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Chapter XII
Poet, Traveler, Journalist, and Literary Adviser 1855-1860
In 1853 Whitman received a visit from a Southern cousin, John S. Long, who later left a picture of her at a time when she had reached the height of her fame as a literary woman and as a Spiritualist.
“We first saw her in her home in Providence Rhode Island in the early months of the year 1853”, Long wrote. “She was even then past the age when women are thought to possess physical loveliness, but her physical framework had such fine lines of symmetry and elegance, and out of her large soft eyes there glowed such a lustre of meetness, and on the expression of her face there rested such a power of tender thought that you at once said, ‘here is a woman who can never grow old.’ We already knew her reputation as a very distinguished poet, as an industrious student of books, an indulged favorite of criticism through the columns of the New York Tribune, the friend of Horace Greeley, and last but not one of the intensest lovers of Edgar Poe in the darkest and most terrible days of his battle against appetite and sin. But we had thought of her simply as of other highly endowed women, never thinking for a moment that there could be anything extraordinary in her character or appearance. The first sight of her, however, was like the flash of a silver spring in a dreary desert. There was a dreamy yet forceful individuality about her which swept down your ramparts and safeguards in a moment. Corinne in the capital no more completely magnetized and enslaved Oswald and the Italian nobles than did. this sweet wonderful woman who came near her. Straight as an Indian, outlined as if the chisel of a sculptor had wrought her out of virgin marble, with her birthright signed and sealed on her beautiful brow, simple and unaffected in. her manners, with a voice soft and gentle, and with the inspiration of all the lofty and divine realms of thought kindling on her face, like phophorescent [[phosphorescent]] lights upon the sea, you constantly felt that she was not, of the earth earthly, but spiritual, incorruptible in the flesh, and soon to fade away.”(1)
By the time of Long's visit to Providence, Mrs. Whitman had achieved some notoriety both as a Spiritualist and as the fiancĂ©e of Poe, but she had also gained a somewhat [page 513:] what coveted reputation as a renown of literary talent, it will be remembered that she had possessed some renown both as a poet and as a literary critic before she allowed her interests to be she swallowed up by her enthusiasm for Poe and for Spiritualism. Throughout the forties she had contributed to various periodicals; but though she had written a great number of poems which would have been considered worthy by her contemporaries, she had never contempleted [[contemplated]] a volume. As a matter of fact few ladies had brought their poems into a single collection, She has nevertheless, come to the attention of the leading literary critics, and had received favorable notice from the most severe of these critics, By 1848 Poe had spoken words of praise concerning her genius, and given her a “pre-eminence” over rather important American poetesses in the field of art. And Griswold, coming to Providence in July, had told her of these words from the severe little critic who ‘was terrifying the literati of the East. These were the first words of real literary praise she had heard from Poe, and she always prized them.
But even before Poe's reference to Mrs Whitman in his Lowell lecture she had come to the attention of Rufus Griswold, who already had emerged as a sort of literary god-father for American. female writers. Griswold's purpose in the July visit had not been either to sing Poe's praises or to state his appraisals, but to obtain Mrs. Whitman consent to publish some of her poems in his Female Poets of [page 514:] America which. was to appear on December 30, 1848. Mrs. Whitman as yet not having published a collection of poems, gave Griswold permission to use any selection of hers which he might wish.(1)
Griswold's collection was to include not only the poetic effusions of the chosen females, but also a brief memoir and appraisal. When a short time later he asked for data to be used in his sketch, Mrs. Whitman thanked him for the position she was being awarded in his “parthenon” and referred him to a sketch which a friend had previously written for Caroline Way's collection; later enclosing this sketch herself, she apologized for so apparently egotistically singing her own praises.(2)
In suggesting selections to be used in The Female Poets of America Mrs. Whitman told Griswold of her “Three Fairy Ballads”, (“The Golden Ball”, the “Sleeping Beauty”, and “Cinderella”), the first two of which had previously been published,. These ballads, a collaboration of Mrs, Whitman and her sister Anna, had brought favorable criticism from Mr. Burnett, a Providence bookseller who proposed having Harper's publish them as a gift book for young people, giving them the added attraction of engravings, Mrs. Whitman in her perplexity as to whether or not she should follow the advice of Mr. Burnett, apply to Cary and Hart, or pay for the publication herself took her troubles to Griswold; and he in turn offered to speak to Ticknor about publishing all of her poems in a single collection. [page 515:] This offer she refused, saying that she had so many unwritten poems within her heart that she was not yet ready to present herself as “a claimant for candidate for immortality”. She merely wished to put the ballads into circulation, not caring for pecuniary results.(1) The little book was published before the and of the year by Burnett and company.
Not only was Griswold kind concerning the Three Fairy Ballads, but he also generoutly offered to notice the poems of Anna Power, who had developed some poetic talent. Mrs. Whitman was uncertain as to how to meet this suggestion. Poor Anna in her eccentricities was extremely jealous always concerning the part she had taken in the writing of the Three Fairy Ballads; yet she had shrunk from contact of any sort with the outside world. She was a weird introverted creature who could in no way adjust herself to a normal existence. In reply to Griswold concerning Anna, Mrs. Whitman, therefore, wrote:
“I know not how to reply to your suggestion with regard to a brief notice of my sister's poems. From the earliest years she has lived almost exclusively in the regions of poetry and romance and although of late she has become an interested and accurate observer of the busy scenes of public life and has written anonymously many poems in relation to public affairs, she jealously guards herself from all actual contact with society and luxuriates with unsorted delight in scenes of natural beauty and in the rare creations of genius. Although she has written as I sincerely think, some of the sweetest poems in the language she never could be prevailed uptrn to publish anything which bore the faintest allusion to her own feelings or experience — The morbid sensitiveness and peculiar pride of her character has caused her to lead a life as exclusive and secluded as that [page 516:] of Miranda on her enchanted island. Of late years she has published several poems over the signature of Andromache and without any signature in the Yankee Doodle, entitled the Age of Great Cities, the Past and Present, etc. etc. She has also published in the Knickerbocker and in various public journals, yet as she has so jealously guarded her incognito and is known as an authoress only to a small circle of readers she can hardly be entitled to anything more than a passing notice. She is younger than myself and is my only surviving sister.(1)
Griswold gave only a passing notice to Anna in his Female Poet's of America, but his praise concerning Sarah Whitaan was exceptional. After giving a brief sketch, of Mrs. Whitman's early life, he wrote:
“From this period she has devoted her time chiefly to literary studies. To a knowledge of the best English authors she has added a familiarity with the languages and literatures of Germany, Italy, and, France. She has given her most loving attention to the poets, critics, and philosophers, of the first of these countries, who have in a larger degree then any others fanned her own tastes and opinions. These are exhibited in several striking and brilliant papers in the periodicals; and particularly in her articles on Goethe's conversations with Eckermann, in the Boston Quarterly Review for January 1840, and in her notice of Emerson's Essays in the Democratic Review, for June 1845.
Of the poems of Mrs. Whitman entitled “Hours of Life” contains probably the finest passages, though it is perhaps somewhat too mystical and metaphysical to be very popular. This has not been printed. The most carefully elaborated of her published poems are three and three Fairy Ballads — The Golden Ball, The Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella — in the composition of which she has been assisted by her sister, Miss Anna Marsh Power. To these are prefixed the line of Burns:
Full oft the muse, as frugal housewives do,
Gars auld claes look amista as well as new.
