composed verses & fragments of what I thought in my sleep. At last I thought of publishing [page 64:] these pieces. I began by sending them to our best magazines. To my horror they were “declined with thanks”! Not daunted, I tried oft & 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 my next), but asking me to send something else because, although my thoughts were good, my metre was bad. Metre! I had never thought of that! I had thought poets breathed their poems as flowers did perfume! Rhyme was always ready, but rhythm & metre I never thought of! I now knew — so I thought — why my poems came back. To work I went and counted my syllables on my fingers with the precision of a pendulum. I sent said editor some pieces which he published (he is now Ed. of Cassell's Maga.). Thus cheered, I sent to one of the cheap journals — under a nom de plume of “Dalton Stone,” rendered necessary by certain circumstances. The editor (now Ed. of the Mirror) pubd. them. For five years I wrote bushels of verses which were always printed by the cheap journals — sometimes, two or three complete pieces a day — “Lauralie” was written in half-an-hour (I remember it well!) & “Hebe” in less time. I never corrected a word, but sent them “with all their errors thick upon them” to print. For all these verses I never received a single penny — nor, indeed, for some weird stories which were published before my zoth year. I selected some of the verses & made them into a little book — friends took about 100 copies — 8 or 9 kind reviews appeared, & one unfriendly one, for which I wrote a sharp letter to the Ed.! Some months after I was introduced to him (he is dead now) but fortunately in my own name, & I had written to him as “Dalton.” Ten years ago & the world's cruelty crushed my heart to atoms, & in a pathetic “Farewell to Poesy” I parted from the dearest hope of my life. That piece you shall have if I can find a copy. Since then I have never published any verses save one or two of my boyhood pieces. An earnest “Recall” was soon after printed in same journal as the “Farewell.” I wrote to its unknown author — an Irishman — we met subsequently. Soon after he went to America — but I cannot hear of him now — he married. My darling sister — my only literary friend — I mean friend with very deepest meaning — died. Do not speak of her to me, for I cannot bear it, but you will find a few of her pieces in Flora Symbolica. If you like to ever review that commonplace book, do notice them, but don’t say anything in your letters. Flora Symbolica was written some years ago, but published in October, 1869. I am now 31 — write much & am paid.(1) But my heart is not in it. My favourite stories have been lost by a careless publisher, before I could get them [page 65:] published. There! you know all you can possibly wish to know of me! I’ll send a photo as soon as I get some copies from Germany.

And now something more important. First — if you can only get someone to copy such paragraphs of Poe's letters as you do not object to be published — you speak of some shown to Mr. Stoddard, &c. I will pay therefore, as I feel assured ’tis too much for you to write out so much. Your reminiscences, if you can write them without wearying your eyes would be valuable. The Broadway Journal I have spoken of. Don’t talk so sadly of dying — you must live till I can cross the Atlantic to see you! Mr. Gill I have written to & asked him to let me have copies of letters &c., and I will forward remittance. I hope he’ll reply. If you have a friend in Boston, a personal visit might be better than all the letters. Every scrap of printed matter shall be carefully preserved & I shall be glad to return them, feeling as if I were holding property not my own. Some I must copy, however. Give me your candid opinion about “Isadore”: do you think Poe wrote it? I cannot quote it without feeling sure. As regards the “Lenore” poem — I had already quoted it in full in a magazine paper, but will suppress part. Your wishes in these subjects are laws. I quoted an earlier version, but had to piece it out with the Southern Lit. Mess. copy — not having the verse mentioning “Helen.” I have early versions of many of the poems — the 1831 collection — that is, copies of them — not the vol. itself. “Poe's morbid love of mystification” I fully recognize. Do you think he really was 17 when he entered Charlottesville? Rules of West Point do not admit cadets after they are 21.

New York Evening Mail (10 Dec. 1870), Home Journal, &c., I cannot see in London. If I can only obtain your poems, I will review at once, but should prefer not reviewing E.P. & His Critics just yet, as I shall extract (with due acknowledgment) its most biographical portions in my Quarterly paper. Some of the separate poems you mention did not come in letter, i.e., “Pansy from the Grave of Keats,” “Sleeping Beauty,” nor “Cinderella.” I did not want any secrecy about the Temple Bar paper, only did not want it to appear sooner in U.S. than in England. I was mistaken about Mrs. Ellet; it was not her but someone else I thought of. I shall work out the story of “Conchology” all right. Did you ever hear of Dr. Shelton MacKenzie? I fancy English by birth.(2) Allibone's quotes his opinion of Griswold: it is very severe & unfavourable to Griswold. Clarke's address is not in Allibone, I’m nearly sure — merely Philadelphia. I’ve written to Allibone — was Clarke a publisher? I wrote Mr. J. W. Davidson. I think I had better send him some money to get books & papers with. We are just raising money for E. Poe's sister, who is very badly off. Shall perhaps get a ($1000) thousand dollars. Thanks for speaking of Poe's notes in [page 66:] Broadway: [illegible] is not so good as others though. I don’t know whether you have seen any paper of mine. My boyish nom de plume “Dalton Stone” was much better known, I fancy, than is my own name — not amongst literati, but popularly. Further news for next letter. No news of the book.

 

1. Ingram here tells the truth about his age. He was born on Nov. 16, 1842, as is attested to by a copy of his birth certificate he supplied to the Civil Service Commission authorities when he received his commission in 1868. Later, after his articles on Poe and his edition of Poe's works made him eligible to be listed in a forerunner of Who's Who, he adopted as his birthdate Oct. 7, 1849, which is of course Poe's deathdate. Apparently thinking better of the business, he reverted to Nov. 16, 1849, and that date is still the one listed for him in all reference books and most library card catalogues. See my article “The Birthdate of John Henry Ingram,” Poe Studies, 7 (June 1974), 24.

2. Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie was born in Ireland in 1809. He never practiced medicine but became a distinguished author and editor.