Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 065: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Aug. 7, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 202-203 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 202, continued:]

65. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 166

My dear Mr. Ingram,

Miss Rose F. Peckham, who is an intimate friend of mine, is going to sail for Europe next week in the Parthia. She will be in London for a few days before going to Paris, where she will probably pass the winter for the purpose of cultivating her taste in art. She has chosen to enter the profession of an artist from a genuine & disinterested love of the pursuit. She has already done some fine work in portrait painting, but her last & most successful effort was a fine head of Sappho, nobly conceived & executed with a fine sense of the tragic grandeur of her ideal. She is a born artist, but feels that she has much to learn. Her father, Dr. S. F. Peckham, is a physician of Providence, a man of wealth & ability, widely known & respected. She goes abroad in company with a lady from Boston, also an artist.

Soon after I became acquainted with her, she told me of her great interest in Poe, as a school-girl, & of her desire to know me, springing from this cause. She told me that one of her early compositions was on the subject of his life & genius, & at my request gave me the MS., two pages of which I enclose, that you may know that there is on this subject at least a bond of sympathy between you. Since I have known [page 203:] her, that is, for the last three or four years, we have been warm friends.

I have much to say, but must wait til next week. It is pleasant to think of you as enjoying yourself these beautiful summer days at “garden parties.”

I hope that for you the gardens may be all “enchanted.”

And so, goodbye for tonight.

Mr. Latto has received his autograph letter & tells me that he has been waiting to notice the recent papers on Poe until the “City of Churches” shall have a respite from the all-absorbing clerical scandal.

You must not tell Miss Peckham that I sent you her school-girl composition. I am afraid it might not meet with her approval. I saw her last evening for the first time after an interval of several months; she has been passing the summer at their summer home in Putnam, while I have remained in Providence.

I send you some lines written to the wife of one of our poets, Geo. S. Burleigh, with whom I passed pleasant months by the sea shore two or three years ago.

You will see that I have marked for you some of [my] favorite lines in Victor Hugo, etc.