Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 032: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Mar. 27, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 93-97 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 93, continued:]

32. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 137

My dear Mr. Ingram,

I have just received your two letters of March 11th & 12th, with the photograph.(1) It is younger than I thought you, but all the complex elements of character are shewn in it which I have found in your letters & writings — the concentrated energy & self-reliance, indicated in the contour & pose of the head; the intensity of purpose; the clear penetration & faintly indicated power of sarcasm, in the eyes; the tender, sensitive, poetic soul in the lips and brow. I have only time to tell you how glad I am thus to know you through the magic of the sunbeams.

I shall send you by tonight's mail, for tomorrow's steamer, the two volumes of the Broadway Journal. There are in them one of two marginal notes in pencil by E.A.P. One of them requires or suggests explanation: you will remember that in my little book on Poe the following passage occurs on page 70: “All that I have here expressed was actually present with me. Remember the mental condition which gave rise to ‘Ligeia,’ etc., & observe the coincidence.”

When I wrote these words I was spending the summer in New York, preparing & revising the essay, which I had been writing during the preceding year, for publication. I had left my letters & papers in Providence. Just before putting the last touches to the MS., I remembered a passage in one of Poe's letters or appended to some poem (as I then thought) about the poem “To Helen” having been written (as “Ligeia” was also written) after a vivid & lifelike dream which occurred to him soon after he knew me or recognized me thro’ Mrs. Osgood's description.

But I looked for the passage among my papers in vain. I knew that he had told me this in conversation & with other details, but I also knew that I had some pencilled lines of his on the subject. In this uncertainty, I recalled as well as I could the substance of the pencilled lines & the viva voce explanation of the poem, & inserted it as illustrative of his mental idiosyncrasies. Still I could not find the pencilled lines nor remember on what letter or MS. they were inscribed. I began to think I had read them in a dream when, three or four years after the publication on the little book, I chanced to find them in the Broadway Journal, which I had not opened for years.

Subsequently, when urged by a friend for a single line, for even three or four words of his writing, I cut off the first two lines, & then, [page 94:] repenting, cut out & gave him, I think, two or three words, & only three days ago found between the leaves of the Journal the lines which I had cut off, & replaced them as you will find them. Perhaps I did not give him even these few words, but left them between the leaves of the book. If so, you will find them there. I have made quite a long story about a trivial matter, but I want you to understand the discrepancy between the printed allusion to the matter in the book & the words as they stand on the margin of the Journal.

And now, let me say to you, while I remember to do so, that you owe me nothing. I wish my ability to serve you were equal to my wishes.

You cannot have seen anything like the photograph from the daguerre taken for me on the 13th of November. It was never out of my hands till I left it with Coleman in order that a copy might, if possible, be taken from it for you. Coleman occupies now the very room in which this & the Ultima Thule portraits were taken 25 years ago. His copy is better than I had dared to hope, from the faded look of the original. The other (since the original has been stolen, or is presumed to have been stolen) may have been copied.

I have not yet seen Powell's book, but will try to find it. I do not know about the many or various academies. His skill in drawing? Mr. John Willis, a classmate whose letter I gave Mr. Gill, spoke of passing an evening in his room just before the close of the term, & finding the walls covered with drawings executed by him. I will try to get a copy of the letter at least.

I told you that I had written Mr. Gill an imperative letter, & he has responded very frankly & good-naturedly. He excuses his apparent negligence & returns papers, etc., but does not give me Mr. Clarke's address.

He has had the letters of Mr. Wertenbaker & Dr. Maupin copied for me, & I enclose the copies. Mr. Latto has also sent me a letter which Mr. Poe wrote to Pabodie in acknowledgement of his kindness to him. This has his autograph. You can have it — the letter — copied if you like, but must be very careful of it & return it as soon as possible. When Mr. Pabodie died in 1870, he left me this letter & other papers, & I gave the letter to Mr. Latto, who had given me from time to time much information about Poe, & who was deeply interested in his genius and his history. His address is T. C. Latto, 16 Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. He has written (years ago) something for Blackwood's Mag., a poem I think on Scott, & one on Cooper, published in Harper's in the summer of 1870, with his signature. He is a most estimable gentleman — a man of much taste & good sense, but not (I fancy) of much literary influence. He was employed for a long time in the publishing house of Iverson & somebody, New York. They speak of him in high terms as a gentleman of fine social qualities & [page 95:] great integrity. He is about 55 years old, I think. I am sorry that the letter to Pabodie is so stained & disfigured. It was in this state when I received it from him [Pabodie], or rather, from his executors.

I was much interested in Mr. Swinburne's letter. I have always been an admirer of his Atalanta in Calydon (is that the name? I have forgotten), & of certain things in the Mary Queen of Scots drama, & some of the lyrics.(2) I can never remember names & dates without a painful & determinate effort. His “Garden of Proserpine,” too, is a great favorite with me.

