Text: John Grier Varner, “Chapter 08,” Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence, dissertation, 1940, pp. 266-349 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 266:]

It was as a mysterious, transcendental poetess, leaning definitely toward Spiritualism, that Whitman first became attracted to Edgar Poe; and she later came to believe implicitly that this poet had been drawn to her by occult forces over which she had no control.(1) Poe was a man who had come into her life, not through “any effort of the conscious will”, but through those forces which “emanated from the deep heart” within her; and, although in the beginning these forces were too mysterious for her to define, she afterward, with the help of Poe himself, came to see a spiritual affinity between herself and this strange poet which both her reason and her intuition forbade her to deny. Her faith in this affinity became so fixed that even after Poe's death she remained confident that there had been no severance of their spiritual connection.

Mrs. Whitman would have us believe that she first became aware of these mysterious influences upon reading one of Poe's weird fantasies in the early forties, for she later confessed that one of his early tales had caused her experience a sensation of such intense horror that for a time she dared not look at anything Poe had written, or even utter his name. At the time, she was not sufficiently informed or cognizant of the future to analyse this sensation, but she afterwards decided that her conscious soul had merely recoiled with an instinctive apprehension of the agonies it was destined to suffer through its strange union with Poe's own soul.(2) [page 267:]

But it was not long before Sarah Whitman dared to utter the poet's name and even read what he had so boldly written; for, as she says, by degrees her terror took the character of fascination, and she found herself devouring with a half reluctant and fearful avidity every line that fell from his pen, always experiencing as she read his lines a singular pain and oppression about the heart.(1) It is interesting to note that at this time Mrs. Whitman, and no doubt her physician also, at these singular pains to heart trouble, and for this ailment she resorted frequently to the soothing contents of the ether bottle; but as the years passed and subsequent events brought significant changes in her life and thought, Mrs. Whitman began to attribute these early thrills and heart pains to some occult and mysterious influence.(2)

A more tangible source for the beginning of this affinity might be seen in that zeal which both Sarah Whitman and Edgar Poe in the early forties found in the investigation of Mesmerism and its various pseudo-scientific spawns. For some years Mrs. Whitman had given credence to this science, and many of her friends who had been associated with her in the investigation had sooner or later come in contact with Edgar Poe. For instance, Robert Collyer, who gave Mrs. Whitman credit for his conversion to animal magnetism, later became sufficiently friendly with Poe to accompany him to one of “Father Miller's” meetings, where they found something of a magnetic influence in the wild contagion of enthusiasm accompanying [page 268:] Miller's ravings about the approaching and of the world.(1) Again, George Bush was acquainted with Poe, and Andrew Jackson Davis had received Poe in his rooms, where he came ostensibly for the purpose of collecting material for his stories.(2) Furthermore, both Poe and Mrs. Whitman gave much credence to Chauncey Hare Townshend's “Facts in Mesmerism”, a book which Dr. Walter Channing had forwarded to Mrs. Whitman when there were only three copies in America. Mrs. Whitman had in turn passed this book on to George Bush since it contained ideas approximating some of his theories concerning the relation of light to the phenomena of the human soul or mind; and moreover she credited herself wit having introduced Bush to the subject of Mesmerism, a subject which later treated in connection with Swedenborg.(3)

So one might find the beginning of Mrs. Whitman's romantic feelings simply in her common interest with Poe on occult subjects, Yet we should not lose sight of the difference in their feelings concerning some subjects. Sarah Whitman had come to accept some of these new forms of occultism as a part of her philosophy and her religion, whereas Poe had managed to keep his interest chiefly a literary one. He was primarily seeking dramatic material for his stories, and he received a great deal of pleasure in the observance of the gullibility of his contemporaries.

The truth of the matter is that the time was simply ripe for Poe, and he had found just the material necessary for the perpetration of another hoax. Not only was he weaving from the web of his own fancy theories which the Swedenborgians were willing to accept as truth, but seizing upon the facts and superstitions of Mesmerism, he was inventing fiction which many people of his day, learned and otherwise, were anxious to accept as facts. He was anticipating along with Andrew Jackson Davis the “spirit telegraph” which became popular only a few years later. Publishing “Mesmeric Revelations” in 1844, he enjoyed the pleasure of seeing this fantasy which he knew to be false swallowed as a possible truth;(2) and then in the following year when he revealed to what extremes one might arrive in Mesmeric speculations in his “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, the results were possibly even more strange than he himself had anticipated. Newspapers discussed the story; scientific magazines made it a subject of polemics; an inquisitive Scotchman wrote asking if it were true;(3) G. W. Eveleth was so taken in by the story that he later found it hard to believe accepted facts concerning Poe;(4) Sarah Whitman's apt disciple, Robert, Collyer, wrote Poe that he had not the least doubt of the possibility of such a phenomenon;(5) and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, viewing the story with a suggestion of credulity, emote of the “admired disorder” and [page 270:] “dreadful doubts” into which it had thrown the English, and then added her conviction that the author was “mad”.(1)

Poe's initial knowledge of Mrs. Whitman might be traced to his association with that group of literati which gathered regularly in the New York home of Miss Anne G. Lynch in the early forties. He has recorded that the first words he ever heard in connection with the Providence poetess were some not altogether kind words which Miss Anne Lynch had detailed to him concerning her eccentricities and sorrows.(2) This lady, having know Mrs. Whitman for years, was capable of relating to Poe many of the intimate details of her family history — stories of her father — her sister's unfortunate idiosyncrasies — her mother's dominant and now selfish personality — her unhappy married life and her bereaved widowhood. Many of these things Miss Lynch did tell, and, as Poe said, she was not altogether kind in the telling. She described Mrs. Whitman, to some extent personally, referring to her moods, thoughts, sentiments, and traits, all of which Poe said he knew to be his own, though he had not thought them to be possessed by anyone but himself.(3) There was perhaps very little about Mrs. Whitman which Poe did not learn from Anne Lynch. But according to his statement a profound sympathy appears to have taken possession of him when he heard Miss Lynch's words, and he later remarked to Mrs. Whitman that he unknown heart seemed to pass into his own bosom at this time, and his was in turn translated into her own. [page 271:]

Judging from Poe's own statement, we may gather that in relating facts concerning Mrs. Whitman Miss Lynch either hinted so lightly or so totally ignored the fact of Mrs. Whitman's widowhood that Poe was left with the impression that she was “a wife and a most happy one”. Poe later placed the responsibility for this oversight directly upon his own shoulders, but he added that it might also be imputed to a deliberate design on the part of Miss Lynch.(2) Since Poe relates that it was some years before he was undeceived in this matter, one might wonder if this same information was omitted by Mrs. Osgood, either through oversight or design, when she had occasion to describe Mrs. Whitman for Poe in 1845. The ladies of the literati were vying for the favors of Poe, and there is a possibility that they did not care to have an additional rival. The poet explained to Mrs. Whitman afterward that it was his very ignorance of her widowhood which for several years had provoked him to shun per presence and even the city in which she lived;(3) but in the light of other known facts concerning the poet this statement appears simply as an effort to add color to his romance, and one is thus led to doubt in this particular instance the sincerity of the poet's words.

Poe's first opportunity to make the personal acquaintance of Sarah Whitman came in July of 1845. Passing [page 272:] through Providence at this time, he stopped in the same hotel as Mr. Osgood; and she, having known Mrs. Whitman for years, described her for the poet, and begged him to accompany her to the home at 50 Benefit Street. But he refused to go to Mrs. Whitman's home, and even provoked a quarrel with Mrs. Osgood by the seeming obstinacy and unresonableness [[unreasonableness]] of his refusal.(1) Nevertheless, during the course of the evening, because of the intense heat, he wandered out over the hills which command a view of Providence from the East, and passing the Power home at a late hour, he caught his first glimpse of Sarah Whitman and recognized her through Mrs. Osgood's description. Clad in white with a scarf thrown over her head, she was either standing in her doorway or strolling up and down the lime shaded walk in the neighborhood of her home.(2) She was not reposing in a garden of roses, as he later described her in his poem; but the garden was there, bordering on the tombs of the silent churchyard of St. John's, and it became a portion of that vision of a figure in white, which along with Mrs. Osgood's description of Mrs. Whitman Poe crystallized into verse and forwarded to Mrs. Whitman three years later.(3) Afterwards, attempting to persuade her that there was some psychic significance in this vision which became his second poem “To Helen”, Poe wrote to Mrs. Whitman:

The poet would have us believe therefore that his second lines “To Helen” are not a description of the actual scene which he witnessed on that July night, but that they are simply a crystallization of his sub-conscious reaction to this scene — a materialization of his dream consciousness.

On the following morning Poe told Mrs. Osgood of the incidents of the night; but, somewhat to Mrs. Whitman's later resentment, Mrs. Osgood neglected to mention the matter to her, and she knew nothing of Poe's having seen her until almost three years had passed.(1) Furthermore, Miss Lynch appears not to have given Mrs. Whitman any indication of Poe's interest until 1846, when, at Poe's request, she forwarded to Mrs. Whitman a review which Poe had written of Elizabeth Barrett's “The Drama of Exile and other Poems.”(2)

One might speculate as to why Poe sent this particular article to Sarah Whitman. His words concerning Miss Barrett, though laudatory, upon the whole had been caustic. It is possible that he wished to add to his list of feminine admirers another woman who might seek conciliation. “His critiques were read with avidity, not because he convinced the judgment, but people feel their ability and courage,” Mrs. Whitman once remarked.(3) Again, it is conceivable that Poe, not unaware of Mrs. Whitman's own critical ability and liberality of thought, sought to impress upon her the independence which he had dared to assert in this review of Miss Barrett's poems. Furthermore, in spite of his later statement to the contrary, Poe may have been this early seeking [page 274:] to court the affection of the attractive Providence widow; and with this thought in mind one might entertain for a moment his statement that when he had first heard of her through Miss Lynch, there had “burst upon his icy spirit” the “first dawn of human love”.(1) It suffices to say that he had already received news of Sarah Whitman's charms, and he was becoming at least passingly interested. The article on Miss Barrett was an invitation.