Nothing can be finer in its way that the Sleeping Beauty of Tennyson, but that brilliant poet has given only an episode of the beautiful legend, [page 517:] which is here presented with so much clearness of narrative, propriety of illustration, and splendor of coloring. Cinderella is longer than the Sleeping Beauty, to the sombre character of which its polished and glowing vivacity presents a pleasing contrast. Mrs. Whitman's poems all betray the luxuriant delight with which she abandons herself to her inspirations. The silvery sweetness and clearness of her versification, the varied modulations of emphasis and cadence, the many nice adaptations of sound to sense, would alone entitle her poems to rank among our most exquisite lyrics; but these subtle intertwinings and linked harmonies of her style are ennobled by thoughts full of originality and beauty, and enriched by illustrations drawn from a wide ramie of literary culture. She has not only the artist's eye which sees at. a glance all that outline and color can express, but she gives us the breathing perfumes, the atmospheric effects and the spiritual character, of the scenes that live in her numbers.”(1)
Griswold's sketch of Sarah Whitman was to say the least flattering, but he carried his laudation further still, adding in his preface that he would content onself with expressing affirmatively his “own conviction that the writings of Mrs. Maria Brooks, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Whitman, and some others here quoted, illustrates as high and sustained a range of poetic art as the female genius of any age or country can display.”(2) In reply Mrs. Whitman wrote an assuring note of appreciation.
“Your book is I think likely to be perennial while the others (I mean Buchanan Read's and Miss Caroline May's) will I am afraid prove to be mere annuals and be laid on the shelf after the first season” —
Then later she added:
“Mr. Lowell has given a raking broadside to the poets, and Mrs. Osgood, I see, has been following like a little piratical schooner it the wake of his three decker.”(3)
In reviewing Mrs. Whitman's poetic outputs Griswold mentioned “Hours of Life”, a poem containing some [page 518:] of the finest passages she had yet written; but he explained that this poem, being too mystical and metaphysical to be popular, had not yet been published. Mrs. Whitman had written Griswold concerning “Hours of Life” in 1848, and in December of that year Poe had read the greater part of it. She had feared Poe's opinion of the poem, for it did not conform to his poetical creed either in scope or structure, and she felt that he would “criticize rather than admire”. But Poe had sham great surprise and pleasure, urging her to fill in the unfinished portions and prepare for immediate publication; for, as he assured her, “Hours of Life” would “make a deeper and more favorable impression” than she had “dared to anticipate”.(1)
Mrs. Whitman, therefore, was very much encouraged concerning this poem which was to become her masterpiece; consequently, on February 13, 1849, she again wrote Griswold for advice concerning its publication. She had received an offer from Israel Post of ten dollars per page for her poetry, and she now though of letting this poem come out in three successive numbers of same magazine. Both the Southern Literary Messenger and Graham's also suggested themselves as mediums.(2) She therefore sought advice from Griswold, and he replied in a letter dated February 25, 1849:
My dear Mrs. Whitman —
I pray you pardon me for not sooner, answering your letter of the 13th. I have constantly been expecting to visit Philadelphia, where I hoped I [page 519:] night make some arrangement for the publication of your poem, that should be far more advantageous than that offered by Post. I think now I shall see the Editors of Graham's and Sartain's Magazines, on the subject, during the present week. It will not be worth while to offer it to the Southern Literary Messenger, which pays but little, and prefers for its rewards authors who reside in the South.
If the poem be all equal to the first canto the recognition of it as one of the finest productions of feminine genius will be general and immediate. I read it to Mrs. Osgood, who shared my admiration of its exquisite music and imaginative beauty. I hope the appearance of “Hours of Life” will ere long be followed by the suitable publication of your collected poems so that the world may more readily and more justly estimate your rare ability.. It is a rainy day, and the melting of the snow gives promise that the spring y be here soon, with the freedom which is denied to me in winter, when my ill health makes me nearly all the time a prisoner. Then I hope again to see you; and until then, and always, I pray you to believe that I shall have few gratifications to be compared with the consciousness of doing you any service.
Yours very sincerely,
Rufus W. Griswold.(1)
Griswold without doubt made honest efforts in Mrs. Whitman's behalf but to no apparent avail. In December she wrote him that M. Hart had declared the poem too long, too purely subjective, and too ideal, and that she now feared that it would not be safe in the hands of the Union Magazine.(2) But possibly Griswold's interest had cooled with his growing affection for Mrs. Osgood. His answer to Mrs. Whitman on December 17, was more formal than usual:
“I have very much regretted that the admirable poem you entrusted to my care, could not be used as you wished — and paid for according to its merits — I trust I shall have an opportunity of explaining to you in a personal interview the history of the MS. which is doubtless safe, and which I mill obtain and forward to you.”(3) [page 520:]
The publication of Griswold's Memoir in 1850 with its painful account of the “New England episode” cut short any further mediate correspondence with Mrs. Whitman on the subject of “Hours of Life”; Griswold was to have no hand in the publication of her masterpiece. But she had now begun an extensive correspondence with Horace Greeley on the subject of Spiritualism, and she therefore sought his advice concerning her poetry. A publisher had now agreed to bring out: a small collection of her poems in which “Hours of Life” was to be the leading poem, but she could not be satisfied with his terms. Greeley warned, however, that even Byron or Shakespeare, should they return unrecognized, would be well off to get ten per cent of the clear proceeds; and he advised Mrs. Whitman not to trifle over terms as long as she could stand by the contents.(1) At length, therefore, in 1853 the Press of George H. Whitney, Providence, announced Hours of Life and Other Poems by Sarah Helen Whitman; and the Providence poet strengthened her “candidacy for immortality”.
Greeley was enthusiastic, but he was hesitant about reviewing the poems for the Tribune for fear that he might incur the jealousy of the sensitive George Ripley by invading his department. It was therefore suggested that O’Connor write the review and submit it to Ripley for his approval. Then, if necessary, Greeley stood ready to see that Hours of Life received proper notice in the Tribune.(2)
It was 1855 before Mrs. Whitman again heard from [page 521:] Griswold. Having published a second edition of The Female Poets of America in 1854, he now contemplated another edition which was to appear in 1856. He therefore requested Mrs. Whitman's permission to obtain an engraving of one of her portraits to be used along with others of Mrs. Brooks, Julia Ward Howe, Margaret Fuller, Fanny Osgood, and Alice Gary; and he added to his request a courteous note of respect concerning her literary career:
“In the long time which has elapsed since I had the happiness of any correspondence with you, have not been inattentive to your literary career, but have read with great pleasure; and I trust a just appreciation, the admirable collection of your poems published some two years ago.”(1)
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Hours of Life and Other Poems represents the intellectual and spiritual biography of Sarah Whitman during the first half of her life. The title poem, which is the only poem of noticeable length, shows the span of Sarah Whitman's mental experience from infancy to maturity; most of the remaining poems reveal incidents both pleasurable and sad which stand out in the development of her life and character. But it is the title poem which Mrs. Whitman felt was her masterpiece. This was the song of her soul. It was an eloquent and impassioned utterance of the profound experiences of the heart, the periods of love and imagination, the satiety and sadness of life's noontide, its vague melancholy and repressed aspiration — the enigma of Sorrow and Death — the effort to solve the problem of evil through the various traditions, theologies, and mythic [page 522:] creeds of the past, and the final return of the soul to its instinctive faith in a conscious and divine life in Nature and Humanity pervading all things with a perennial energy, and preparing all to pass onward and upward through the eternal cycles of its infinite beatitudes”.(1) Here was the whole sweep of Sarah Whitman's inner life from infancy on through those sad, barren years before she had found peace, security, and comfort in a philosophy of resignation and unselfish love — in Emerson Swedenborg, and the Spiritualists. The bulk of this poem had been written before Mrs. Whitman first met Poe. But perhaps the most important part of her life had been lived by the time she parted with Poe. Certainly most of her better poems had been written, and her character had been definitely molded. There was therefore little of the poem to be composed after Poe read it on that chill, December; morning,
As was too frequently the case with Mrs. Whitman, this poem showed little marked originality of conception, To the majority of people there was nothing novel in the idea of the instinctive faith of the obi, d glic1i ng imperceptibly into the rational faith of the man; but some might have found a warm sympathy in the struggle of a soul that found the burden and mystery of life a little more heavy, or that was beset with doubts more torturing. And herein, apparently, lay the appeal of “Hours of Life”. It took neither sage nor saint to recognize its counterpart in own life. But it was merely “an old truth in new combination, [page 523:] wedded to the exquisite music and imagery” of Mrs. Whitman's verse. In traversing lofty regions of thought Mrs. Whitman had presupposed on the part of her readers “a familiarity with many abstract trains of reflection.” For this reason, as one of her critics said, she failed. Her own familiarity with abstruser speculations of metaphysical philosophy had added a transcendental coloring which had a tendency to obscure her meaning.(1)
In her minor poems Mrs. Whitman's readers found more appeal. They were more adapted for popular effect. Yet in these poems her critics saw those faults which too frequently characterized her verse.
