Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

had been seen by him, so it is averred, it on his way, from Boston, when he visited that city to deliver a poem before the Lyceum there. Restless, near midnight, he wandered from his hotel near where she lived, until he saw her walking in a garden.’ He related the incident afterwards in one of his most exquisite poems, worthy of himself, of her, and of the most exalted passion.”* There is no need to inquire into the truth of this romantic story, which Poe’s poem, indeed, lends some colouring to, it sufficing to record that the poet had for some long time past expressed deep interest in Mrs. Whitman’s poetic contributions to the magazines, and had alluded to them, on several occasions, in the most flattering terms. Eventually, upon a so-called “Valentine” party being given to the literati of New York, in the winter of 1847-8, Mrs. Whitman, at a friend’s request, contributed some anonymous verses to the author of “The Raven” The remainder of the story may be continued in Poe“s own words in a long subsequent letter to the lady: — “I have already told you that some few casual words spoken of you by —— ——, were the first in which I had ever heard your name mentioned. She alluded to what she called your ‘eccentricities,’ and hinted at your sorrows. Her description of the former strangely arrested — her allusion to the latter enchained and rivetted my attention. “She had referred to thoughts, sentiments, traits, moods, which I knew to be my own, but which, until that moment, I had believed to be my own solely — unshared by any human being. A profound sympathy took immediate possession of my soul. I cannot better explain to you what I felt than by saying that your unknown beat seemed to pass into my bosom — there to dwell for ever — while mine, I thought, was translated into your own. “From that hour I loved you. Since that period I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver, half of delight, half of anxiety. — The impression left upon my mind was that you were still a wife, and it is only within the last few months that I have been undeceived in this respect. “For this reason I shunned your presence and even the city in which you lived. You may remember that once when I passed through Providence with Mrs. Osgood I positively refused to accompany her to your house, and even provoked her into a quarrel by the obstinacy and seeming unreasonableness of my refusal I dared neither go nor say why I could not. I dared not speak of you — much less see you. For years your name never passed my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, all that was uttered in my presence respecting you. “The merest whisper that concerned you awoke in me a shuddering sixth sense, vaguely compounded of fear, ecstatic happiness and a wild inexplicable sentiment that resembled nothing so nearly as a consciousness of guilt. “Judge, then, with what wondering, unbelieving joy, I received, in your well-known MS., the Valentine which first gave me to see that you knew me to exist. “The idea of what men call Fate lost then in my eyes its character of futility. I felt that nothing hereafter was to be doubted, and lost myself for many weeks in one continuous, delicious dream, where all was a vivid, yet indistinct bliss is immediately after reading the Valentine, I wished to contrive some mode of acknowledging — without wounding you by seeming directly to acknowledge — my sense — oh, my keen — my exulting — my ecstatic sense of the honour you had conferred on me. To accomplish as I wished it, precisely what I wished, seemed impossible, however; and I was on the point of abandoning the idea, when my eyes fell upon a volume of my own poems; and then the lines I had written, in my passionate boyhood, to the first purely ideal love of my soul — to the Helen Stannard of whom I told you — flashed upon my recollection. I turned to them. They expressed all — all that I would have said to you — so fully — so accurately and so exclusively, that a thrill of intense superstition ran at once through my forma Read the verses and then take into consideration the peculiar need I had, at the moment, for just so seemingly an unattainable mode of communication with you as they afforded. Think of the absolute appositeness with which they fulfilled that need — expressing not only all that I would have said of your person, but all that of which I moat wished to assure you, in the lines commencing — “On desperate seas long wont to roam,” Think of the rare agreement of name, and you will no longer wonder that to one accustomed as I am to the Calculus of Probabilities, they wore an air of positive, miracle. . . . I yielded at once to an overwhelming sense of Fatality. From that hour I have never been able to shake from my soul the belief that my Destiny, for good or for evil, either here or hereafter, is in some measure interwoven with your own. “Of course I did not expect, on your part, any acknowledgment of the printed lines ‘To Helen;’ and yet, without confessing it even to myself, I experienced an indefinable sense of sorrow in your silence. At length, when I thought you had time fully to forget me (if, indeed, you had had ever really remembered) I sent you the anonymous lines in MS. I wrote, first, through a pining, burning desire to communicate with you in some way — even if you remained in ignorance of your correspondent. The mere thought that your dear fingers would press — your sweet eyes dwell upon characters which I had penned — characters which had welled out upon the paper from the depths of so devout