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Mrs. Whitman had been acquainted with the reputation of Poe for some time before she received this first evidence of his interest in herself. She was aware of the adulation which he had been receiving as a social and literary lion among the literati of New York, for being in close touch with this group, she was kept well informed of their conversational chatter and of the incidents both trivial and important which occurred at their weekly gatherings. Concerning her early knowledge of Poe she once wrote Mr. E. L. Didier:

Quoting from one of these letters, dated January 20, 1846, for the sake of her correspondent, Mr. Didier, Mrs. Whitman gave the names of some of those celebrities who were accustomed to attend the New York literary gatherings:

With the publication of “The Raven”, January 29, 1845, Poe had reached the peak of his literary fame, and by the spring of 1846 he had attained. the very acme of both his literary and social success in New York. He was a frequent guest at receptions where he often amused admiring audiences by repeating “The Raven.” “I meet Mr. Poe very often at receptions,” wrote one of Mrs. Whitman's Manhattan friends. “He is the observed of all observers. His stories are thought wonderful, and to hear him repeat The Raven, which he does very quietly, is an event in one's life.”(3)

It was a feeling of both sympathy and dread which enabled Poe to hold some of the ladies of the literati spellbound, and among those women who “fell at his feet” recording his words and deeds were many friends of Sarah Whitman. Miss Lynch had begged Mrs. Osgood to bring Poe to her [page 276:] place and she had called upon him at his lodgings; Mrs. Ellet had asked for a introduction to Poe and had followed him everywhere; Margaret Fuller, though perhaps feeling little dread of and no sympathy for the Raven, had met him on friendly terms in the gatherings of the literati. And Mrs. Osgood later declared that she was the only one of the literary woman who did not seek his acquaintance.(1) Many of those ladies of the literati were well known to Sarah Whitman, and some of them had even belonged to that literary group which had once centered about Providence. There was possibly little that they knew about the character of Poe that Mrs. Whitman had not learned when she finally met him personally.

The reports concerning Poe which came to Mrs. Whitman through her New York friends were not always favorable. Even while he was frequently the fashionable salons of the city, he was anatomically studying the members of the literary group with the view of publishing sketches of them in Godey's Ladies’ Magazine. These sketches, although filled with gentle laudation, contained much mild satire; and this satire of some coupled with his deliberate neglect of others brought upon him perhaps more slander and malicious criticism than any of his acts of personal conduct could have evoked. No man, and more especially no literary lion, could so adroitly flatter literary women with compliments to both their understanding and personal charm, as Poe had frequently done, without sooner or later involving [page 277:] himself in web of jealousy from which it would be difficult to become disentangled. And thus Poe did become the center of some gossip and much slander, all of which soon reached the ears of Sarah Whitman in Providence.

Among those ladies who must have particularly resented Poe was Margaret Fuller. One of Mrs. Whitman's friends in writing her of the New York soirées to alluded to a controversy which took place between Margaret Fuller and Poe about some author whom, in a lofty way, Margaret had been annihilating. The writer continued:

Margaret Fuller did not like to be either contradicted or criticised, and Poe's caustic words concerning her in the “Literati” were not likely to evoke a friendly feeling for the author. There were possibly reasons therefore for Poe to bemoan the fact that Margaret Fuller was Sarah Whitman's friend.

One of the stories which seems to have been current at this time was that Poe had borrowed money from ‘”a distinguished woman of south Carolina” and, on being applied to by her brothers, had denied the debt. This story Mrs. Whitman afterwards refused to believe, though she later felt that Mrs. Clemm might have borrowed the money without the knowledge of Poe and thus given foundation to the rumor. But there were other circumstances involving [page 278:] Poe and Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, the “distinguished woman from South Carolina”, which could not be denied and which Mrs. Whitman afterward felt might have served as the foundation or rather as the “nebulous nucleus” out of which the story was evolved.(1) These circumstances Mrs. Whitman many years later detailed as follows:

Such a story could not remain a secret long among a group so closely associated and so intensely interested in each other's affairs as were the New York literati. It was eventually published as a portion of Thomas Dunn English's reply to Poe's analysis of him in the “Literati” series, and later copied in the New York Mirror by Mrs. Whitman's old acquaintance, Hiram Fuller. Poe brought suit against the Mirror.(2) Although Poe was upheld by the courts of law, he was not forgiven, by those who assembled on Saturday evenings in the home of Miss Lynch; and he soon ceased to attend their gatherings.(3)

Sarah Whitman was apparently unaware of the extent of the disfavor into which Poe had fallen among her friends, but she made no effort at this time to further the association which he invited in 1846 with his article on Miss Barrett. However, she did speak of the review to her friend Ida Russell, saying that she thought Poe's criticism of Miss Barrett “discriminating and hypocritical”. Like [page 280:] Miss Barrett herself she had been puzzled by Poe's mixture of condemnation and laudation, and she could not be thoroughly in agreement with the critic's statement that the poet of the age must combine the poetic sense of Tennyson and the passion of Shelley.(1) Mr. Whitman was also sufficiently interested in the article to mention it to her young friend George William Curtis, who found it hard to see anything really good in Poe. Curtis replied that there seemed to be a being of something in Poe, but that if it were gold, then Poe was laboring through many baser veins, and the matter of his reaching the finer metal was a mere possibility. But Curtis admitted that he knew nothing of Poe except a volume of his poems and a tale appearing in one of the reviews only a month previously, which, he added, was “like an offensive odor.”(2)

During those years which immediately followed the receipt of Poe's article Sarah Whitman kept in close touch with those who gathered at 116 Waverley Place through her continued correspondence with Miss Lynch, who frequently assisted her in finding publishers for those bits of verse which never ceased to flow from her pen.(3) In 1847 Miss Lynch wrote Mrs. Whitman that she still had her Saturday evenings and that they were often very pleasant, for there was a sufficient infusion of newcomers to keep them fresh, yet enough of the regular corps to preserve very much of the sane character. But she added that the meetings could not now be called literary meetings so much as social, [page 281:] though there were frequently a good many literary friends there.(1) A letter during the latter part of the year listed many names of guests long familiar to Mrs. Whitman; but the name of Poe was not there, for, as Miss Lynch later explained, he had long since lost favor with the literati.(2)

In writing Mrs. Whitman of her Saturday evenings in 1847 Miss Lynch mentioned that the previous year on the evening of Valentine's day, which came on Saturday, she had had a Valentine party and that there were Valentines written for all present, most of them being original, and in general merely complimentary verses. The best of the Valentines had been selected and read and some of the afterwards published. Miss Lynch then explained that she wished again to have another party for the coming year, and since Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Ellet, and a good many who were previously there, were now out of town, she wanted Mrs. Whitman to consent to assist her with several contributions. Miss Lynch continued:

Complying with Miss Lynch's request for assistance, Mrs. Whitman, aided by her eccentric sister, Anna, [page 282:] wrote a large number of poems for the occasion. Among the best of the Valentines written by the two sisters was one called “To a City Pigeon”, which was intended for N. P. Willis, and another, “To the Raven”, which was directed toward Edgar A. Poe, who they suspected would be at the party. The Valentines were received and read; and, although Poe was not present to hear the tributes paid him, or as some might call it, the invitation to share a “lofty eyrie” with the Providence widow, he received the lines soon after, for Mrs. Osgood, at the request of Miss Lynch, forwarded them to him. But again Mrs Osgood and Miss Lynch were perhaps guilty of design, for Poe was left to guess who the author of the tribute might be; nevertheless, since the verses were addressed frm Providence, and since he was familiar with Mrs. Whitman's handwriting, having seen some verse which she had previously sent to Miss Lynch for the editor of the Democratic Review, he was able to identify the author.(1)

In making her request of Mrs. Whitman for a Valentine, Miss Lynch had hinted at the possibility of publication for some of the best poems presented on the occasion, and true enough, some forty-six of the Valentines appeared in the Home Journal for March 4. But Miss Lynch had purposely omitted Poe's name from the list which she had supplied Mrs. Whitman for inspiration, and she had not reckoned upon a Valentine addressed to a gentleman who had incurred such disfavor among the literati; consequently, she was now in something of a quandry [[quandary]] and therefore wrote Mrs. Whitman of her hesitation to give our her tribute for publication because of Poe's unpopularity, warning her that a publication of her poem would not now be to her advantage, “not because it is not beautiful in itself,: she said, “but there is a deep-rooted prejudice against him which I trust he will overcome”, and she added with some caution: “I earnestly request that you not mention this because I have no quarrel with Poe, and admire his genius as much as anyone can.”(1)

Again Sarah Whitman had shown her boldness, and she must have enjoyed throwing the literati into such a “dither” over a “condemned” poet. She would have had no hesitation herself about publishing a tribute to any genius who had shown such intellectual independence as had Poe. She must have been delighted therefore on finding her lines in a later edition of the Home Journal. Likely as not Poe himself sent the poem to N. P. Willis, who tactfully inserted it is the pages of the Home Journal for March 18, [page 284:] as follows:

The appearance of Mrs. Whitman's lines in the Home Journal was an indication to Mrs. Osgood that the invitation to the “Raven” to share a “lofty eyrie” with a Providence “dove” had reached Poe, and on March 26, in making a request of Mrs. Whitman for a sketch of her life to be used in Caroline Mays Specimens of Poetry, Mrs. Osgood took occasion playfully to warn her friend of what to expect in Poe. [page 286:]

It must have been toward the very latter part of February or the first of March that Poe received from Mrs. Osgood the Valentine poem which for the first time gave him to know that Mrs. Whitman knew him to exist; for on March 2nd he answered the anonymous verse with one of his own, some lines which he had previously addressed to Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard.(2) Evidently sensing that Mrs. Whitman might feel some timidity about having honored him with such an invitation, and no doubt not being too positive as to the author of the lines, he looked for some method of acknowledging without seeming to acknowledge his “ecstatic” sense of the honor which she had conferred upon him.