“We must censure her use of certain pet words, such as ‘sovran’, ‘aidenn’, ‘aureole’, ‘hyaline’, which seem to have been chosen for their prettiness rather than their fitness, and which are probably Greek to nine readers out of ten; as also her practice of quoting lines from other poems, in her own, which can seldom be done with happy effect”,
one critic wrote with some justification. And he continued:
“Her poetry betokens refinement rather than opulence of fancy, niceness rather than comprehensiveness of thought. In her descriptions of nature, these qualities betray themselves in a microscopic minuteness at touch; but she cannot by bold strokes paint its grander and more gorgeous aspects. To her, nature has been a coy and blushing maiden, whom she has mooed in sheltered nooks, by grove and stream, where the arbutus clambers along the hill — side, or the gentian nods in sequestered glades, until she has won from her shyness and reserve, the revelation of her most secret charms, and these she describes with a Tennysonian Picturesqueness of tint and pencilling, nor is she less happy in delineating some special moods of her own thought and feeling; and of love she sings with an impassioned intensity, but it is of a love peculiarly her own. Her tastes are too exclusive; she has refined so much upon her emotions that they have become attenuated, and elude the appreciation [page 524:] of ordinary minds; there is too little of warm, genial, and sympathetic life in her poetry; the fastidiousness of the scholar has checked the impulsive cordiality of the woman, and the thoughts and passions, of .t hick she speaks, are too visionary and abstracted to move deeply the popular heart.”(1)
There were others who saw more individuality and more sincerity in Sarah Whitman's poetry, yet who found her not unlike Bryant in her “keen observation and delicate description of nature”, or Mrs. Browning in the passion of her sonnets. Indeed, in the sonnets addressed to Poe one finds Mrs. Whitman not unlike the famed author of the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. These six sonnets represent some of Mrs. Whitman's best efforts as a poet.
There needs to be no close observation for one to find traces of Poe's influence in Sarah Whitman's poetry after her brief experience with Poe. And although there can be no subtle references to Poe in the major poems “Hours of Life”, those poems in her volume which she has addressed to Poe himself reveal much of her actual experience with him as well as those poetic illusions she built around him. Furthermore, much of Mrs. Whitman's later reputation as a poet, and an appreciable amount of that popularity as a poet which she now experienced are to be traced to the circumstance of her brief engagement to Poe.
George William Curtis, who reviewed Mrs. Whitman's volume of poems and who still looked to her for advice concerning his own literary efforts, forwarded a copy of “Hours of Life” to Mr. Albert Tones in London, asking [page 525:] that he present it to the Brownings. Jones wrote later that the Brownings had received him kindly, and that the poems had brought from them expressions of delight.(1)
Mrs. Browning, like much of the rest of the world, would have been interested in Mrs. Whitman as a poet for no other reason than the position which she occupied. in relation to Poe. But again, Mrs. Browning was taking an active interest in Spiritualism, and many of Mrs. Whit man's Poems were vehicles of Spiritualistic doctrines. As a matter of fact, two of the Poe sonnets and a poem called “To the Morning Star” had appeared first in the Shekinah, and Mrs. Whitman was already being hailed by editors of this Spiritualist journal as a woman of poetic insight and Philosophic Culture rho was Particularly fitted to enter the field of Spiritualistic investigation. But Mrs. Browning might also have been interested in Mrs. Whitman's volume because of the presence therein of three sonnets in praise of herself and her efforts toward social freedom. It cannot be denied that just as Mrs. Whitman's connection with Poe and Spiritualism had brought to her some literary prominence, so now did her position in the woman's movement add weight to her poetry. For instance, one of her less enthusiastic critics in reviewing “Hours of Life” gave reasons other than that of literary excellence for his interest in Mrs. Whitman's poetry:
“The poems of Sarah Helen Whitman, whose name stands last upon our list, are an earlier publication than either of the two preceding, but they do not seem to [page 526:] have become so familiar to the public, that ee need apologize for speaking of them even at this late date. Besides, in an age when the influence of female writers has become so considerable both in prose and verse, we should rske ourselves fully amenable to the censures of the next ‘Woman's Rights 4”onventiont, if we should conclude our article without a Passing tribute to some one of the fairer dwellers on the slopes of Parnassus. In view of that august assembly, We are but too happy that our selection should have fallen upon one so deserving of liberal commendation as the accomplished authoress we have named.”(1)
The truth of the matter is that Sarah Whitman's social and spiritualistic activities were diverting her attention from poetry. One criticism of her poetry had been that she too frequently attempted to “express in the flexuous forms of poetry, what can only be expounded with the rigid precision of prose. She still had mach to say, but it was not that which could be said easily in poetry; and although during the remainder of her life she continued to write poetry, she did little that can be classed with what she had written prior to 1853. On the other hand her prose writings after this period are numerous. She now began to lend her pen to the many causes which were to envelop American interests for the next twenty-five years, writing chiefly for Greeley's Tribune and the Providence Journal.
Mrs. Whitman had now come to be rather definitely identified with that group of men and women who formed the New York literati. Her frequent visits in New York made a close association possible, and her reputation both as a Poet and as the fiancée of Poe made her presence in New York [page 527:] circles even more desirable. But it was not always easy for her to keep her skirts clear of the petty quarrels which were bound to spring up among such a circle of friends, and one must at times marvel at her remarkable personality and her diplomacy. The relations of many of that group who had formerly gathered at Miss Lynch's had often been unsteady, and even now some of the old group harbored memories which rankled. Many found it easy to take exception to only slightly apparent wrongs, and frequently their grievances were brought to Mrs. Whitman. But through all social rifts she remained discreetly tactful, and with few exceptions was admired by various members of each social group. She corresponded with many, pleading for individual rights, and asking from each a friendly sympathy in their social relations. Even Horace Greeley, who numbered numerous enemies among his acquaintances, admired her greatly, and Griswold found occasion for a renewed expression of friendly feeling before his death in 1857.
Mrs. Whitman found life in New York pleasant during the fifties, especially after she began her regular visits to the home of the opulent Horace Day. And New York was a gay place at this time. The city was luxuriating in the wealth which marked one of the most glittering decades of the century, and Sarah Whitman now basked in the glories of a tinsel age which was soon-to disappear. Theaters, lectures, operas: All of the amusement of the great city she enjoyed, and then, seizing her pen, described for the [page 528:] Providence Journal.
But chief among her interests now was that of the theater. She had never forgotten that day many many years ago when she had been carried to the old Providence stage to listen, wide-eyed, as the story of Cinderella unfolded itself to her childish fancy. She always declared that it was then that her true life began. She had been touched by the wand of the fairy — and never had the mimic life faded before the real. Now as she moved about among the fashionable circles of Manthattan, all of her old passion for the theater was renewed. Mowatt, whom she had numbered among her friends for years, was enjoying some renown in New York both as playwright and actress; and Edward Everett was delighting matinee audiences with his lectures at Niblot's. Garden. It was the day of the matinee, and it was the day of the Italian opera. Crowding into a theater one rainy afternoon Mrs. Whitman heard the opera “Norma”, and was at the same perforce delighted with the great Piccolomini whose singing was at this time more than sensational.
“An hour before the doors were opened”, Mrs. Whitman wrote, “Irving place was blocked up with carriages, and the steps of the academy were swept by dreary, dripping velvets, and e-rmirtes, brocades, poplins, and ‘antiques’, among which ‘skeletons’ surreptitiously peeped forth, and bloomers, and balmorals audaciously intruded themselves”.