Certainly Mrs. E[llet] lived for a year or two, perhaps several years, in S. Carolina. She is alive, & once (I think in 1851 or 2 or 3) commenced a correspondence with me, ostensibly on the subject of the spiritual phenomena of which she had some experience. I wrote cautiously & reservedly, fearing she had sought my acquaintance in order to prejudice me against Poe, & the correspondence soon dropped. I have never seen her. I cannot tell you more of her than I did in my former letter. I fancy she would resent anything that looked like a personal attack on her. She is said to be implacable toward Poe, but I fancy it is for his slighting allusion to her writings. Still, I do not know. Certainly he never borrowed money of her & refused to pay. I am as sure of it as of my own existence. Yet I should treat the subject in a very general way, as if the proven mendacity of Griswold placed such a story utterly out of the range of serious criticism. We may have the terrible “brothers” down upon us, & then what will become of us! Remember that discretion is the better part of valor, & who knows what tigress we may start up out of this jungle of rank weeds.

My latest edition of Poe is the same as yours. I have not seen the one of which Allibone speaks.

Poe spoke of the first Mrs. Allan with the tenderest affection, of the second with admiration of her beauty & an avowed feeling that the marriage was one of great discrepancy. Entre nous, Mr. Allan was represented, to me, by him, as a man of a gross & brutal temperament, though indulgent to him & at times profusely lavish in the matter of money — at others, penurious & parsimonious. Do not speak of this to any one. I never heard him speak of any difficulty with the second Mrs. Allan.

I think he told me that his sister was adopted by them, the Allans or some one, & placed at the school of a Mrs. McKinsey in Baltimore or Richmond. He added that they had seen but little of each other & were of very opposite temperaments, etc., etc. Do not speak of this.

I do not know if any child of the Allans’ still lives.

Can I give anything between the dates of 1831 & 1833? I am afraid not, but will try. I imagine there was no foundation of Griswold's story of enlistment & desertion. One hardly needs to disprove a slander like [page 96:] that stated only on Griswold's authority, n’est ce pas? Tell me about Mrs. St. Leon Loud in relation to whom you said there was a story to be told.

Allibone speaks of Poe's autobiography, you say, I have never seen it, never heard of it, I think, before. I will try to find out about Brooks's Museum.

I can find what Duyckinck says about reminiscences of Poe in the extinct Sixpenny Mag.. [[sic]] I will look at it tomorrow. I do not know exactly what you refer to when you say, “If you do not know it, I will forward it.” I can find it, if it is in Duyckinck; otherwise, I do not know it, & shall be glad to see it.

You ask me about Mrs. Osgood's aid & her sheltering Mrs. Clemm. I have not yet seen your account of it, not having received your proofs of the Temple Bar article. Mrs. Osgood & Mrs. Clemm had no love for each other, I imagine. I will tell you more about this another time. All I know is from Mrs. Osgood. You say my letters have not denied it. I must then have lost some letter or published article of yours, or mislaid it. Where did you speak of it? Was it in any number of the Mirror? I am very anxious about it. Have you sent me more than three several articles in the Mirror?

But now I must close, with a thousand things unsaid. Shall send Broadway Journal tonight.

May you succeed in your noble work. It is full of difficulties, but all will end well, I trust. May the good gods help you. Your friend, most cordially & gratefully,

About the “Pansy.” Certainly, you may use it, only let the printer be careful about misprints. I am sensitive on that point. I had thought of your word in the line, “A fading flush of morning gold.” If you like it better, I like it as well. So, with “the silver-blaring trumpets.” I think I should certainly have chosen it, if “silver-snarling” had not been the word used by Keats & often quoted. You can do as you think best about it. I cannot tell you how much I value your praise, your sympathy. Praise is not always welcome, but your praise is priceless.

I sent poems & papers in the last book. I am not sure what were in the book & what in the letter. Was there a printed letter giving an account of an interview with Walter Savage Landor, & an extract from Edgar Poe's notice in his Lowell lecture? And were the poems of “Proserpine to Pluto” & the “Venus of Milo,” etc. in the letter?

Thanks for the “Rhododaphne.”(3) I had long been curious about it.

 

1. The date March 12 is an error; Ingram wrote two letters dated March 11.

The photograph (reproduced in this volume on page 63) was taken when Ingram was thirty-one years old. [page 97:]

2. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon: A Tragedy (London: Edward Moxon & Co., 1865); Mary Stuart: A Tragedy (London: Chatto & Windus, 1881).

3. “Rhododaphne: or, the Thessalian Spell,” a poem by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866). Poe, in his “Marginalia,” CLXXVIII [[XCVII]], the Democratic Review, Dec. 1844, says of it, “‘Rhododaphne’ is brim-full of music” and quotes five lines.