Although Poe had apparently sought to conceal his identity by sending Mrs. Whitman an original poem, he was not sufficiently careful in addressing the lines to her; consequently, a gentleman who was present in Mrs. Whitman's home when she received the lines recognized the handwriting of the address on the envelop, and removed all doubt in Mrs. Whitman's mind as to identity of the sender.(2) She was made definitely aware of its personal interest; but she made no effort to acknowledge his poetic tribute.

Pained by Mrs. Whitman's silence, although he later confessed that he had not expected an acknowledgment on her part, Poe, after some time, sought again to attract her attention, this time with some lines in autograph, “To Helen:, which he had written especially in her honor.

The “anonymous lines in MS.”, which Mrs. Whitman received at some time near the close of May, 1846, were Poe's second lines “To Helen”,(2) and according to his later statement they contained all the events of a dream that had occurred to him soon after he saw Mrs. Whitman for the first time.(3) In this poem Poe first presented a romantic picture of his first vision of Sarah Whitman, and then suggested that Fate had intervened to make her a definite instrument in the progress of his destiny. He had then struck upon a chord that might ordinarily have produced sympathy within her, for she possibly felt that, like Shelley and Goethe, here was a genius who had “fallen upon the thorns of life”, and who now wanted only the light of love for salvation. But she apparently interpreted the feeling of her [page 289:] anonymous correspondent as one of purely intellectual interest,(1) and she as yet made no effort to attach a psychic significance to either of the poems with which she had been honored. Comparing the handwriting of the second poem which she had received with the address which Poe attached to the first poem he sent her, she a second time was able to identify the sender; but although she felt the tribute beautiful, and was flattered by such attention from the author of “The Raven”, she remained silent, expressing neither approval nor disapproval of his favor.(2) It was not until some three months had passed that she made any acknowledgment.

Meanwhile, through other channels, Mrs. Whitman began to learn more of Poe. In the spring of 1848 Miss Anna Blackwell, one of the lesser poets of the literati, came to Providence for the purpose of receiving magnetic treatment under the care of Professor de Bonneville, one of Sarah Whitman's friends.(3) Miss Blackwell, formerly under the care of Mrs. Gove Nichols, a magnetic healer whom Mrs. Whitman had known for several years, had at the recommendation of Mrs. Nichols spent the summer of 1847 in the Poe cottage at Fordham. She had not been friendly toward Poe and saw little of him, but she now brought Mrs. Whitman information concerning the neat but poverty-stricken cottage at Fordham and the character of the poet who was interested in seeking her acquaintance.(4) She spoke of the straw matting on the floor of the cottage, the two small pine tables which [page 290:] Poe had made and covered with green baize, the “exquisite” neatness and quietness of the household, and the delicious repast which Mrs. Clemm prepared.(1) And then, no doubt cognizant of Mrs. Whitman's passion for flowers, she possibly told of the floral tastes of Poe and the flower garden with its clumps of rare dahlias and fall flowers which bordered the little cottage at Fordham. Miss Blackwell alter spoke of tropical birds which Poe kept in cages and petted with assiduous care; and she told of the cat which enjoyed Poe's friendly patronage and often perched itself upon his shoulder while he was engaged in composition.(2)

Although she praised the character of Poe, Miss Blackwell, apparently not wishing to promote Mrs. Whitman's interest in the poet, said many things to prejudice her against him. She spoke of his courteous, gentlemanly manners, but added that he was utterly improvident and incapable of taking care of himself. Furthermore, she became less friendly toward Poe when she learned of his infatuation for Mrs. Whitman.(3) This interest on the part of Poe she was aware of by June 15, 1848, when in a reply to a letter from Miss Blackwell in regard to a publisher Poe injured concerning the Providence lady who was ignoring his subtle poetic tributes.

Miss Blackwell did keep Poe's secret for all of two weeks, certainly from the one whom it most concerned, for later Mrs. Whitman remarked rather bitterly that the letter could have had little interest for Miss Blackwell, for though they saw one another daily, she did not speak of the letter until she had had it a fortnight.(2)

It was on a moonlight evening toward the latter part of June, 1848, that Miss Blackwell revealed the secret of Poe's letter to Mrs. Whitman. Both she and Miss Maria J. McIntosh happened to be present in the Power home when Poe was mentioned. Miss McIntosh remarked that only one month previously she had met Mr. Poe for the first time at the home of a Mr. Lindsey in Fordham, and that his whole talk had been about Mrs. Whitman. She also spoke of the wonderful genius of Poe and added that when the poet had learned that she was about to visit Providence, he had spoken of Mrs. Whitman and her writings in flattering terns. Miss Blackwell, now taking her cue, told of Poe's letter to herself and explained that she had forgotten to speak of it before.(3)

Poe's next attempt to attract the attention of Mrs. Whitman came in the following month of July when on the 10th he went to Lowell, Massachusetts, to deliver a lecture on the poetesses of American.(4) On this occasion he [page 292:] paid high praise to three New England poetesses: Mrs. Osgood, Miss Lynch, and Mrs. Whitman. In analyzing the merits of these women Poe awarded to Mrs. Osgood a “facility, ingenuity, and grace”’; to Miss Lynch he ascribed “an unequalled success in the concentrated and forcible annunciation of the sentiment of heroism and duty”. But to Sarah Whitman, Poe awarded “a pre-eminence in refinement of art, enthusiasm, imagination and genius, properly so-called.” Then quoting Mrs. Whitman's “A Still Day in Autumn”, he spoke of these as evincing a very rare and delicate sense of the poetical in nature, as opposed to a mere perception of the picturesque.”(1)

Some months later Mrs. Whitman obtained a leaf of the manuscript of Poe's lecture from the author himself, and she was extremely flattered by such criticism from the man who was now regarded as perhaps the severest critic in America. But long before she obtained this copy of his words, she learned of Poe's tribune; for soon after Poe was in Lowell, Rufus Griswold came to Providence for the purpose of obtaining Mrs. Whitman's permission for his publication of some of her poems in The Female Poets of America, and he told Mrs. Whitman of Poe's Lowell lecture, of Poe's interest in her writings, and of his possible intention of coming to Providence during the summer.(2) However, flattered as she must have been, Mrs. Whitman still made no reply to Poe's advances, and on July 16 Poe left for Richmond where he hoped to obtain subscriptions for his long dreams of [page 293:] magazine, The Stylus, planning to tour the entire Southern States if he were successful in Richmond.(1)

There were circumstances which arose during the summer of 1848 that served to alter somewhat Poe's own life and perhaps to change his attitude toward Sarah Whitman. In June there had come the final breach with Mrs. Shew, who now realised that her magnetic healing was not alone sufficient for Poe's ills, and she had advised him to marry some sensible woman. A woman's devotion was necessary for Poe, and the love of Mrs. Clemm was not sufficient to satisfy his need and desire. It is quite possible that he had experienced sincere feeling for Sarah Whitman, and had she honored him with her sympathy at this time, this feeling tight have developed into an affection. But it was to be some months yet before Poe was to receive a response from Mrs. Whitman, and some time still before he was to win from her any assurance or semblance of affection. Meanwhile, circumstances occurred which without doubt forced bin to alter his attitude toward Mrs. Whitman, and which produced within him a mental conflict that possibly responsible for the final disruption of his relations with the Providence widow. While in Lowell during the month of July, he had been a guest in. the home of Mrs. Osgood's sister-in-law, Mrs. John G. Locke (a woman who is said to have been very much in love with him), and here he had met for the first time Mrs. Annie Richmond,(2) a lady whose sympathy undoubtedly won from Poe an affection which more nearly resembled love than any [page 294:] feeling he had experienced before or after he met her. Mrs. Richmond being married., there was no possibility of alliance with her, and it is even fairly evident that she, realizing Poe's need for the care of some woman, had encouraged his pursuit of Mrs. Whitman and had even urged that he marry her. But possibly because of this new love for Mrs. Richmond Poe made no further attempt to strengthen the affection which he had once thought he had felt for Whitman until after she herself had taken a step which he interpreted as an effort to encourage him. Focusing his attention on his literary affairs, on July 16 he had departed for the South.