When the opening of the doors brought a fearful crash, Mrs. Whitman slipped behind the rich ermines of a “Mrs. Potaphar”, and was thus protected. Then when the curtain was [page 529:] lowered on the opera, the great Piccolominoi made her appearance.
“Before we had time to recover from our Druidical dreams”, Mrs. Whitman said, “the little princess tripped upon the stage, looking like a child of fourteen years, in a short petticoat looped up with cherry colored ribbons, which shoved to great advantage her pretty childlike feet and ankles. In five minutes the eyes and hearts of four thousand spectators were irrevocably captivated. Did she pelt theca with her kisses as she did the poet of Idlewild? Not opressively [[oppressively]]. Was she beautiful? No. Was she an artist? I cannot tell, She was charming in a may so exclusively her own that it would be quite unavailing to talk about it. She was ‘so young, so innocent, so blooming, so confidingly frank and coquettish and piquant, so winning, so arch, so graceful, that her presence was like a beam of morning light or a breath of morning air. My memory of her, should see her a thousand times, will al mays be, ‘A Matinee’.”(1)
Mrs. Whitman's Preference for “tragic art” was possibly responsible for her love of Italian opera, “I like its scenic pomps and splendors, its mournful and majestic melodies, its stormy choruses and grand funeral marches, its martyr deaths, and grand heroic passions”, she wrote to the Journal concerning Donizetti's tragic opera, “Don Sebastian”. And, she continued:
“Rejoicing in that absolute and blissful ignorance of musical science which absolves the listener from all critical, responsibilities and leaves him free to surrender himself to that subtle and mysterious charm of music which no critic can analyze, I enjoyed supremely the presentation of this most elaborate and imposing of Donizetti's lyrical creations. I enjoyed the martial pomp and circumstance that attended the embarkation of the warriors, the booming of cannon, the fanfare of trumpets, the wild and stormy choruses, the massive and brilliant orchestral instrumentation. I enjoyed Calyo's splendid sceneries — the dusky towers of Lisbon relieved against the luminous distance of the twilight — the moonlit fortress by the sea — the solemn chambers of the Inquisition. I enjoyed Zucchi's splendid voice and the superb passion of her action, [page 530:] most impressively displayed, I thought, in the magnificent inquisition scene in the fourth act, sung as a quintette and chorus by Zucchi, Bellini, Lorini, and, Massimilliani, with the full force of the subordinates as groundwork. I never listen to a grand tragic opera without recalling that portion of De Quincey's confession, in which he records the sublime and enchanted reveries to which he surrendered himself once every seek, in the upper tier of the London Opera House. I think I can understand them.”
Mrs. Whitman could not agree with her friend George William Curtis that there came a time in the theater when the boxes were more interesting than the stage, for it seemed to her “that art sacrificed too much to fashion in permitting such a glare of light to be thrown upon the audience, wearying the sense with surface and color, which should be shadowed into oblivion of surrounding objects that it may transfuse itself more fully into the ideal world beyond the footlights.” Yet she found that there were many patrons of the opera who Could not “contentedly
‘Sit in a theatre and see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fit ally
The music of, the spheres,’
unless they could beguile the time with a little social criticism,”(2) But one with the keen observation of life that was Sarah Whitman's could not so lose herself in the opera as to miss some of the more amusing incidents in the real life about her. In reporting the performance of “Don Sebastian” to the Journal she said:
“During the exquisite, ear-haunting melody ‘Deserto in terra’, in the second act of ‘Don Sebastian’, I heard a grave paternal voice behind me say: ‘Maud, dear, I told you Mrs. R —— ‘s cloak was white velvet; yours is pearl color”. ‘Well, Pa’, responded a thin [page 531:] girlish treble, ‘if you don’t like our cloaks you can get us better ones’. Presently pater familiae resumed again, ‘Maud, do you see Miss and the diamond comb? It is not the same she wore last night’. Which, Pa, the hair or the comb?’ Pater farniliae subsided. These splendid chevalures are certainly very becoming, and worn as saw them last night, with a diaphanous cloud of lace floating behind them, they nice the fair wearer look singularly graceful and goddess-like. Yet, unluckily, accidents sometimes occur. A friend told me today that as she was leaving the opera-house last evening in the wake of a stately matron who wore a mass of auburn hair fastened at the back of the head by a golden wheat-sheaf, some stray ringlet got entangled in the cords of an mere cloak, and the whole splendid fabric fell to the ground. An officious, old gentleman picked up the golden wheat-sheaf, with its pendant ringlets, and proffered it to the fair discrowned Ceres, who ungraciously turned her shoulder on him, refusing to ‘acknowledge the corn’. The officious old gentleman prudently pocketed the insult and the auburn ringlet.”(1)
All of the glamarous [[glamorous]] life of a great city, Sarah Whitman enjoyed in New York in that period just before the war. In the homes and in the theaters of New York she watched the social life of the city, and sometimes driving through Central Park she observed the parade of fashion as it moved, unaware of the approaching catastrophe of war.
“As we enter the Park from the Bloomingdale road”, she wrote in 1860, “we look at the long line of splendid equipages that come sweeping down the curved carriage road to the right, or wind away till they are lost under the hill side to the left. Here a sleepy dowager, wrapt in ermines, looks languidly through the close windows of her chariot. Behind, a lady in an elegant Victoria carriage drives her clipt sorrel ponies, while her liveried coachman follows on horseback. Now a wild barouche dashes by, filled with fair young faces, their scarlet cock feathers floating on the wind, and their rich afghan of scarlet and gold kindling to a flame in the sunlight. Now a rickety cart rattles past, filled with young Ireland, and propelled or rather [page 532:] impeded by donkeys. Close at hand as if drawn by the unconscious action of ‘elective affIinities’, sporting a noble span of grays, comes the great Fernando — one of the two men among all our free and enlightened citizens most noted as men of mark and likelihood by the knowing Duke of Newcastle; for, have not the Boston papers told us that his grace regarded the New York mayor as second only to Governor Banks in these approved national qualities. We have faith in the Duke's discernment, and are glad to have seen ‘Fernandy Wud’, It would seem that grey is a color much affected by the mayors of New York, for, just in front ex-Mayor Harper, the senior of the great publishing house, sits behind his grey team, looking straight ahead through his gold-rimmed spectacles and unconscious of all surroundings. And now comes dashing past in his light phaeton the “heavy tragedian”, Forrest, and we catch a glimpse from under their depressed lids, of the Moorish eyes which Desdanona told us last night, at Niblo's, were ‘fatal when they roll so’. But look! quick! for yonder, on her beautiful cream-colored pony, attended by two handsome cavaliers, comes the belle of ‘the avenue’. We will not name her, but everyone knows there can be but one belle of the avenue who can sit a horse so superbly, and whose eyes flash such dark fire from under the close-fitting beaver that crowns her pale, Greek face like a helmet. Close following in high-top boots and jockey cap, comes a little horseman who for the last fortnight has been the observed of all observers. It is little Harry Belmont. We need not fear to name for he is attended by a careful groom, and his quaint and knowing costume and carefully dressed curls show very plainly that his lady mother knows he's out. But little Harry must look to his laurels, for Mr. Rarey himself is coming home with his vanquished Cruiser, and in another week, perhaps, we may have him cruising through the Park, to the despair of all equestrains. But while we sweep past the gay cavalcade or linger to hear the ‘silver-snarling trumpets’ flinging their last notes across the lake, the red sun is sinking through an ominous cleft in the western clouds, and the Indian summer day is ‘dying, dying, dying.’ As we reach home the gas-lights are kindling their early fires through the dim, rich streets on Murray Hill, and the Indian summer day is dead.”(1)
It was not merely the splendors of New York which Sarah Whitman saw in those years that preceded the war. But she was conscious of less fortunate groups which she witnessed there, and her sympathies were always with these [page 533:] people. On a cold Sunday afternoon in 1855, while driving out with some friends, she chanced to pass the Tombs; and, with these friends, she paused to contemplate with some sadness this grim facade.
