Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 047: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, May 4, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 143-146 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 143, continued:]

47. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 149

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Your letter of March 31 [Apr. 14], received yesterday, filled me with anxiety. Do not, I implore you, allow yourself to become excited over [page 144:] your work. Leave everything till you are quite well again. I shall be so anxious till I hear from you again. I have been anxious from the first — fearing that the perplexing contradictions, which I knew you would be likely to meet with, would discourage & worry you. I am glad to know that you are to see Mrs. Lewis — since she has lived in Baltimore, where so much of his life was passed, she must be able to throw light on many points. Why do you say that you shall receive with caution what she tells you? Have you any reason to think that she is unfriendly to E.A.P.? Of course she will not be likely to speak favorably of Mrs. Clemm, but I have heard nothing to her discredit from any other source. Mrs. Clemm says that she was very uncomfortable with her, but she was, I fancy, apt to find trouble in all her homes, save perhaps that of Mrs. Annie Richmond in Lowell, & even there, she could not be contented to remain after the first winter. Mr. Davidson wrote me many years ago that he had seen, or had had, letters from Mrs. Lewis, & that she had told him, or told someone, that “Annabel Lee” was addressed to her. I fancy, from a piece of gossip which was detailed to me by a friend of Mrs. Osgood's, that Mrs. Clemm had told Mrs. L[ewis] that it was. Indeed, I think my informant stated that she was present when Mrs. Clemm told Mrs. Lewis that “Edgar had written the poem for her.” I had asked my informant why Mrs. Osgood had said in her contribution to Griswold's narrative that the lines were in memory of Virginia, & she told me, in reply, that Mrs. Osgood, indignant at what Mrs. Clemm had said, had written what she did “to put Mrs. Lewis down.” I had suspected some such motive from the tone of Mrs. Osgood's allusion to the ballad. “You may imagine how Fanny's lip curled,” said my correspondent, “when I reported to her what Mrs. Clemm had said.” I doubt whether Mrs. Clemm knew any more of the matter than most other people.

I think many of Mrs. Lewis's poems very fine. I long to know how she impresses.you & whether she can throw light on the story of Mrs. E[llet] & the “borrowed money,” etc. I sincerely hope that she can. I have heard Poe speak of Mrs. Lewis, & it was with interest and appreciation, though I inferred that he was not at the time (1848) in habits of frequent & friendly intercourse with her.

Whatever claim others have as the the inspiration of “Annabel Lee,” I cannot doubt that the beautiful fantasie was suggested by the printed lines which I enclose, the four verses originally published under the title of “Stanzas for Music.”

The name of “Annabel Lee,” responding, as it does, to the burden of the song, “the kingdom by the sea,” was, I think, chosen for this correspondence, and the repetition of the words, “the wind came out of the cloud,” etc. was, I doubt not, suggested by the third & fourth lines of my stanzas. [page 145:]

I will give you a few of my reasons; others, more impressive, I do not now dare to give you.

Recollect — we were to be married in a few days. Poe had at last prevailed upon me to consent to an immediate union. He had written to Dr. Crocker to publish “the banns of marriage” between us. He had written to Mrs. Clemm to announce our arrival on [sic] New York early in the following week, when it came to my knowledge & the knowledge of my friends, that he had already broken the solemn pledge so lately given by taking wine or something stronger than wine at the bar of his hotel. No token of this infringement of his promise was visible in his appearance or his manner, but I was at last convinced that it would be in vain longer to hope against hope. I knew that he had irrevocably lost the power of self-recovery.

Gathering together some papers which he had entrusted to my keeping, I placed them in his hands without a word of explanation or reproach, and, utterly worn out & exhausted by the mental conflicts & anxieties & responsibilities of the last few days, I drenched my handkerchief with ether & threw myself on a sofa, hoping to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sinking on his knees beside me, he entreated me to speak to him — to speak — one word, but one word. At last I responded, almost inaudibly, “What can I say?” “Say that you love me, Helen.” “I love you.”

Those three words were the last I ever spoke to him. He remonstrated & explained & expostulated. But I had sunk from a violent ague fit into a cold and death-like torpor. He brought shawls & covered me with them, & then lifting me in his arms, bore me to a lounge near the fire, where he remained on his knees beside me, chafing my hands & invoking me, by all tenderest names & epithets, to speak to him again, one word. A merciful apathy was now stealing over my senses, & though I vaguely heard all, or much, that was said, I spoke no word, nor gave any sign of life. My mother & sister & another friend were in the room. I heard my mother remonstrating with him & urging his departure. Then Mr. Pabodie entered the room & joined my mother in entreaties that he would leave me. Her last words I did not hear, but I heard him haughtily & angrily reply, “Mr. Pabodie, you hear how I am insulted.” These were his last words, & the door closed behind him forever. His letter I did not dare to answer. Exaggerated & humiliating stories were in circulation. He entreated me to deny them, to say that I at least had not authorized them. I never answered the letter. But I sent to the publisher of the Metropolitan the “Stanzas for Music.” Meantime, he had doubtless felt aggrieved & deeply wounded & had, perhaps, said & done some things which would, if known, place an inseparable gulf between us. I imagine that the notice of Griswold's Female Poets, which was published in the Southern Literary [page 146:] Messenger, was prepared before he saw my verses. After he had seen them, I believe that, knowing all earthly reconciliation between us impossible, he sought to express to me his undying love & remembrance in the most beautiful & tender & spiritually imaginative of all his poems.

I send you the photograph from a picture painted by J. N. Arnold, in which the drapery of the robe is copied from the picture taken so long ago by Thompson. The picture which Poe thought was so like Robert Stanard. There was more dignity & nobility in that, & many prefer it to this, but while that is not always recognized, this is, even by persons who have known me only within the last ten years. It is more youthful in expression than the one taken so long ago. This was taken in the winter of 1838-39.(1) But now I must stop talking about myself.

Goodbye, & may the good angels guard & keep you. Remember what I said, “keep cool.”

P.S. All that I have written is (at least for the present) for you alone. I hope my letter of April 3, sent in the Atlas, arrived safely. It contained a copy of a portion of one of Poe's which might be quotable.

Miss Anna Blackwell is now I believe in Paris. I do not know her address, but she is an acquaintance of Mr. Daniel Home, the medium. If you know anyone who knows him, you could obtain it from him.(2)

 

1. J. N. Arnold painted this picture of Mrs. Whitman in the winter of 1868-69. See also p. 118, n. 1.

2. Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886) was a Scottish medium who won fame of a sort as an exponent of table-turning and levitation in America in 1850, and in London by 1855. Robert Browning lampooned him in 1864 in his “Sludge, the Medium,” and Mrs. Whitman, who had met Home and was very favorably impressed by his “powers,” published an article, “Mr. Home, the Medium,” in the Providence Journal, May 24, 1865.