There are several rumors concerning Poe's actions in Virginia during the late summer of 1848 which have a direct connection with the life of Sarah Whitman, one of the more interesting of which involves a timely averted duel which Poe had invited because of some remarks which had been published concerning himself and Mrs. Whitman. Mrs Whitman always felt that Poe's words concerning her to his Lowell friends might have served as a basis for this “scandalous tale” which involved the use of her name;(1) but it is quite likely that Poe might have under stimulation expressed too free an admiration for Mrs. Whitman, and John M. Daniel, who was not friendly toward Poe, had ‘’aired his opinions” concerning Poe's interest in this direction. The story as Mrs. Whitman learned it from Mrs. Julia Deane Freeman is as follows: [page 295:]

The particulars of this affair have been told by Judge Robert W. Hughes, who wrote for the Examiner, knew Poe personally, and remembered the incident well. Judge Hughes’ story as recorded by Miss Phillips is as follows:

Mrs. Whitman has recorded during this summer of 1848 Poe also renewed his attentions to Mrs. Shelton, a boyhood sweetheart.

At some time in August Mrs. Whitman made her first acknowledgment to Poe's impassioned lines. It was not unusual for one poet to write sentimental tributes to another, and Mrs. Whitman had received previous tributes. She had therefore regarded Poe's interest as a purely intellectual one and it was only after her conversation with Miss McIntosh that she began to realize that her failure to acknowledge his “beautiful poem” was altogether ungracious”. So seizing on a poetic idea expressed in Poe's lines to herself that the remembrance of her eyes had filled his soul, with “Beauty, (which is Hope),” she took the last phrase of his poem, and writing two stanzas (which after revision became a portion of “A Night in August”), she made a “playful” acknowledgment of her gratitude for the honor Poe had bestowed upon her.(2) The lines were addressed to Poe at Fordham in place of New York, and it just happened that Mrs. Clemm, seeing a notice of the letter in the West Farms Post Office, had it forwarded to Richmond.(3)

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There has been some speculation as to just what sort of “tour and enterprise” Poe had been spared by Mrs. Whitman's timely lines. But there was never doubt in her own mind in regard to the matter, for she believed what Poe had told her. She had saved him from a marriage with his boyhood sweetheart, Mrs. Shelton — a marriage which he was to attempt again before another year had passed.

In spite of what his intentions might have been, Poe did abruptly change his plans when he received Mrs. Whitman's lines;(2) and hastening to New York, he began arrangements for seeing Mrs. Whitman. First in order to ascertain whether she was in the city, he simulated an autograph hunter; and soon Mrs. Whitman received from him the following note, signed with a pseudonym.

Poe's next move was to obtain a letter of introduction to Mrs. Whitman; and having requested such a favor from Miss Maria J. McIntosh, on the 15th of September he received the following lines which he presented to Mrs. Whitman in person on September 21.(1)

Arriving in Providence on September 21st.(3) Poe spent two days in the company of Mrs. Whitman; and though all circumstances might not have been what each had hoped for, the incident was as Miss McIntosh anticipated “agreeable to both”. Poe afterwards, painting with poetic flourish the impression made upon him by Mrs. Whitman's personal presence during their first meeting, wrote”

Still haunted by memories of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, to whom he had written those first lines “To Helen” and to whom he always referred as the “first, purely ideal love of his soul”, Poe now during his first told Mrs. Whitman the story of this boyhood passion, and how after Mrs. Stanard's insanity and death he often on cold wintry nights slipped off to the cemetery and morbidly haunted her tomb. As he had done before, he now attempted to draw a psychic analogy between this new love and the love at his boyhood.(2) But during these first days Sarah Whitman also thought of earlier days as Poe made his impassioned plea. She looked back to the dawn of her first love; and recalling a far-away grave which had often haunted her memory, she [page 301:] showed the poet some of her own lines which he always felt contained some special significance:(1)

Some years later, after her tragic affair with Poe had become less tense and those painful realities of the association had been softened and colored by romanticism, Mrs. Whitman, in poetic terms, described some of the events and effects of this first meeting:

Nineteenth century lovers seem to have delighted in the sad seclusion of the cemetery, and it was a spot which would have beguiled both Poe and Sarah Whitman. Therefore during this first visit to Providence Poe and Mrs. Whitman walked to the Swan Point Cemetery which lay alongside [page 302:] the Seekonk River some four of five miles from Mrs. Whitman's Benefit Street home. Here as they wandered among the tombs, Poe sadly confided. his love to Mrs. Whitman, endeavoring to persuade her that her influence and presence would have the power to lift his life out of the torpor and despair which had weighed upon. him, and would give an inspiration to his genius, of which he felt he had as yet given no token.(1) And indirectly referring to his previous affections, he sought to convince her that now for the first time he felt an impulse of real love. Referring to this visit in a letter dated October 1, he remarked:

Although Mrs. Whitman was affected by the eloquence of the poet's appeal, she felt that she could never exercise over him the power which he ascribed to her; and though she allowed Poe's arm “tremblingly” to encircle her waist as they sat side by side on a nameless tomb, in no instance did she permit herself to say that she loved him. In the solitude of the cemetery those lines which she had shown him kept ringing in Poe's ears — “that life so strangely fair” — “a lone grave on the green hillside far away” — “the cream dream of youth”, Poe remembered these lines and repeated [page 303:] them in his first letter to Mrs. Whitman, remarking:

There possibly was some very especial purpose in what Mrs. Whitman did, in spite of the fact that she later declared that she had shown the lines simply to ask his opinion of a verse which a publisher wished to alter.(2) She was thinking on that other life so strangely fair, on that lone grave far away. She was now forty-five years of age; youth was gone, and only a dream of youth remained. But with this dream lingered memories of some of the painful realities of past days. The man now seeking her hand was six years younger than she; and though her heart might possibly have “accorded to his “murmured prayer”, there were insurmountable and rather delicate reasons why she could not respond. These reasons she felt she could not impart to Poe in conversation, and she therefore promised to write later and explain all.(3)

There were things about Mrs. Whitman, however, which Poe did find out during this visit that no doubt caused him same concern. Among those suspicions which were confirmed was the fact that Mrs. Whitman's friends were not those who felt any feeling of friendship for him. “Do you not remember”, he later wrote Mrs. Whitman, ‘’with how deep sigh I said to you in Providence — ‘my heart is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends are not my own’.”(4) Mrs. Whitman listed among her friends, “Miss Lynch, Miss Fuller , [page 304:] Miss Blackwell, Mrs. EIlet,” the “Channings, Emerson, Longfellow,” and “the cabal of the North American Review”; and Poe's criticism had been all sufficient to bring the enmity of these groups.(1) During the September visit Mrs. Whitman had called with Poe to see Miss Blackwell at her hotel, but Miss Blackwell had pleaded illness, sending a note of regret which contained a little twit about the rose garden at Poe's “To Helen,” which by now had received publication.

Among the other things which Poe learned about Mrs. Whitman during this first visit was that she was to a great extent dependent upon her mother, and that both Mrs. Power and the eccentric Anna in turn looked to Sarah in like manner. But it is doubtful that Poe learned at this time the extent to which Mrs. Whitman's fortune lay in the power of her mother, and he himself in his letter of October 18, admitted that he had heard with much satisfaction at a later time of her financial dependence. Whether the poet's satisfaction at this news was real or feigned, if he [page 305:] still cherished ambitions for more material assistance on the part of Mrs. Whitman in his scheme, he had led her to believe that this ambition was to some extent dampened when he met her in Providence. In speaking of his desire to erect a proud literary throne on which Sarah Whitman was to reign as his queen, he wrote her of a craick shift in his ambitions when they first became acquainted:

Mrs. Whitman's failure to respond with enthusiasm to Poe's proposals left a sad foreboding and possibly a sense of wounded pride in the poet's heart, and although during this first visit he remained in Providence or its vicinity for two more days after parting from her, he made no further attempt at this time to see her. Poe later told her that he had remained and on Monday had revisited the cemetery, leaving at six P. M. on the Stonington Express [page 306:] for New York, but that an unexplainable feeling, a sad sense of foreboding had urged him not to see her again or to bid her farewell for a second time.(1) Mrs. Whitman knew that Poe had not left the city, and she was puzzled at his failure to see her again. This apparent insincerity and neglect, coupled with the rumors which circulated concerning Poe's character, perhaps accounted to some extent for her hesitation in writing the letter in which she had promised to reveal some of those insurmountable reasons why she could not respond to Poe's avowed love. Eight days later (September 30) when she did write,(2) she had decided that she could not say to Poe all that she had promised. Furthermore in her letter she did not once suggest to Poe that she loved him, but she did reveal to him her conviction that neither her health nor her age would permit a marriage which would be satisfactory to both.(3) She had reached an age of some significance among women, and she felt that the physical burdens which a marriage should entail would so affect her already frail constitution that her health would thereby be seriously affected and her death would be hastened. A bit of feminine pride in her personal charm had made her feel that Poe had perhaps been deceived as to her age (she once playfully remarked that everybody knew a lady's age at 45 to he proverbially uncertain); but she was sensible enough to know that there could be no secret as to her age if she herself to be drawn into a marriage with the poet. [page 307:]

And then thinking of her health she continued

Mrs. Whitman's letter reached Poe on September 30, and he wrote a reply on October 1.(3) In writing to the poet Mrs. Whitman had revealed to some extent the secret of her character and inclinations; and though Poe's response has often been looked upon as a mere poetic composition utterly lacking in real sincerity, it does at least show a strangely serious effort on his part to fathom. her complex nature and to fashion his response in such a manner as to win her sympathy and admiration.