“A group of half-clad children and forlorn looking little girls were sitting on the granite steps, or standing sad and listless under the gloomy portices of the prison,” Mrs. Whitman related. “Presently a hand organ on the street struck up a merry tune, and all the pale, shivering little elves began whirling and waltzing between the massive pillars, and dancing like madeaps and masrads to its cheering and enlivening influence. Doubtless one ought to have been shocked by such untimely levity and have administered a reproof to the little Sabbath breakers, but tears, sad and sweet, sprang to our eyes, and we could only be devoutly thankful that heaven ad sent them a hand organ.”(1)
Mrs. Whitman did not forget the misery of this scene, and particularly did she remember the joy which had been produced by the organ grinder. A few years later when an effort was made to silence the organ grinders of Providence, she wrote a public plea and defense for these merry music makers. She cited Madame de Staël, Byron, and the Duchess of Marlborough as enthusiastic admirers of this type of music; and admitting Dr. Holmes’ dislike of the grind organ, she excused him on the ground that he was a Cambridge-born Bostonian. As for herself, she said, she welcomed this long-haired foreigner who, followed by a train of happy little truants came up the street playing the organ. Classical music was all right in its way; it was something very. fine to talk about, and one night enjoy “sitting it out” at a “high-priced concert”; but Sarah Whitman felt that “all [page 534:] genial and, generous natures whether or not they are courageous enough to confess it, have a liking, with Sheridan for ‘music that will grind.’” It was a tyrannical guardian of the public peace who would disperse the organ grinder with his happy followers.(1)
Mrs. Whitman's associations and experiences had now brought her into close contact with the life of three of the principle cities of the East — Providence, Boston, and New York, But in 1857, through the generosity of her friend, Horace Day, she was able to extend her travels, to foreign shores. From her father Mrs, Whitman had possibly inherited something of a roving disposition, and from her thorough cultural background of study she long since had developed an interest in European life and literature. It was therefore with something of an unusual thrill that she set sail for England in the early part of 1857 in company with Sarah Gould and Horace Day.(2) Having for some years successfully corresponded for the Providence Journal she was nova engaged by this paper to contribute her European -experiences for the benefit of its readers.
Mrs. Whitman's first letters to the Journal told of London and of the Many spots of interest which had haunted her imagination since as a child she had looked at pictures in a copy of London Cries and wondered at the long poles from which extended strings of household linen. Here were all of the endless panoramas which had overlaid themselves on her “mind's mystic palimpsest, and constituted [page 535:] its ideal London”. Here were Blackfriars, St. Paul's, St. Bride's, and Drury's, all of which charmed her with memories of Garrick and Siddons, Sheridan and the Kembles.(1) She wrote of a Handel festival at which she saw the queen, accompanied by Albert and the ill-fated Maximillian. The queen looked somewhat bored while the mighty organ and a chorus of two thousand voices brought to Sarah Whitman that sense of bewildering awe which she had experienced on first approaching Niagara.(2)
But Sarah Whitman was now in England, the England of the poets, and particularly the England of Byron. She visited the tomb of Byron's father, and traveling to Kensington Gore, she found “Gore House,” the last English residence of her “kinsman”, Marguerite, Countess of Blessington. Her next letter therefore bore a description of “Gore House”, and told of her feelings concerning its former mistress.
“It was unoccupied and its desolate chambers and neglected grounds looked still more desolate from the vivid remembrances which they evoked fret the wits, the statesmen, the artists, and the men of letters who once frequented its gay saloons. I thought of its beautiful mistress in all of the different phases of her romantic career. I remembered her as Margaret Power, the fascinating little belle of Clonmel coteries; as Margaret Farmer, the reluctant and wayward ‘childwife’ of the English captain of Dragoons; as Margarite, the brilliant, the beautiful, ‘the most gorgeous Lady Blessington’. I remembered her sweet unworldly nature, her quick generous sympathy withal suffering; her lavish charities and most loving appreciation of all genius and all goodness. I remembered the witchery of her voice which made her rare personal loveliness felt but as a secondary attraction; the child-like joyousness of her soft sweet Irish laugh and Irish accent; which always made the hearts of her visitors beat quick with pleasure and caused an intense sense [page 536:] of enjoyment to all who came within the influence of her presence. I remembered all these and was almost ready to avow with Mrs. Hall (the author of a graceful and generous tribute to her memory) an utter disbelief of all that had been said to her discredit. In the desolate saloons of Gore House, and in the neglected grottos and garden seats of its once beautiful grounds I passed one of the saddest, sweetest hours I have known in England.”(1)
A journey to Bath brought the pleasure of a visit to Fonthill Abbey, and Mrs. Whitman now wrote of William Beckford whose fantastic conceptions she felt had influenced Poe.
“Here were passed the last years of William Beckford, the eccentric author of Vathek, and the luxurious proprietor of Fonthill Abbey. It was here that he sought to realize the last dreams of his marvelous fancy it seems to have -been his costly and mournful ambition to erect for himself a gorgeous palace of art in which he. might live and die alone. But an eternal unrest consumed him and one after another his rare creations were, like his paradise at Cintra (made memorable in Byron's beautiful description) abandoned to desolation and decay. That most grand and terrible conception of retribution and despair ‘The Ball of Eblist might well have emanated from such a brain. Mr. Beckford was undoubtedly what might be called in our day a ‘medium.” — the victim perhaps of some demonic possession. His Vathek was written in French at a single sitting of three nights and two days, and without intervening sleep or rest. May not his rare intellectual tastes, his lavish expenditures in architectural creation, his solitary and restless life have suggested to Tennyson his wonderful ‘Palace of Art’, and to Edgar Poe that strange and sumptuous fantasy, ‘The Domain of Arnheim, one of his most cherished and favorite conceptions.”(2)
While in Bath, Mrs. Whitman had the pleasure of taking tea with Walter Savage Landor, and she thus enlarged her acquaintance among men of literary significance. Her account of this visit gives not only her own interesting [page 537:] experience in meeting another English poet, but also some of the peculiarities of the eccentric Landor.
“Yesterday we accepted an invitation to take tea with Walter Savage Lander at his house in River Street. Hardly less of a recluse than. the author of Vathek, Mr. Lander Mores general society, professes not to know a dozen people in England, and politely expresses his enjoyment in the society of foreigners. Mr. Emerson in his English traits speaks of l’a.n.dor as one of the three or four persons whom he wished to see in visiting Europe. He still lives as in Italy, among a cloud of pictures. His rooms are hung from basement to attic with rare paintings by the best of French, English and Italian rasters. Dutch pictures he does not like and has carefully weeded them from his walls. He holds to the only orthodox creed in art, that beauty should be its sole and devout aim. Among his pictures was a beautiful portrait of the mother of Sheridan, by Romney. It was full of riant, sparkling life, and showed the clear bright fountain from which sprang the vivacious wit of the brilliant orator and conversationalist, A picture of Europa by Corregio, pleased me more than all the rest. With one hand she had grasped a horn of the stately animal. she rode, while the other, filled with roses, was pressed tenderly against his cheek. There was a strange ideal charm in her innocent playfulness and the aerial lightness with which she seemed borne along through a solemn mysterious atmosphere, whose lurid gloom beautifully relieved her soft pearly cheek and fluttering milk white robes. I can never forget this picture. I afterwards found it was a great favorite with Mr. Landor, who said he would rather part with every picture in his collection than with this.
