Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 163: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Nov. 14 and Nov. 20, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 457-460 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 457, continued:]

163. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 303

My dear friend,

The contents of your letter [Nov. 2] interested me more than I can tell you, what you say about “Landor's Cottage,” more especially. I had so often asked the question of persons likely to know, & now, when I had given up all hope of its being answered, it is answered in accordance with my dearest wishes. I have told you under what circumstances Poe told me of his intention to write a pendant to his “Domain of Arnheim.” Assuredly you were destined to the work which you are so effectually performing.

A beautiful letter from Mallarmé speaks of your “noble work as having avenged his memory.”

How did you find out that the “pendant” had been offered to Post?

Mallarmé wrote to explain about the Corbeau & to tell me if nothing further was heard from it before November — his letter was dated October 19 — he would send me one of his own copies, with every precaution that it should not fail to reach its destination. He also told me of his wish to dedicate to me the volume of translations from Poe's poems, which he hoped to bring out during the ensuing winter, or spring, or later.

I wonder if he has yet attempted “Ulalume”? I think any translator would find it difficult to translate a poem which English readers still find so difficult to interpret.

I have explained to him carefully all that Poe said to me on the subject, & in doing so a light broke on me as to the meaning of that last [page 458:] verse, and I began to feel that it is necessary to the comprehension of the poem. Above all, it explains that the planet, whose “duplicate horns” were seen on the eastern horizon, was a mirage of the fancy; for, of course, he could not normally, with the natural eye, have distinguished the crescent phase of the star; and in the last verse he tells us that it was the “Spectre of a planet” which the pitiful wood-demons had miraculously evoked to lure him from sorrowful thoughts & beguile him with visionary hopes of love & happiness that might yet be his, until he discovered that the planet was rising directly over the sepulchre wherein his Virginia lay entombed. Then, overwhelmed with that remorseful sorrow that seems always to have visited him when his thoughts reverted from some dream of present happiness to the memory of a lost love, he explains, “Oh what demon has tempted me here?” In this view of the theme of the poem, is not the last verse, however obscure, necessary to its elucidation?

You ask what were the passages in O’Connor's paper which Miss Rice wished him to qualify. It was, I think, something indicative of Walt Whitman's supremacy as a poet, & some expressions of indignation at the want of sympathy shown by some of the American literati as to the erection of a monument to the memory of Edgar Poe — only this & nothing more.

About Gill's Laurel Leaves, which you tell me you have not seen. He is now, as he informs me, about to publish the two articles on Poe in a volume, with some quotations from my book! & requests permission to engrave for his work “the oval portrait,” the same which you have of me from an oil painting. On this proposition I put a decided veto. Miss Rice proposed the same thing to me last spring, in relation to the Memorial volume, but I told her that without having the terms of the engraver & the privilege, in case I acceded to them, of purchasing & withholding the engraved portrait, if not satisfied with the result, I could not consent to the use of the photograph, which cannot legally be used without the consent of the artist who painted & has a copyright of the picture. I moreover demanded to see the proofs of what he, Gill, had taken from my book & the revision of anything which he had published in relation to me. The book will probably be of the compact size of the Bric-a-Brac volumes. As soon as it is issued (it is now going through the press as he writes), I will send you the volume.

The Laurel Leaves form a large & very heavy volume. Perhaps it will be better to wait for this. If you think so, I will send the book as soon as it is out.

This is the matter which he wanted Widdleton to buy & publish with Didier's, making one volume. Didier would not consent to this, & [page 459:] now Widdleton having finally rejected the proposal, Gill intends, I believe, to publish it himself.

Much delay has ensued as to Widdleton's publication of Didier's “Memoir”, & now the intense excitement attending the presidential election will probably prolong the delay.

I want my letter to go by tomorrow's mail & must try to bring it to a close.

My dear MacRaven,

It is now the 20th of November & the letter which began on the 14th is still unfinished. Engagements which could not be avoided interrupted the completion of my letter. The week has been a week of political anxiety & elemental storm. Everything is at a deadlock until we know under what king we are to serve. Many think that we are on the brink of another Civil War!

You ask if I knew anything of a Mrs. Osborne. Probably not the one of whom you speak. The one of whom I knew something did not, I think, know Poe. Again, you ask if I know anything of the Flag of the Nation. Was it not the paper in which the lines “For Annie” first appeared?(1) You speak of the loss of two photographs I sent you. They were the two taken by Coleman from copies (one from a photograph & the other from a lithograph) of the “Ultima Thule” portrait. Well, a daguerreotype taken years ago from the original daguerreotype has recently been recovered by Mr. Lewin, now of Boston, an artist of fine genius, after having been lent & lost or withheld for twelve years! Knowing that I had been making enquiries for this portrait, Mrs. Lewin brought the daguerreotype to me on a recent visit to Providence & at my request took it to Manchester and allowed him to take a negative from it. Mr. Lewin would not consent to have a daguerreotype taken from it. But I purchased from Manchester half a dozen copies, of which the enclosed is one. Does this resemble the daguerreotype which Ossian Dodge told you Poe gave him?

In your last you told me you were going to take tea with Mrs. Lewis & would try to find out about the date of hers. Did she inform you?

I have heard nothing about the Baltimore Memorial for some three weeks. I fancy the unsettled state of business in consequence of uncertainty as to the presidential election has delayed all publishing enterprises in Baltimore.

A young friend of mine, an artist, leaves tomorrow, intending to pass the winter in Paris; he will sail on Wednesday. I have given him an introductory note to our friend Rose & one to M. Mallarmé. I have also at Mallarmé's request, given him a note to Rose. He writes that I told him I had a friend residing in Paris & hopes it is not too late to make [page 460:] her acquaintance. But I think it must have been from you that he learned it. I do not remember having told him, but perhaps I did.

The Corbeau has not yet alighted on my bust of Apollo! I am sorry that he has had so much trouble about it. I shall look eagerly for your friend's life of Shelley. I see that Mrs. Browning's correspondence with Horne is to be published. You did not tell me in what number of the. Athenaeum was your notice of Neal.

And now once more, ave atque vale, and believe me ever & ever your “Providence,”

P.S. Did you tell me that you had found a copy of Lowell's article on Poe in Graham's for February 1845? If not, I could send you one. It is an odd number that was found by me among a pile of old newspapers in the garret. The covers are torn off & the portrait that must originally have accompanied it is gone. I have just found it & have not yet had time to see how it compares with the one in Griswold's compilation.

There is one word in the extract you give from Mrs. Gove Nichols’ account of her visit to the Fordham cottage that I do earnestly wish you would change, if you publish the extract in future editions. It is to be found at the foot of the 62nd page of your “Memoir” in the sentence, “There he stood with his arms crossed before the tormented bird.” etc. Can you not in any future edition say the “imprisoned bird” instead of the “tormented”? It may seem a slight thing, but I never recur to it without pain.

Has Mrs. Nichols ever published her “Reminiscences of Poe,” as you told me she proposed to do? And do you ever see her now? Don’t forget to tell me how you found out about “Landor's Cottage.”

And now, once more, bon soir & benedicite.

Nothing recently from Didier about Widdleton's intentions.

 

1. The Flag of Our Union was founded by Frederick Gleason in 1846 and quickly became a leading American weekly in circulation, with Park Benjamin, Horatio Alger, Frances Osgood, and Edgar Poe among its contributors. Poe said that it was not very respectable but that it paid well ($5 a “Graham” page, $5 for a sonnet). Gleason sold out to his editor, Martin M. Ballou, in 1854, and the magazine continued to publish until 1870.