Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 167: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Jan. 9, 1877,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 466-467 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 466, continued:]

167. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 309

My dear friend,

I have just received the life-size copy of the photograph. It is superb! So good that I am sorry I criticized so searchingly the smaller copies received before. The nerveless look of the under lip seems entirely absent from this beautiful copy, and the air of the head & figure seem much finer. I am delighted to have so beautiful a copy of the little photograph I sent you.

Mr. Coleman tells me that he has had several requests to allow the daguerreotype I gave him to be copied. Gill among others has asked him to allow him the use of it, but he has invariably refused. He says that he regrets having given away one of the copies taken at the time I sent you the copy from which your engraving was taken. He tells me thousands of copies have been sold from it, and all wretched. I want him to see this. I think he will be greatly pleased. [page 467:]

Gill has been burnt out, I believe, & the publication of his Life is still delayed. I will endeavor to get a copy of Didier's to send by tomorrow's steamer. I cannot say more now than to give once more a word of fervent thanks & Benediction for all.

I am suffering intensely from a severe bronchial affection which is an epidemic here & has proved fatal to many in my immediate neighborhood. Among others the President of Brown University, whose sudden death was announced this morning.(1) The weather has been frightful.

Ever devotedly your friend,

I have not heard from Rose since she saw Mallarmé. I wish I could fitly translate his sonnet. There are some things in it which baffle me. I wish they had given a facsimile of it. There are apparently one or two misprints in it. Some of our Brunonians to whom I have shown it think so.

I have been comparing the smaller photo with the copy received today & think it may be improved by a few slight changes. The shadow between the under lip & the chin should be shorter, as it is in the life-size copy — the lip itself not carried out so far as it is toward the corner of the mouth on the left side of the picture, & the lights on the cheek & forehead toned down on the right side — and above all the corner of the lip should be shadowed.

 

1. Alexis Caswell (1799-1877), president of Brown University, 1868-1872, died suddenly on Jan. 8, 1877.