Flattering her vanity, he sought to confirm in her mind a theory of forces beyond the control of either which had brought them together for the general advantage of both; and in conciliation to her feelings concerning her ill health, as well as to his own masculine ego, he sought to enforce an idea of a human and virile love always subservient to an affection of a purely spiritual nature. In touching upon the question of fatality — of a condition in [page 308:] which the will played no part — Poe struck a responsive chord in Mrs. Whitman, for she had come to hold steadfastly to a doctrine of predestination; and this along with a transcendentalistic conception of evil and responsibility was perhaps the only doctrine which could have made it possible for her to forgive and to defend a man whose honor and actions had been so often questioned as had Poe's. A romantic sentiment later made her feel that occult forces had drawn her to Poe through his writings,(1) and now the poet sought to persuade her of the part which fate played in their destinies. He explained that on receipt of her Valentine Fate, in his eyes, had lost its character of futility, but that when he found the lines he had written to Mrs. Standard, the first purely ideal love of his soul, had not only expressed just what he had wished to say, agreeing even in mane, but had happened be so conveniently arranged in the book for him to remove them in order to send them anonymously to Mrs. Whitman, he had yielded to an overwhelming sense of Fatality. He showed the hand of Fate in such trivialities as her “happening” address her lines to Fordham in place of New York, his aunt's “happening” to see the notice in the West Farms Post Office, and his receiving the lines in Richmond on the very day that he had planned to de-pert on an enterprise that would carry him forever away from any possibility of again seeing her. But he continued that it as which he first saw her that he “felt for the first time”, and “tremblingly acknowledged the existence of spiritual [page 309:] influences altogether out of reach of the reason.”

In speaking of this great fatal love Poe did not convey the idea that the “Giver of all Good” had pre-ordained that this be an altogether spiritual feeling, but he suggested that with Mrs. Whitman he had found the beginning of a purely human affection. He confessed that when he had learned through Miss Lynch of Mrs. Whitman's eccentricities and sorrow, he had witnessed “the first dawn of human love on the icy night of my spirit”, and since he thought her a wife, each whisper concerning her had always awakened within him a “shuddering sixth sense”, a compound of fear, ecstatic happiness, and a wild, inexplicable sentiment that assembled guilt. Then when he had sent the anonymous lines “To Helen” his passion had shown some vacilation [[vacillation]], for he said that the mere thought that her fingers would press and her eyes dwell upon the characters he had penned had filled his soul with a rapture which at that time seemed all sufficient for his human nature. He wrote,

But the poet left the impression that it was only then that the rapture had been sufficient for his human nature, [page 310:] and he hastened to beg forgiveness for later demanding of her a love which might seriously affect her physical well-being.

The subject of physical love was one of some delicacy to Mrs. Whitman; and later when she passed Poe's letters on for the inspection of others, she removed passages in which he spoke of physical passion. On the other hand Poe felt that some of her objections for physical reasons had been without foundation, and that she might merely be using these excuses to mask others more real which she hesitated in pity to confide to him. He realized that she had never permitted herself to say that she loved him, and again he realized that both his poverty and “late errors” and “reckless excesses” were insuperable reasons forbidding him to urge his love upon her. And then the thought came to him that Mrs. Whitman's health was not so seriously impaired as she had led him to believe, and he begged for assurance that her terrible affliction might be overcome, suggesting that it might possibly not even exist or that it night be somewhat aggravated by her use of drugs. [page 311:]

Poe had learned something of the eccentricities of the spiritualistic widow; and whatever his true feeling concerning her might have been, he was now willing to concede the matter of an exacting affection and to accede to a love which would make no physical demands — to a sentiment and holy was passion which was of Heaven and had no taint of the earth. He therefore endeavored to persuade her that it was his “diviner nature”, his “spiritual being” which “burns and pants to co-mingle with your own”. It was of no consequence therefore that she was older than he, for theirs was a “soul love” of the “veriest” are “most absolute” reality, and the soul had no age, and immortality had no regard for time. Even considering her regard for clairvoyance and animal magnetism, Poe suggested that if she could [page 312:] only look into his soul with her spiritual eyes, then she could not refuse to love him simply on account of the greatness of his love; even when her hand rested upon the back of the chair in which he sat, he felt a preternatural thrill as to her touch vibrated through the senseless wood; his very brain reeled beneath the intoxicating spell of her presence, and it was with no merely human senses that he either saw or heard her; it was his soul only that distinguished her; and ending his letter he suggested that his soul should cone to her that night in dreams and speak to her those fervid thanks which his pen was powerless to utter.(1)

Calvinism, necessity, magnetism, clairvoyance, absolute identity, Spiritualism — all of those doctrines which went to make up Mrs. Whitman's complex faith Poe had touched upon in his plea for her hand. Mrs. Whitman might have forgiven and defended Poe for his rumored excesses as she had defended Shelley, Byron, Goethe an others; but the fact remains that though perhaps touched by his apparently passionate enthusiasm and fined with admiration for his genius, she as yet did not love him,(2) and she could only have questioned to some extent the sincerity of a man whom her closest friends had pronounced so lacking in honor.

In answering the letter of October 1 Mrs. Whitman therefore still left unspoken those “coveted words which would turn earth into Heaven”, although she did confess that she had felt a magnetic influence in pressing his last letter between her hands, for in doing so there passed into her [page 313:] spirit “a sense of the love that glowed within those pages”. She spoke of words of “mere admiration”, but her compliments were severely weakened as far as Poe was concerned by the fact that she mentioned defamatory reports of her many friends who in her presence had declared him “wanting in honor”. “How often”, she wrote “I have heard men and even women say of you — ‘He has great intellectual power, but no principle — no moral sense’”; and she then plied him with questions as to why such an opinion of his existed — why men so misjudged him — and why he had enemies.(1) Such matters Sarah Whitman might not have even bothered about had her interest in Poe been a purely literary one; she would from the beginning have defended. his character without question. But she was not allowed to keep her interest a purely literary one; Poe had besieged her with passionate and almost mad entreaties for an agreement to marriage, and her long life and experience forbade her throwing aside reason and accepting him without question simply because he loved her. Sarah Whitman's answer to Poe's letter therefore simply carried with it a refusal of his proposals, and in doing so gave explicit reasons why she had arrived at such a decision.

Whatever sorrow Poe must have experienced on receipt of Mrs. Whitman's note would have been made almost intolerable by his sense of wounded pride, and in his reply on October 18 he wrote that he now had absolutely no wish but to die — he was in the depths of despair. “I have no [page 314:] resource”, he wrote, “no hope: — Pride itself fails me now.”(1) Mrs. Whitman's persistence in ignoring his previous advances had without doubt whetted the enthusiasm of Poe, though at the same time wounding his pride; but her persistence refusal to acknowledge a reciprocal feeling of love, coupled with a question of his honor, was torture to one who had received the earnest and solicitous attentions of so many other women.

Mrs. Whitman had struck a deep wound when she questioned the honor of Poe; and thought he now admitted to her that much might have been said to his discredit, he said that those few who were his friends had with one exception permitted nothing to reach his ears. And he remarked that had he known his name to have been so stained as her expression implied., he could never have sought her love or offered her his hand.

In endeavoring to explain this quixotic sense which he felt had been the true “voluptuousness” of his life; Poe to some extent disregarded some of the rules of chivalry; for besides perhaps falsely stating that he had in his early youth deliberately thrown away a large fortune rather than endure a trivial wrong, he confided to Mrs. Whitman that at a later period he had done “violence” to his own heart and “married for another's happiness, where I knew that no possibility of my own existed”. Then excusing his “egotism” on the ground that he must now speak to her the truth or nothing, Poe explained that his actions in regard to Mrs. Osgood, rumors of which Mrs. Whitman had long since heard, had resulted from his quixotic regard for honor.

Mrs. Osgood, to whom Poe in this case referred, was a personal friend of Mrs. Whitman, and Poe's previous disclosure of the secret of Mrs. Ellet's letters was without doubt one of the instances to which Mrs. Whitman referred when she spoke of his lack of honor. This was an old story to Mrs. Whitman,(2) but it was a story which the literati had refused to let sink into oblivion. Only the pervious summer Miss Lynch had re-told the story to Mrs. Whitman,(3) and we may be sure that the telling was not favorable to Poe. Although she later admitted to Poe that he had explained all to her entire satisfaction, Sarah Whitman was for many years inclined to believe that possibly there were extenuating circumstances in Mrs. Ellet's favor, and that this “distinguished lady of South Carolina” was not wholly to blame for her actions.(4) Indeed, Miss Phillips now records a story by Mrs. Oakes Smith to the effect that Mrs. Ellet accidentally discovered Virginia Clemm and Mrs. Osgood enjoying some hilarity over one of Mrs. Ellet's own love letters to Poe.(5) Furthermore in spite of Poe's delineation of Mrs. Ellet as a “malignant and pertinacious” fiend who had with her “loathsome love”, Mrs. Whitman for some years felt that the difficulty might have arisen purely from a source of literary jealousy.(6) Certainly Poe's account of Mrs. Ellet in his ‘Literati’ series had not been conducive to cordial [page 317:] feelings, In a sketch extremely brief compared with is account of Mrs. Osgood he had spoken of Mrs. Ellet's tragedy, ‘Teresa Contarini”, as having been withdrawn after one night at the ‘Park’, and had then continued:

It remains that those whom Poe had offended and whom he counted as his enemies had all been Sarah Whitman's friends, and she was not ready to cast aside without question the attitude which they had taken in regard to the “Raven”. Miss Lynch, Miss Fuller, Miss Blackwell, Mrs. Ellet, Hiram Fuller, T. D. English, the Channings, “Emerson, and the Hudson Coterie”, “the Longfellow clique”, and the “Cabal of the North American Review — all Poe felt had lined themselves against him, and he complained to Mrs. Whitman that they were her friends but not his.(2) But these were old friends, and one should keep in mind those pleasant evenings Mrs. Whitman had so enjoyed back in the thirties when she and Margaret Fuller, Mrs. Osgood,, John Neal, Miss Lynch, and no doubt Hiram Fuller, who at that time headed the Greene Street Academy in Providence, had gathered, often to hear and heed the wise words of Emerson, whom she followed as “a disciple.” She sympathized with Longfellow;(3) and though she chuckled with Poe at some of the poetic absurdities of [page 318:] William Ellery Channing, she felt that he had spanked Channing rather severely.