His conversation surprises by its freshness and novelty, and stimulates by its resistance. With all this fine taste and culture he is too arbitrary in his opinions and too eccentric in his tastes to be a safe guide to others; but it is pleasant to talk with a man who has faith in his own fancies. His manners are a singular compound of noble courtesy and abrupt uncompromising protest and assertion. He said, ‘you have great writers in your country’, and spoke in high praise of 1erson; recalling with evident pleasure their personal interviews in Italy many years ago. He objected to his style as to that of many of the ablest English writers of the last half century; insisting on a classic directness and transparency [page 538:] of diction as one of the cardinal virtues. Among others, he instanced Sidney Smith and Washington. Irving as examples of faultless style. But to assert that the colossal and shadowy dreams, the intricate and labyrinthian fancies of De Quincey could be adequately expressed in a style that is adapted to the racy humor and practical common sense of Sidney Smith, or to insist that the scope, the subtlety, the insight, the remote and starlike beauty of Emerson's thought can be told in the sweet familiar phrase of Irving, is simply to ask that which is, in the very nature of things impossible. As well require that the bulbul and the nightingale should sing like the robin and the leak, or that the night blooming cereus should yield the perfume of the day-lily and the violet. He praised, with much emphasis, the writings of Miss Lynn — ”Aminone’, ‘Azette, the Egyptian’, and some others. He said they combined some of the finer attributes of Rousseau's genius, with the intellectual freedom of De Staël. I believe these works are just being republished in America. He “professed never to have heard of the author of ‘Christie Johnstone’, whose last novel has so stirred the sympathies of all American readers. With the exception of Howitt's last work which has just been sent him by the author, I saw no book in his apartments. He is said. to give away his books as soon as he has read them; a most princely and gracious habit. Beautiful flowers were on the table and bloomed in. beds of earth on the broad atom ledges of the windows, an almost universal custom in Bath. He gave us moss roses and musk plants at parting, and we left him with pleasant memories of the hours passed in. his society. He invited us to return on the morrow and see his pictures by the morning light. But today we went with a party of friends to Clifton, and tomorrow we leave Bath, with its grand old Abbey, — ‘the lantern of England’ — its Temple of Minerva, its Roman ruins and its medieval relics, for sunny France.’”(1)
Mrs. Whitman now wrote of Paris with its many beautiful ladies in billowy flounces riding through the parks and along the Champs Elysées, of St. Germain, and of Versailles. Calais with its old church tower had brought thoughts of Ruskin, the critic, ‘and Turner, the artist. The world was still undecided. about Turner, and Ruskin bad predicted that Turner's mantle would fall to a young “artist [page 539:] medium”, whose drawings he had pronounced “transcendently and supernaturally beautiful”. Mrs. Whitman had not lain aside her interest in Spiritualism, and Ruskin's prediction held significance for her, Then while in France she had paused in Rouen to think of its “sweet Spiritualist” — Joan of Arc, who had in this spot “expiated her sincere and guileless faith in angelic ministries by a fiery martyrdom.”(1)
The journey to France became even more inspirational when she visited the Chateau Grammont, where in a little enclosure adjoining the village cemetery, she found the tomb of the Lady Blessington.. Here Mrs. Whitman paused to do homage to that lady whose veins had held the blood of her ancestral Poers, and whose love had been an inspiration to the world's great lover — Byron.(2)
Throughout her journey Mrs. Whitman contributed letters to the Journal and these letters met with such success that on her return to America she received an offer of a position as European correspondent for an American newspaper. This position, which would have necessitated her living a year in Europe, she declined on the ground of possible homesickness, perhaps never mentioning the more obvious family difficulties which would have made her acceptance of such a position impossible.(3) Even while in Europe she was constantly worried concerning Mrs. Payer's . health, and Anna's mental condition would never have permitted her absence for so long a time from Providence. [page 540:]
So Mrs. Whitman returned to Providence in July, thoroughly impressed with the scenery of Europe, but much more impressed with the possibilities of American scenery, which was being spoiled by the much of progress, She now began a series of essays, published at various intervals during the remainder of her life, in which she advocated civic improvement — the preservation and enhancement of spots of natural beauty around Providence — the building of parks and playgrounds where people. could enjoy a natural beauty which rivalled that of any place in America or Europe. In the autumn she strolled out over those hills which she had enjoyed all of the years of her life She now recalled walks and conversations with Margaret Fuller before Margaret “went across the sea to fulfil her tragic destiny”; she thought of Anne Lynch whose presence in the city had formerly made Providence such a pleasant place for living. And she remembered those strolls with William Ellery Channing, who used to walk with her in the dead of winter, and who knew the names of all the trees by the structure-of their leafless limbs, But the scenery which they bad known was gone; the whole valley of the Woonasquatucket, from the cove basin to the village of Rutenberg, had yielded to change. All natural beauty was disappearing. No longer could she wander about Providence and hope to find the scenery she had revelled in in days gone by. The trees were disappearing; the flowers were gone, and even some of the hills were being levelled. She now plead [page 541:] through the papers for consideration of this loss.(1)
But July of the following year found Mrs. Whitman seeking other spots of natural beauty. In company with Horace Day, Sarah Gould, Mrs. Smith, and others she made a memorable trip to Niagara Falls which Mrs. Smith recorded in successive numbers of her magazine in an article entitled “The Seven Travellers”. Then later in. the year she went with Mrs. Smith to the White Mountains where she made what was to her at that time a rather perilous ascent of Mt. Washington. This incident, as she related it for the Journal, reveals something of her delightful personality and good humor in the year 1858.
“When we reached the Alpine House under a glaring four o’clock sun, not knowing that we had arrived at our destination I asked impatiently: ‘When are we going to the mountains?’ I was among them — at their very feet — and did not know it, But when the darkness came out of its hiding place in their great ravines, and climbed upward and upward through their hollow clefts and chasms, from ledge to ledge, from rampart to rampart, from hill to hill, — when the last red rays paled and faded from their dusky cones, and the mountains rose ever higher and higher to meet the stars that kindled among their summits my soul expanded slowly, silently, reverently, and them in forever, . ... . . Arrived at the stables where our horses awaited us, I found myself promoted to the back of a pernicious little pony called ‘Spindletail’, with an earnest injunction. from the guide to let him ‘wander at his own sweet will’, without molestation or hindrance — Horsemanship is not my specialty and I was well satisfied at being freed from all equestrain [[equestrian]] responsibilities. I imagined that Spindletail would need no more management than
That wondrous horse of brass
Whereon the Tartar King did ride.
I expected to have been carried through the clouds and over the mountains as on an enchanted steed. The result was not altogether in accordance with my [page 542:] expectations. On giving him the reins he dashed up the road in advance of the party and commenced operations by enacting a series of pirouettes, that would have immortalized him at the Hippodrome, directly in front of a stage wagon that was approaching from the Glen House. A collision seemed inevitable, but one of our wary guides rushed to the rescue and recommending a change of tactics, frankly admitted that Spindletail though kind, was quick and sometimes needed a little management. I must in all candor record it against him that either with or without management he was an aggravating aggressive, treacherous little pony. I do not wish to be hard upon him or to injure his standing among the mountaineers; I am even willing to sum up his disagreements by saying of him what Talleyrand said of one of his intimate friends, the was unendurable, but then it was his only fault.’ I am inclined to think from Spindle's subsequent treatment of me that he heartily reciprocated this opinion. ... At length the inevitable moment had arrived. A guide lifted me into the saddle and leading my horse a few feet over the stony barrier of the crater, left him to pick his downward way through the pathless rocks below. To my infinite gratification and surprise, Spindletail seemed to have renounced all of his erratic propensities, and to have undergone some, mysterious process of rareyfication. He placed himself discreetly en queue behind a portly gentleman who rode a rough-looking charger — an equivocal mal pene — known by the classic name of Comus. I think it should have been spelled, with a b after the m. In this friendly consociation we stumbled sedately along, while I patted Spindletail's neck and called him caressing names to indicate my entire satisfaction at his deportment. Presently at a perilous pass in the road, Corms made some mischievous demonstration which caused the portly gentleman rather hastily to dismount; whereupon my treacherous little pony laid himself deliberately down in the road and very unceremoniously rolled me off among the boulders. Doubtless there was a preconcerted plan between Spindle and Comus to free themselves of their several encumbrances at the first convenient locality. ‘What private griefs they had that made them do it, I cannot say but after so gross an act of incivility I could hardly be expected to endorse the guide's statement that Spindletail was kind. I escaped however with a few bruises, and was presently provided with another horse.(1)
The passion for travel seems to have remained with Mrs. Whitman for some years to come. In the latter [page 543:] part of 1858 she toured the Thousand Islands, and on her return to New York she felt such a desire to see Niagara once again that she went there immediately and alone before returning to Providence.(1) She could never forget the excitement produced by the great falls. She had seen it first in August with Mrs. Oakes Smith, and she could never forget that scene when the lights of the burning mill gleamed fitfully over the foaming waters. To her Niagara was all that John Neal's critic had styled his poem — “one wild, weltering swash of magnificence”. March of 1859 founds Mrs. Whitman again in Washington, but in August she was off to the White Mountains in company with Anna, who had now become more erratic and changeable.
