Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 035: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Apr. 2 and Apr. 3, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 103-106 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 103, continued:]

35. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 140

My dear Mr. Ingram,

I have just received your two letters of March 16. I envy you your new home in the old house which has so many a “coigne of vantage” for the accommodation of ghostly visitors. I never have seen a ghost, though I once saw a beautiful luminous hand that wrote for me three initial letters, which I still preserve & look upon with awe & wonder! It was in a private house, & in the presence of the master of the house, my cousin, Wm. Power Blodget, and the celebrated medium Charles Foster.

But, to our dry facts. I cannot reconcile the discrepancy in dates of which you speak. You will have seen before you get this letter the copy of Mr. Wertenbaker's letter, which I obtained from Mr. Gill, & there I must leave the evidence. If anybody can arrive at certainty on these matters, you can. But I do not know how I can help you. I will try, however. [page 104:]

I was deeply impressed by what Poe told me of his interview with Mrs. Stanard, of the effect which her gentle words had on him, & of his sorrow at her death, & his repeated solitary vigils by her grave.

When, in the spring of 1859, I wrote to Mrs. Clemm for the date of her [Mrs. Stanard's] death & other particulars of the incidents connected with this subject she wrote me in reply the letter which I enclose to you.(1) I could not reconcile her statements with my own impression of what he had said to me on the subject — an impression which, though somewhat vague as to details, was profound & indelible as to the leading facts of the story.

He told me that when he heard of her death he was overwhelmed with sorrow, & that being at the time either at some academy or at the University (I cannot distinctly remember which), he was in the habit of letting himself out at a certain window of the establishment & going to the cemetery where she was entombed, & that on stormy & dreary nights he went most often — that he could not endure to think of her lying there forsaken & forgotten. I know that his report was essentially true. I cannot feel sure about anything else.

I know nothing of the early editions of poems, nor do I know anyone of whom I could be likely to obtain information. You may perhaps learn something from Davidson. I sent him your article in the Mirror. I have not since heard from him. I am afraid he must be ill. I think — indeed I am quite sure, that no vol. of “Marginalia” was published during Poe's life. Poe's references to it were probably to the magazine publishments. Did he speak of it as a volume?

Only two numbers of the American Metropolitan were published. Poe was engaged to write the literary notices. I cannot remember that he wrote anything for them. I had the numbers once, but have not seen them for years. The only thing I wrote for it was the lines of which I spoke, called “Stanzas for Music.” They were cut out & sent with the new verses to the printer under the title of “Our Island of Dreams,” when my poems were collected in 1853. I will enclose a copy of the four original verses.

You ask if I know what was Mrs. Shelton's Christian name? I do not, but I have fancied that the last lines in Griswold's collection of the poems were addressed to her. I have never asked anyone nor have I ever heard anyone speak on the subject. They had not appeared I think in any previous collection, & were probably written after his engagement to her in [18]49. Yet Griswold, I think, has spoken of “Annabel Lee” as the last. I should like very much to learn the date, of these lines to M.L.S. I am curious, too, to learn something of Mrs. St. Leon Loud. Won’t you tell me what you know of her?

Certainly you may make use of Mrs. [Anna Cora Mowatt] Ritchie's letter, if you think proper to do so. In copying her letter, I did not [page 105:] preserve the date. It must have been a month or six weeks earlier than I had supposed, because in an extract from one of Davidson's letters which I sent you he alludes to it, & his letter, I think, was written in April.

You allude to Wallace's literary criticisms. I will look for them at once in our Athenaeum Library. Poe first met Mr. Pabodie at my mother's house in the autumn of 1848.

Last evening came your letter of March 19. Have already sent the Broadway Journal. It is yours. Last evening I received a letter (note) from Mr. Davidson [dated March 31, 1874] which I enclose, & one from Mrs. Clemm, written to me while I was preparing the work published by. Carleton. It will not add much to your collection of facts, but may serve to illustrate other points. Preserve it for me. I may want it, though it is not likely.

The passages from Poe's letter of Oct. 18 — those marked with a blue pencil — you can use if you think best to do so. I have not yet been able to hear of any copies of Graham's Mag. Perhaps I may be able to answer some of your questions next week. I have just read Powell's paper on Poe.

Maunsell B. Field, a relative of the great Cyrus, has just got out a rambling, gossiping collection of Memories of Many Men and Some Women, published by Harper & Brothers, 1874. Have you seen it?

I quote what he says of Poe, though you may perhaps already have seen it:

An ingenious climax, but not true, I fancy, to the dry facts of the case, since it took four shillings of New York money to get from New York to Fordham, & would the cool, calculating man of business have wasted so much money on the improvident prose-poet of “The Universe”?

I confess I have always liked Swinburne since I read in the Galaxy of March 15, 1867, an article on him, written by Mr. Winwood Reade of Harvard College, on the social & intellectual proclivities of “the pagan poet.” I made an extract from it for the [Providence] Journal, from which extract I quote a paragraph, which I headed, “Interesting to Ladies, & specially interesting to Old Ladies.”

I believe the words “mythical enchantresses” are my own, & not Mr. Reade's, but I gave him the credit for them. I like the “Ave atque Vale” above all things, & now, once more, to you, “Ave atque Vale.”

 

1. This letter, dated Apr. 14, 1859, is printed in full in Building Poe Biography, pp. 41-44. The original letter is now in the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.