But why should these friends of Sarah Whitman necessarily be enemies of Poe?

Sarah Whitman know much of this, but she might have been at some difference of opinion as to the “uniformity” of Poe's attack or as to the “pretensions of ignorance, arrogance, or imbecility” of her friends which had inspired his “contempt.”

It would not have been possible for Mrs. Whitman to have been unaware of Poe's financial straits. Through the pages of the Home Journal Willis had advertised the destitute condition of Poe's household when Virginia lay dying in the little cottage at Fordham. And Anna Blackwell revealed much when she described the simplicity and neatness of the cottage during her visit there in 1847. Poe seems to have been quite conscious of his poverty in connection with Mrs. Whitman, seeking to explain that he had thrown [page 319:] away Mr. Allan's fortune in his youth simply to satisfy a quixotic sense of honor, and that it was a desire to preserve his independence which had given him the audacity to remain poor.(1) And always there came forward in Poe that sense of the youth who had been educated to the manner of a gentleman only to be left without means of living the life of a gentleman. He told Mrs. Whitman of the Allans, speaking of the first Mrs. Allan with great “affection” and “tenderness”, and representing Mr. Allan as a man of “gross and brutal temperament” who had at times been indulgent with him and profusely lavished money on him, and at other times had been “penurious and parsimonious”.(2)

Whatever Poe's object might have been in regard to Mrs. Whitman's reputed fortune, psychologists might find in his statements and actions an evidence of a sense of guilt arising either from his own attitude or from a fear of public opinion. In his October 18 letter he wrote:

Then he pictured for her with what care and love he had dreamed of nursing her back to health again, and painted a scene of natural luxury and seclusion far from the world, where he had hoped they would exercise a taste controlled by no conventionalities, but would be the “sworn slaves of a natural art”; he had hoped they could build for themselves “a cottage which no human being could ever pass without an ejaculation of wonder at its strange, weird, and incomprehensible yet i simple beauty”. And he now lamented the fact that this must all be a dream. For her question of his honor and her lack of assurance put it forever out of his power to ask her again to become my wife. For, he asserted:

Poe might have feared a public suspicion that “interest” was his object in seeking the hand of Sarah Whitman, and this fear coupled with a wounded pride might have caused him to hasten to assure Mrs. Whitman that he had thrown away previous fortunes and “allowed” himself to remain poor simply because of a Quixotic sense of the honorable, and that this same sense would prevent him from seeking further to win her hand. But there is some significance in the fact that he revealed such thoughts as lurking in his head before she herself had found it necessary to question this point. Yet, though Mrs. Whitman might have been much more suspicious of Poe had it occurred to her that his motive was pecuniary, the seem not to have considered such a motive unforgiveable [[unforgivable]]; for later when she was informed that Poe's matrimonial intentions had been more or less bound up with pecuniary ideas, she remarked that “other men had sought to marry for money and had been forgiven, and might even have been forgiven for parrying by an affected indifference the congratulations of ‘literary friends’ upon a ‘betterment’ so purely hypothetical.”(1)

It was therefore with not only a rather positive refusal but with some provoking questions that Mrs. Whitman met Poe's proposals, and they, brought from him a sturdy declaration that he intended never again to ask for her hand.(2) Nevertheless, in spite of the qualms of conscience which he declared, arose when questions of honor and fortune presented themselves, he wavered in his [page 322:] resolution to the extent of again proposing to her before she had had time to reply, this time not trusting to the weakness of his pen, but appearing in person, with hopes of making her understand.

So Poe came to Providence at some time around October 20, and urging Mrs. Whitman to forgive his waywardness and reproaches, and to remember only the reasons which he had urged upon her for entrusting to him her future welfare and happiness, he again sought to dislodge from her mind those objections to his proposals.(2) One wonders to what extent he might have used those dark, flashing, and magnetic eyes to “look into her soul” and thus make her understand, for records show that during one of his visits to Providence Poe held Mrs. Whitman under the spell of his eyes, and caused her to perform in such a way as no doubt to make her mother frantic and bring serious comment from friends. Mrs. J. K. Barney, an intimate friend of Mrs. Whitman, wrote that on one occasion Mrs. Whitman invited a group of distinguished people to her home that they might meet Poe and listen to his conversation. All were seated and Poe and Mrs. Whitman sat across the room from each other. They were theorizing on the poetic principle.

Mrs. Whitman states that during this October visit Poe told her much of his early life and much of his intimate history, and that she became more and more interested in him. But she was not sufficiently interested to entrust her future to his hands, and only yielded to a promise to defer her decision for a week and to write to him at Lowell where he had been invited by friends to deliver a second lecture.(2)

During Poe's visit in Lowell he was this time a guest in the home of Mrs. Richmond, who had been introduced to him during the early part of the summer by Mrs. Locke, a sister-in-law of Mrs. Osgood. A quarrel, or “what the Yankees call ‘an unpleasantness’” had sprung up between

Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Locke; and before Poe left, open hostility was declared. Nevertheless during the visit Mrs. Locke had opportunity of observing Poe, and she later wrote Mrs. Whitman that Poe returned each day from the post-office in a “nervous and abstracted mood”, and that he explained this mood to his friends as having been caused by the non-arrival of an important letter which he was expecting.(3) Whatever conflict might have been going on in Poe's mind concerning Mrs. Whitman possible answer, there can be little [page 324:] doubt that he was anxious because he did not receive the promised letter.

The report of this episode which Poe gave Mrs. Richmond differed slightly from that which he related to Mrs. Whitman.

Sarah Whitman was somewhat concerned when Poe failed to make his appearance as planned, and she had spent a restless and troubled night when at an early hour on Tuesday, November 7, her servant announced Mr. Poe.(2) As a matter of fact she had troubled herself to to extent of not feeling equal to an interview at the time with him, and she therefore sent word that she would see him at noon. Poe replied that he had an engagement and must see her at once; but weakening, he sent her a note, again begging her to give that indication of her affection which she still persistently denied him.

On arriving at Mrs. Whitman's home Poe had confessed those facts concerning the past several days, but in doing so he had blazed her for his agitation and had reproached her for delaying so long n sending the promised letter, and then sending a message that was so vague and illusive.(4) Mrs. Whitman therefore possibly felt some qualms of conscience, and she now answered Poe's note by saying she most certainly would see him that day at noon, and arranging [page 326:] to meet him at the Athenaeum. So during that and the following day Mrs. Whitman heard from Poe those earnest entreaties to marry him at once and return with him to New York.(1) When obstacles to an immediate marriage presented themselves, Poe urged that they go into the next state, to Pawtucket, and complete the marriage.(2) But on the second day of his entreaties (November 8) Mrs. Whitman again presented reasons for refusing his proposals which were too realistic for Poe to accept with equanimity. All of friends had urged that she delay the marriage which seemed to them “full of evil potents [[portents]]”, and as an additional reason for the delay she read to him some passages from a letter which she had recently received from one of his New York associates, perhaps Miss Anna Lynch. Poe left the home “black with rage”.(3)

Poe had left the impression with Mrs. Whitman that he intended to return to New York; and supposing that he had taken the evening train via Stonington, Mrs. Whitman “passed a night of unspeakable anxiety in thinking what might befall him travelling alone in such a state of mental perturbation and excitement.”

On the contrary Poe did not return to New York but passed the evening in the bar room of his hotel. During the night a Mr. MacFarlane was very kind to him, and becoming greatly interested in him, persuaded him on the following morning of November 9, to accompany him to the office of Masury and Hartshorn where he sat for a daguerreotype (which Mrs. Whitman later styled the “Ultima Thule” daguerre) and thus preserved for the future a rather damning reproduction of his countenance.(2)

Some significance might be seen in Poe's inability to stick to any definite purpose in his pursuit of Mrs. Whitman. He seems to have been given to threatening her with a cessation of his attentions and then failing to carry out his threat. He had told her in a previous letter that he never intended again to ask her to become his wife, and had then rushed to Providence and besieged her with entreaties before she had had time to reply. In his note of November 7 he had told her that he had an engagement and must see her at once, only to retract his statement, hoping she would at least see him. And no having written the previous evening [page 328:] that never again would they meet unless it should be as strangers, he rushed to Mrs. Whitman's home the following morning in his shirt sleeves and in such a state of mental excitement as to necessitate medical care.(1)

The scenes which occurred in the Benefit Street Home on this November 9 were sufficient to provide material for later libelous pens; and tragic as they might have been, they must have provided delicious sensation for “gossipy” neighbors, and smiles for those who saw the ludicrous in such a situation. Poe had remained moody and silent while at the studie of Masury and Hartshorn, but he arrived at the Power home in a state of wild and delirious excitement, calling upon Mrs. Whitman to save him from some terrible impending doom.