Throughout all of her travels Mrs. Whitman continued to write for the Providence Journal, describing for the benefit of the readers of that paper the many scenes which she visited. She wrote very little poetry now, but confined her efforts chiefly to journalism — to pictures of the American scene, the American people, and later the American social and political problem.
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It was one of the most accomplished ladies of the East, therefore, who invited the young poet, John Hay, to her Benefit Street parlor in 1858 while he was yet a student at Brown University. And when he delivered his class poem at the close of his senior year at Brown, Mrs. Whitman was among those who listened with great interest. [page 544:] As Hay walked down Benefit Street after the exercises, she stood at her gate, and greeting him, prophesied for him a brilliant future.(1)
Still the Egeria of her native city, Sarah Whitman now numbered among her protegees many names that were to gain recognition in the literary world. Fo r years she had advised George William Curtis, exchanging critical opinions concerning his poetry and prose; and when in 1856 he planned his publication of Trumps, he wrote: “Tell me certain true whether Trumps is worth publishing as a book with proper excisions and amplifications.” W. D. O’Connor, now an editor of the famed Saturday Evening Post, had long received her literary advice and was forming an attachment which was to become one of the closest and most valued of her life. Mrs. Julia Deane Freeman, who wrote under the pen nave of Mary Forest, had begged for her criticism “early in the fifties. Moreover, for, some time Mrs. Whitman had offered sage counsel and corrections. to Louise Chandler Moulton, later to become famous as a writer of child's stories and as a European correspondent for New York and Boston newspapers. In 1857 Mrs. Moulton had written asking if she should “hang her harp on a willow and seek her legitimate sphere outside of authorship.”(3) Throughout the remainder of her life Mrs. Whitman was to play this role of Egeria, offering her criticism to friends both in and away from Providence; and this was a role which she thoroughly [page 545:] enjoyed. But perhaps the young protegee who was destined to become most famous of all whom she advised was John Hay.
Brown University had been chosen for young Hay, not only because it was a Baptist institution, but also because it was one of the best; and the Hay family had early decided that john was an unusual boy who must have the best training. However, college was not a happy place for young hay. He was shy, and having come from the frontier to one of the best established communities in the East, he lacked those social graces which were necessary to make his life among his college companions as happy as it should have been. Furthermore he found among his professors only one who affected him to any appreciable extent. It was therefore that, bashful and timid, yet appreciative of the poetic art, John Hay found a great intellectual awakening and an inspiration in those two literary women whom he met during the latter years of his stay in Providence — an inspiration which might have ruined a magnificent political career had it come earlier and not eventually been removed to some extent by the drab reality of the middle west into which he was thrown soon after meeting these ladies. In Nora Perry and Sarah Whitman, John Hay found a sympathy which he had failed to receive from those women of the frontier who, if they had any intellectual or aesthetic interests, were not permitted time nor opportunity to exercise them.(1)
Mr. Tyler Dennett writes that when Hay entered [page 546:] Mrs. Whitman's door, he entered a realm “the glimpse of which ravaged his starving soul.”
“In Mrs. Whitman's every feminine charm, in her style of dress, the subdued light of her pleasant rooms, the careful organization of her household, Hay found an undreamed of world. And added to this Mrs. Whitman was a literary woman of great importance. Bay had never seen a woman like this and he was swept off his feet. Cast in the mold of conventionality, and accustomed to a home of bourgeois respectability must have been fascinated by that spirit of adventure which Mrs. Whitman possessed, She understood people such as Margaret Fuller, she was a spiritualist of some renown, and she had defended literary rebels at the risk of her own reputation, . ... Always living in secure respectability with her mother and sister, she expressed heterodox opinions which shocked staid, believing Providence. She was a character. And she was a woman of 55 years when Hay met her; one year older than his mother. The very other worldliness of Sarah Whitman swept Hay off his feet, and he viewed her group with awe, regarding their literary accomplishments more as divine visitations than as the reward of long years of arduous toil and Painful experience.”
Speaking of both Mrs. Whitman and Nora Perry, Dennett continues:
“They spoke pleasantly of his verse and urged him to go on with his literary work; they did not have him long enough to teach literary self criticism and discipline. The introduction to the Whitman circle turned Hay's head, sent him back to Warsaw rebellious at his poor fate, and in a mood which blinded him to much in Illinois life which he might have appreciated with great credit to himself and profit to his future.”(2)
Some of this rebellious spirit may be seen in Hay's first letter to Mrs. Whitman written soon after his return to the Middle West, an appreciative letter which did not yet reflect the supreme melancholy which he was to reveal after he had spent more time away from Providence [page 547:] and away from those ladies who had brought him inspiration:
Mrs. Whitman:
You mast have wondered at the time that has elapsed between my promise and its fulfillment, if indeed you even gave the subject a thought, and have doubtless placed me it the category of those afflicted with the moral malady whose influence is so universal on College Hill; and dismissed me at once with the consideration that insincerity is the normal condition of a student's mind, and that my disorder had been heightened by a sudden removal to a region whose moral atmosphere was never remarkable for purity. But before you pass final judgment upon me permit me to make what explanation I may.
I delayed calling upon you until I could procure one of our class day documents, and prepare a copy of those verses which you honored me by requesting. As the term had closed and the committee in whose charge the pamphlets were left had returned home I had great difficulty in getting one; but as soon as I was successful I brought them both to your house and was greatly disappointed to find that you were absent from the city. Soon after, I received a letter informing me of the illness of a relative in Chicago, which hastened my departures and also caused me to change me intended route of travel. I thus lost the opportunity I had so earnestly desired of delivering your letter to Mr. O’Connor. I was detained a week in Chicago and some days In St. Louis and immediately on arriving at home I transmitted your letter to him enclosing it in a note of my own. I trust that this accident has only postponed the pleasure I anticipate of some day knowing him personally.
I have again copied the aforesaid verses. The copy I first made having become unpresentable in the vicissitudes of travel. I have made a few omissions in accordance with your advice but few other alterations; not because I could not discern its faults but because I felt no interest in the matter. I very much fear that if I remain in the nest I will entirely lose all the aspirations I formerly cherished and see them fading, with effortless apathy. Under the influence of the Boeotian atmosphere around me, my spirit will be subdued to what it works in and my residence in the East will remain in memory, an oasis in the desolate stretch of a material life. So before the evil days come on I cling more and more eagerly to the ties which connect me with Providence and civilization, [page 548:] and only hope those whose genius I have long admired. and whose character I lately learned to love, may not utterly cast me off, but sometimes reach me a hand in the darkness to raise and console. All the benefit would of course be confined to one party unless my friends belong to the class whom Theodore Parker mentioned as ‘having more joy in delighting than delight in enjoying.’
If it would not be taxing your kindness too far I would be glad to send you other things which I may hereafter write, and beg the favor of your criticism upon them.