Unable to nerve herself to see her frantic lover, Mrs. Whitman remained upstairs, and Poe was left below in the hands of Mrs. Power and the eccentric Anna. Mrs. Power had not opposed her daughter's attachment to Poe at first, but she was becoming more and more apprehensive of his behavior; and her feeling concerning such an alliance were now definite. In fact she remarked more than once in the presence of both Mrs. Whitman and Poe that she preferred seeing Mrs. Whitman dead rather than involved in a marriage alliance with him.(3) But on November 9 she must have been powerfully waved, terrified, or worn out by the frantic wails [page 329:] of one in the throes of cerebral congestion, for she plead with Mrs. Whitnan to promise Poe anything that he night require to soothe him. More than two hours elapsed before Mrs. Whitman came below; then yielding against her own judgment to the entreaties of her mothers of her sister, and of Poe, she assented to his proposals and promised to believe nothing that she might hear of him.

And again she remarked,

Besides the Power family there were others who served as witnesses to the strange scene and who no doubt carried news of the occurrence to curious ears. Walter Burgess; Thomas Davis, who later married Pauline Wright; De Bonneville, a magnetic and hydropathic heeler who had treated Anna Blackwell then she came to Providence; and William J. Pabodie, whose role in the Poe-Whitman romance has never been completely clarified — these men were all present on the occasion; and they endeavored to calm Mrs. Whitman who was herself much agitated.(3) Poe became more composed during the afternoons, but it was thought wise to send for Dr. Abraham H. Vie, en eminent physician living on Benefit Street. Dr. Abraham H. Okie, an eminent physician living on Benefit Street. Dr. Okie was able to quiet the poet to some extent by engaging him in a conversation about the presidential candidacy of Taylor; but finding symptoms of cerebral congestion, he recommended [page 330:] Poe's removal to the house of his friend, Mr. William J. Pabodie, where he received the kindest care and attention until he was sufficiently recovered to leave the city.(1)

It was therefore in a fit of mad excitement that Poe first wrought from Mrs. Whitman a serious word of encouragement, and she later remarked that had Poe never become intoxicated she would never have become engaged to him.(2) One wonders what thoughts must have entered her head in thus consenting to such an improvident union. Perhaps she truly felt that she might have some power to avert his “impending doom”, for she once wrote that no person could be long near him in his healthier moods, without loving him and putting faith in the meetness and goodness of his nature and feeling that he had a reserved power of self control that needed only favoring circumstances to bring his fine qualities of heart and mind into perfect equipoise.”(3) But it must have taken all of the optimism supplied by her optimistic philosophy to calm her in such a decision. On the other hand she might have truly felt that should their marriage be brought about, only a short time would elapse before they would be separated forever, for she wrote, [[:]]

Again, however, one is inclined to believe that Mrs. Whitman consciously protected herself by agreeing to only a [page 331:] conditional engagement in which she made stipulations that she knew it would be hard for Poe to follow, for she also wrote, [[:]]

At any rate Mrs. Whitman called upon Poe the following morning, and it was arranged that he should write to the Rev. N. B. Crocker, Rector of St. John's Church on North Main Street, as follows:

———————————

Now that Poe's plans for a marriage had become more certain, he doubtless spoke with Mrs. Whitman concerning some of those hopes and aspirations which he had suggested in previous letters. While sitting with her in her home, he one evening referred to his “Domain of Arnheim”, a copy of which he had forwarded to her several weeks before. He told Mrs. Whitman that this story contained some of his long cherished fancies and aspirations, and he said that he intended to write a pendant to his “Domain of Arnheim”, in order to show what beautiful effects were attainable by certain combinations of familiar and inexpensive [page 332:] material. Mrs. Whitman later remembered that at this time Poe noticed the delicate tints and pattern of the paper on her own wall, and he spoke of the fine relief which this paper gave to an “antique mirror embedded in a frame of mosses and grape-vine garlands”. Consequently, when somewhat later Mrs. Whitman saw “Landors’ Cottage (a Pendant to ‘The Domain of Arnheim’)”, she felt that she recognized certain phases of her own home.(1)

But Providence frowned upon Mrs. Whitman's affair with Poe, and it is said that Mrs. Power now “lapsed into angry silence whenever Poe's name was mentioned”. Consequently, the Providence Athenaeum, “with its mellowed light and booth-walled alcoves, became the trysting place of these literary lovers”. A rumor relates that here their conversation once became so disturbing that the librarian, — at this time a brother of the great transcendentalist, Frederick Hedge — requested their silence.(2)

There as one incident of significance which occurred during these meetings at the Athenaeum, a record of which may be found today among the highly prized treasures of the institution. While Poe and Mrs. Whitman were idling away a bleak winter afternoon at the Athenaeum Mrs. Whitman, turning to an anonymous poem, “Ulalume”, in the December number of Colton's American Review of 1847, asked Poe if he had read the poem and if he knew its author. Mrs. Whitman was then greatly surprised to have Poe acknowledge himself as the author and confirm his acknowledgment by placing his signature at the and of the poem.(3) [page 333:]

It has been said that Mrs, Whitman's artful questioning was but a feminine ruse to penetrate the anonymity of the poem and put the poet's affection to test, for it is thought that so intimate a friend as Sarah Whitman could have recoginzed [[recognized]] the genius of Poe, on the other hand there had been some speculations as to the author of the poems and a note accompanying a re-publication of the poem in the Providence Daily Journal for November 22, 1849, not only shows that the poem at least in one instance had been attributed to N. P. Willis but also makes one suspect that Mrs. Whitman might have been instrumental in making the author's name known to the public.

Mrs. Whitman had been fascinated by the “phantasmal scenery [[scenery]]” and the “weird music of “Ulalume”, but it was not until Poe explained the theme of the poem to her [page 334:] that she felt that she understood it. And then she asked that he omit the last stanza.(1) In attempting to give Poe's explanation, she wrote Mallarmé:.

Mrs. Whitman's later excuse for asking that Poe omit the last stanza of “Ulalume” was that these last lines were too obscure, although she admitted that the omission of the lines made the poem still more problematical.(3) Yet one wonders if her comprehension of the very symbolism of the poem was not the real reason for her asking that he omit these last lines. The poet wandering with Psyche, his Soul, forgets haunting memories and sees in the sensuous Astarte rising in the East a new hope of love — a love “warmer” than that of the chaste “Dian.”. But his Soul mistrusts this new star of love and sobs to flee. Then the poet pacifies Psyche with renew hoes in Astarte, only to [page 335:] find on arriving at the tomb of some lost love that he has been tempted into this region by demons. Memories return, and he recognizes now the “misty midregions of Weir.” Then in the following lines one no doubt finds the key to Poe's poem. But these were the lines which Mrs. Whitman asked Poe to remove.

Then what was the “secret” lying “hidden in these wolds” from which “the pitiful, the merciful ghouls” kept Poe? There could be no Astarte. She was only the spectre of a planet which the ghouls had drawn from the “limbo of lunary souls”, from the “Hell of planetary souls”. There could be no new happiness, a hope of a new physical love as long as the poet was shadowed by memories of the lost “Ulalume”.(2)

Mrs. Whitman had found Virginia to be the “lost Ulalume”, and the possibility is that Virginia's name was given in Poe's explanation of the poem. But at this stage of her affair with Poe — particularly after his recent letters had designated her as the new Astarte (“the first dawn of human love upon his icy spirit”) — she could not wish to recognize or at least to acknowledge in him a “fixation” so permanent as that indicated in the closing lines of [page 336:] “Ulalume.” One might therefore understand her desire that these lines be omitted from future versions of the poem.

It was not until November 13 that Poe left Providence.(1) Just before his departure in the afternoon of this day, Mrs. Whitman accompanied him to the studio of Masury and Hartshorn, where, at her request, he sat for the second of the daguerreotypes made of him in Providence.(2) Poe then took the boat which made connection with the New York boat, and on arriving in New York early the following morning he wrote Mrs. Whitman as follows:

“So unmoved by all that would have moved one who had been less an angel.” How similar was this bit of flattery to those words which he had come from the pen of John Winslow Whitman back in 1817 when he had been arrested at the Half-Way Inn! But had Poe known just how much Mrs. Whitman was moved and to what extent efforts were being made to undermine his plans, he might have found further explanation [page 337:] for that “strange shadow of haunting evil”, and perhaps made further exhortations that Mrs. Whitman “be true” to him. Rumors of the “engagement” spread like wildfire and “friends” were most solicitous for Mrs. Whitman's welfare, But it is possible that this solicitude merely brought to the fore Mrs. Whitman's perversity, Those years of transcendental revolution had taught her to scorn public opinion, and to regard convention with a skeptical eye. Furthermore Poe had become increasingly fascinating to her, and she was beginning to come under that spell which caused women to clamor for his affection. She was beginning to feel a little pride of conquest.

The literati of New York had banned Poe from their social gatherings, but they had not lost interest in his activities. It was not long after the incidents of Nov. 8 before they heard with much interest of his engagament to their Providence friend, “I hear that Mrs. Whitman has concluded, contrary to the lady in the song, to become ‘Mrs. Poe’”, Anne Lynch wrote Wm. J. Pabodie, “I should like to know if this is really so.”(1) And Fanny Osgood! As soon as she learned from some of Poe's friends in New York that he was engaged, she went to Providence purposely to see Mrs. Whitman and to learn the truth of the rumor.(2) She had had no intercourse with Poe since the demand for his return of her letters, yet she was still deeply interested in him. She arrived in Providence on November 13. Of her meeting at this time with Mrs. Osgood Mrs. Whitman wrote J. H. Ingram: [page 338:]

It was not without some consciousness of having made a sacrifice that Mrs. Whitman later told Poe of the many things Mrs. Osgood had said to her during this interview; for, as she remarked. she “knew well that the tendency of these communications would be to increase her [Mrs. Osgood's] influence over him and consequently to weaken my own.” She felt that she had “acted towards her with an almost quixotic generosity”, and she was therefore grieved in later years when Mrs. Osgood's “affectionate interest” was changed to one of “subsequent silence and coldness.”(2)

It was just after Poe had taken the boat for Nev York on November 13 that Mrs. Osgood arrived at the Power home for a chat with Mrs. Whitman. Mrs. Whitman urged Mrs. Osgood to go with her to the rooms of Masury and Hartshorn to see the new portrait of Poe, but Mrs. Osgood resisted all entreaties. preferring to remain at home and discuss the [page 339:] subject of the portrait.(1) She now told Mrs. Whitman for the first time of the incident of Poe's having seen her in 1845, and she gave full details of this story which Mrs. Whitman had long since heard from Poe himself.(2) Her affection for Poe was evident in her conversation with Mrs. Whitman, but her renewal of the subject of the letters which had caused so much bitterness among her friends was possibly a source of agitation to both Mrs. Whitman and her family. Mrs. Power's opposition to Poe had been great, but now she regretted more than ever having urged her daughter to soothe the poet in his mental excitement with promises of any sort he might demand. Mrs. Whitman reports that at this time certain representations were made to her family in relation to the imprudence of the conditional engagement that subsisted between them which augmented almost to a phrensy the passion of her mother's opposition to the relation.(3) Yet at parting Poe had won from Mrs. Whitman a “rash promise” that nothing she sight hear to his discredit from others should induce her to break the conditional promise she had given him, and all of her stubbornness arose within her at the thought of breaking her promise. Painful scenes followed, in which Mrs. Osgood no doubt took part; and in the confusion, chancing to glance toward the western horizon, Mrs. Whitman “saw there Arcturus shining resplendently through an. opening in the clouds, while of all the neighboring constellations I could see only Orpheus (sic) in the head of the serpent, still glimmering near with a pale and sickly luster”. Just before [page 340:] leaving Providence Poe had told Mrs. Whitman of some romantic fancies concerning Arcturus, and she had promised to remember them when she looked at this star. Now to her excited imagination everything seemed a portent and an omen.

Mrs. Whitman later discovered that both Arcturus and Ophiucus would have been below the horizon on November 13 when she thought she saw them through the western clouds, and she consequently called her poem “Arcturus, written in October”,(2) but the “pathetism” was complete. She and Poe had looked upon the same star, and there had come to her that sense of nearness to the man she had promised to marry.

And what was the real attitude of Poe in this last hectic visit during which he had frantically sought Mrs. Whitman's hand? He had arrived in Providence in fearful agitation; and wavering in his purpose of seeing Mrs. Whitman he had, if we may take him at his word, sought to end his life. In these few miserable hours there had been but one name on his lips — and that name was not Sarah Whitman. There can be no doubt as to the significant part now being played by Annie Richmond. Mrs. Whitman once remarked that she [page 341:] longed to know if Poe had ever written to another as he had written to herself. A comparison of some of her own letters with those written to Annie Richmond at the same time shows a rather close parallel between the passionate phrases he used in writing to the Providence widow and those he penned for this Lowell matron who was apparently behind his efforts to marry Sarah Whitman.

All of these phrases Poe had addressed to Sarah Whitman; and one might note with interest that only two days after addressing Mrs. Whitman as “beloved of my heart, of my imagination, of my intellect, life of life, soul of soul,” Poe wrote in the following passionate terms to Mrs. Annie Richmond: [page 342:]

Then after describing for Mrs. Richmond the horrible details of the “laudanum episode”, Poe continued in this letter with words which leave no doubt as to the fact that he was pursuing Mrs. Whitman, not because he loved her, but because Mrs. Richmond had urged him to do so; he now longed for Mrs. Richmond's permission and a convenient means to become honorably disentangled from the whole Providence [page 343:] affair — an affair apparently distasteful to him — and he wished to become disentangled before he had taken sufficient vows to make his escape impossible.(1) His statement becomes more significant when we note that no banns had yet been published, and they had not been published because before leaving Providence on November 13 Poe himself had asked Mr. Pabodie to cancel the request for their publication(2) —

and the attitude of Pabodie in the whole affair leads us to believe that he lost no time in carrying out Poe's orders. If never before, it now becomes apparent that Poe's motives concerning Mrs. Whitman did not spring from sincere emotion; therefore, in order to maintain any form of sympathy for Poe in his actions of the next few months, one is almost forced to keep in mind those words be wrote to Annie Richmond; “I am so ill — so terribly, hopelessly ill in body and mind.”(3) One finds it easy now to explain those lines to Mrs. Whitman written only two days before addressing Mrs. Richmond: “That I am not supremely happy, even when I feel your dear love at my heart terrifies me. What can this mean?”

Throughout all of those “painful scenes” which she would have liked to banish forever from her remembrance, Sarah Whitman stubbornly held to her promise. Friends and society had demanded that she cast off this improvident poet. But she had learned non-conformity early, and Emerson had strengthened her belief in individuality. She had learned that the world whips one with its displeasure for non-conformity, but transcendentalism had taught her that what she thought was what concerned her, not what people think. She [page 344:] had made her promise to Poe, and as long as he kept the conditions neither society nor family could shake her in her determination. Mrs. Power might object, but Mrs. Power might recall when many years back Nicholas Power had faced family opposition in making her his bride. Coupled with her determination, there was a degree of feminine pride. Mrs. Osgood, weeping at her feet for a romantic poet whom numerous women had pursued, must have made her feel some sense of satisfaction in knowing that this same man was apparently mad for her hand. Here was adventure — adventure far more exhilirating [[exhilarating]] than Nicholas Power had known when he sailed down the harbor to Southern seas. Here were Byron and Shelley and Goethe, all in one flesh, fore-ordained to be hers. Here was a man of genius, who, like Goethe, had been exposed to “trials and temptations, of which obtuser and calmer natures do not even dream”. He had known those “weary struggles, by which energetic and sensitive spirits exhaust themelves in a ceaseless conflict with the actual”; and he had persuaded Mrs. Whitman that it was perhaps in her power to save him from an “impending doom”; to help him to resist some of those hardships and temptations which genius suffers from its contact with reality. She would marry him. This time she waited only three days to write; then on Friday, November 17, she sent a tender note asking after Poe's health, and promising a long letter on the following Tuesday.(1)

In the meanwhile Poe had been occupied with thoughts of his new magazine scheme, — and of Annie. He [page 345:] seems now to have consoled himself by prospects for the Stylus, for on November 20 he wrote a childhood friend, Mr. Edward Valentine:

On November 22 Poe answered Mrs. Whitman's last note saying:

But though Mrs. Clemm might have been happy over Mrs. Whitman's solicitations, she could not have been so happy over the marriage plans, for she wrote Mrs. Richmond concerning Mrs. Whitman:

That unhappiness to which Poe referred in his letter of November 22 to Mrs. Whitman might be somewhat clarified by a letter he wrote on the following day to Sarah [page 346:] Heywood, a sister of Mrs. Richmond:

With her resolution to marry Poe Mrs:. Whitman's attitude toward the poet seems to have undergone something of a change, and in writing to him now she assured him that all depended upon his firmness.(2) Poe, on the other hand, no doubt warned by Mrs. Richmond's silence that she had not altered her wishes concerning him, sought to renew his passion for Mrs. Whitman, and on November 24 wrote again, asserting that only her own insincerity could now serve to interrupt their plans.

Mrs. Whitman had alluded again to those malicious reports concerning Poe's honor, but she now assured him that all had been explained to her entire satisfaction. However, Poe could not be too sure that all had been well enough explained, and in his letter of November 24 he told fully the affair concerning Mrs. Osgood's letters, and cautioned her against the machinations of Mrs. Ellet, who, he feared, would attempt to thwart his efforts to marry. He wrote:

Mrs. Whitman had no doubt related to Poe how Mrs. Osgood had come to Providence and spoken of the letters, for now, after explaining the Osgood-Ellet affair in full, Poe remarked: “You will comprehend what I mean in saying that the only thing for which I found it impossible to forgive Mrs. O. [page 348:] was her reception of Mrs. E.”(1)

Poe seems to have been palliated by Mrs. Whitman's new attitude concerning his character, and he begged forgiveness for allowing these wrongs to prey upon him, saying they had become bitter to him only when they threatened to deprive him of herself.(2) But there were other menaces to his success far more threatening than the idle gossip of Mrs. Whitman's friends; Mrs. Power and Anna were formidable in their opposition to him, and Poe could not forget some of their means of showing their opinion.

So through the weary days of November Mrs. Whitman listened to the reports of her friends, warning her against an alliance with Poe, and she endured the almost frantic opposition of a dominating mother and a psychopathic sister. Ill and tormented with a premonition of an early death, she possibly lost sight of a brighter future which she had envisaged at one time, and in forwarding to Poe her stanzas, “To Arcturus,” she omitted the last two lines which he had previously seen. Poe, sensitive to a meaning in the omission, wrote:

But she remind resolute in hew determination to marry Poe; and he, beginning to feel success in spite of [page 349:] opposition, now gave himself up to further dreams of realized ambitions, revealing to Mrs. Whitman visions of an intellectual and literary aristocracy in America wherein he should reign and she should be his queen.

In seeking the hand of Sarah Whitman Poe had been aware of the literary advantage of such a marriage. He had known her to be an ambitious woman; and now that she had consented to become his wife, he revealed to her sone of his own ambitions — ambitions which he had dreamed of realizing through his marriage with her.