Very sincerely
John Hay.(1)
John Hay's letter to Nora Perry, written on the same day expressed no less appreciation and disappointment at being cast away from the life of the East to a region where he could have only the comfort of “shadows”:
“But now that my journey is finished, and the noise and bustle that banished thought during its progress is gone, my mind has leisure to travel back to the ‘goodbye land’ that I have left, and I am willing to turn away from the familiar faces that I meet in the streets of Warsaw and go to mar room to converse with shadows. You may smile at that expression but the lady whom I now honor myself by addressing is only a shadow to me, however pleasant a reality she may be to others who are blessed with her society. And thus it is that I hasten to fulfil a promise made in a happier state of existence, and connect myself by a bond however slight, to one whom I hope you will permit me to call a friend, none the less valved because so recent ... I was exceedingly disappointed at not being able to see Mrs. Whitman before I left Providence. I delayed calling upon her for a long time, but I hope the explanation which I have sent will be sufficient to excuse me. One of the most valued of the treasures that I have brought out to gladden the solitude of a western winter is the memory of an evening that I spent at her house this summer, and I shall count it the heaviest of misfortunes to lose all hope of future intercourse with a spirit so exalted, whose influence is inevitably ups even the humblest minds which are brought in contact with it. Trusting then at some future day to renew an acquaintance whose beginning has been [page 549:] so delightful to me, and hoping that the interval of banishment may not be altogether silent, I remain yours sincerely.”(1)
The passing of time seems not to have dimmed young Hay's longing for the East, and he could not forget that sympathy which he had received from those ladies whose “flattery” he could. but esteem. But now he found more and more that he must turn from those ideals he had gleaned in Providence and bow to the almost heartless materialism of the frontier, is next letter to Sarah Whitman shows that his few months of exile have not only made him more moody but have just about “squelched” his literary ambition. His dreams must be given up, unpleasant as the parting might be.
Warsaw, December 15th 1858
Mrs. Whitman:
I cannot refrain from availing myself of the opportunity presented by your letter, of expressing to you my gratitude for your great kindness. It may seem little to you to give a few words of generous praise to a moody boy or to send to an exile in the West stray glimpses of the pleasant world he has left forever. But it is much to me. I shall always be proud, whatever befalls, that I once had the honor of writing lines which you thought it worth while to flatter, and when I read your poems a new interest will be added by the remembrance that my name abode long enough in your memory to prompt you to acts of kindness to me. I am as grateful in receiving as you are graceful in giving praise.
On returning from a hunting excursion into the wilds of Missouri, found the papers you had sent, awaiting me, and for several weeks I read repeatedly those beautiful descriptions, trying to lay the foundations of mountains in my own soul and retouching with the colors of your fancy the picture of Niagara which was fading from memory, and finding hope With that parenthesized promise to which the [page 550:] pencilled hand directed me, I thank you for the improvements you suggested, They are so natural that I wonder why I did not think of them myself. If I had had the honor of knowing you earlier, I would have had less to regret in my collegiate course, I as however thankful for your present favors and will not sigh over the irrevocable.
May I take the liberty of asking for any future records of travel, such as seem to be promised in the conclusion of your last letter, in reading your letters from Niagara I am often delighted with the full expression of thoughts that same dimly to me as I stood in the spray of the infinite torrent, and which seemed to me unutterable. And is not this the office of Genius? to set in clear and intelligible forms the vague and chaotic fancies that flit across the minds of the multitude. Is not the poet rather an Interpreter, than a Creator? It is almost the same in effect. An the Greeks thought Olympus majestic till some shepherd-poet peopled it with gods. Those fancies which in the common mind are the wild and restless float of the waves, become embodied in the mind of the poet in the perfect beauty of Aphrodite hanging forever in god-like loveliness above the tumultuous waste of the unresting sea.
For the sake of contrast let me pass from poets to myself for a moment. Some of my correspondents may have been astonished at the obstinate silence of some months. I have been very near to the valley of the shadow. I felt the deprivation keenly in the fall, when the woods were blazing with the Autumnal transfiguration and the nights slept tranced in the love of the harvest moons, I am now as well as usual.
I received a very cordial letter from Mr. O’Connor in reply to mine. When I wrote I thought there was a possibility of my passing the next few years in the East. A few months of exile has worn the lustre from my dreams and well-nigh quenched all liberal aspirations, I do not now see how I could gain either honor or profit by writing. So I suppose the sooner I turn my attention to those practical studies which are to minister to material wants in the West, the better it will be. It is unpleasant to give up my dreams, but is it not necessary? I would be very grateful to anyone who would prove it is not.
Yet in spite of all ‘the encroaching influences of barbarism, I still thick of Providence with unabated. affection and sigh for New England as a Pert for Paradise. [page 551:]
Will you please to present my respects to Miss Perry and to Dr. Helme? It is dangerous for me to write the names of Eastern friends. It makes me discontented with my surroundings.
I am very sincerely yours,
John Hay.(1)
In Warsaw John Hay felt that he was in a Boeotian atmosphere, cut off from Providence and civilization. As Tyler Bennett has remarked, he was a boy in need of hard work and a good healthy diversion. And the society of these two Providence women had not been the healthiest diversion that a young boy could find — particularly a boy subject to the whims and melancholy fits of depression. which young Hay had inherited from the Leonard side of his family. Some years later when Hay spoke of Lincoln's constitutional sadness, he attributed its origin to the “severe and dismal loneliness of the lives of the early settlers” and also to malaria. It was now both malaria and loneliness which were producing these fits of melancholy in young Hay. Again, there was no room for genius in the West. And it was genius that John Hay felt that he missed.
“I received Mrs. Whitman's very kind letter a day or two ago,” he wrote Nora Perry. “To have friends esteemed like her, welcome me so cordially back to life is something worth being sick for. I will seize the privilege of writing to her soon. When I last wrote I promised to send her something saved from the wreck that burnt in my stove last winter. But I concluded not to look back, and so will request you to hand her the enclosed affair, being the only fruit of so many months of exile.”(2)
Throughout the winter of 1858 John Hay seems to have suffered an illness which together with his great loneliness [page 552:] produced a melancholy that was growing dangerous.
Be wrote of his difficulties to Mrs. Whitman, and she, not being unaccustomed to this condition, suggested that he accept Spiritualism. Son of a Baptist missionary of the strictest of the Baptist sect, and a man of conventional religious faith, John Hay had never been greatly interested in the dogmas of religion. He was not now ready to adopt Spiritualism, but through Sarah Whitman he had learned to respect the faith. In May, 1849 [[1859]], he wrote Perry:
I am going to join a spiritual circle soon. I am, of course, an unbeliever, but Mrs. Whitman has taught me to respect the new revelation, if not to trust it. How happy I should have been under other circumstances in my acquaintance with a soul so pure and high as hers. Tell her something for me that will not make her think less of me.
An observance of the mental processes of young John Hay during those lonely years when he spent his time idealizing memories of pleasant acquaintances in Providence and confiding his melancholy and discontent to these two middle-aged ladies, might lead one to agree that what young Hay really did need was more work and more good healthy exercise, On the other hand, Providence and the associations there held ninny advantages for key; for, when, following the election of Lincoln, he assisted his friend Nicolay, now secretary to the President, he had acquired a sophistication which the Lincoln party on its way to the “Capitol sorely and conspicuously needed. According to Mr. Tyler Dennett, Hay's most recent biographer, the genesis at this sophistication is to be seen at least partially [page 553:] in those few calls at the Sarah Whitman in Providence.(1)
Sarah Whitman's interest in John Hay was purely that of a literary adviser. It was simply the interest of a mature woman in assisting a brilliant youth in forming his poetic and philosophic habits — and in the case of John Hay she was perhaps more interested in his poetic possibilities than in any other phase of his character. She corresponded with him; but she only once or twice mentioned hin in correspondence with other people. She did once, however, speak with some pride of a letter which Hay had written concerning her Edgar Poe and His Critics. He had told how this book lay on the table of Governor Bissell at his death, and how it was nearest the governor's hand when he breathed his last.(2) Mrs. Whitman's friendship with Hay continued, and she later sought his assistance in a question necessitating higher official interference.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - JGV40, 1940] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence (Varner)