a love — filled my soul with a rapture, which seemed, then, all sufficient for my human nature. It then appeared to me that merely this one thought involved so much of bliss that here on earth I could have no right ever to repine — no room for discontent. If ever, then, I dared to picture for myself a richer happiness, it was always connected with your image in Heaven. But there was yet another idea which impelled me to send you those lines: — I said to myself the sentiment — the holy passion which glows in my bosom for her, is of Heaven, heavenly, and has no taint of the earth. Thus then must lie in the recesses of her own pure bosom, at least the germ of a reciprocal love, and if this be indeed so, she will need no earthly clue — she will instinctively feel who is her correspondent — In this case, then, I may hope for some faint token at least, giving me to understand that the source of the poem is known and its sentiment comprehended even if disapproved. “O God! — how long — how long I waited in vain — hoping against hope — until, at length, I became possessed with a spirit far sterner — far more reckless than despair — I explained to you — but without detailing the vital influences they wrought upon my fortune — the singular additional, yet seemingly trivial fatality by which you happened to address your anonymous stanzas to Fordham instead of New York — by which my aunt happened to get notice of their being in the West Farm post, office. But I have not yet told you that your lines reached me in Richmond on the very day in which I was about to enter on a course which would have borne me far, far away from you, sweet, sweet Helen, and from this divine dream of your love.” In the above words Poe has depicted his ideal feelings only, for, as yet, they do not portray any personal knowledge of Mrs. Whitman. The lady’s poetic response, and a vivid lifelike dream Mrs. Osgood’s verbal description of her had excited, determined the poet to seek an introduction to his unknown correspondent. In the meanwhile, he wrote to an English acquaintance visiting Providence, under date of June 10th, 1848, these words of inquiry: — “Do you know Mrs. Whitman? I feel deep interest in her poetry and character. I have never seen her — never but once. —— ——, however, told me many things about the romance of her character which singularly interested me and excited my curiosity. Her poetry is beyond question poetry — instinct with genius. Can you not tell ms something about her — anything — everything you know — and keep any secret — that is to say, let no one know that I have asked you to do so? May I trust you? I can and will. — Believe me truly your friend, EDGAR A. POE.” Soon after this letter reached its destination, its recipient visited Mrs. Whitman at her mother’s house. Miss Maria McIntosh, the well-known authoress, was present, and, it being a bright moonlight night, she remarked to Mrs. Whitman, “ ‘On such a night as this,’ one month ago, I met Mr. Poe for the first time, at the house of a gentleman in Fordham, and his whole talk was about you.” Upon hearing this, the English lady, upon whose secrecy Poe had so implicitly relied, spoke of the letter she had received containing the above cited inquiries, and, ultimately, gave the letter itself to Mrs. Whitman. In the ensuing September Edgar Poe sought and obtained a letter of introduction from Miss McIntosh, and presented it to Mrs. Whitman in person. He repeated his visit, and avowed a love to which, for many reasons, the lady dared not respond. On bidding the poet farewell, however, she promised to write to him and explain many things which she could not impart in conversation. In his answer to her first letter occur these words: — “I have pressed your letter again and again to my lips, sweetest Helen — bathing it in tears of joy, or of a ‘divine despair.’ But I — who so lately, in your presence, vaunted the ‘power of words’ — of what avail are mere words to me now? Could I believe in the efficiency of prayers to the God of Heaven, I would indeed kneel — humbly kneel — at this the most earnest epoch of my life — kneel in entreaty for words — but for words that should disclose to you — that might enable me to lay bare to you my whole heart All thoughts — all passions seem now merged in that one consuming desire — the mere wish to make you comprehend — to make you see that for which there is no human voice — the unutterable fervour of my love for you: — for so well do I know your poet nature, that I feel sure if you could but look down now into the depths of my soul with your pure spiritual eyes you could not refuse to speak to me what, alas! you still resolutely leave unspoken, — you would love me if only for the greatness of my love. Is it not something in this cold, dreary world to be loved? Oh, if I could but burn into your spirit the deep — the true meaning which I attach to those three syllables underlined! but, alas! the effort is all in vain and ‘I live and die unheard.’ . . . “Could I but have held you close to my heart and whispered to you the strange secrets of its passionate history, then indeed you would have seen that it was not and never could have been in the power of any other than yourself to move me as I am now moved — to oppress me with this ineffable emotion — to surround and bathe me in this electric light, illumining and enkindling my whole nature — filling my soul with glory, with wonder, and with awe. During our walk in the cemetery I said to you, while the bitter, bitter tears sprang into — my eyes, I Helen, I love now — now — for the first and only time.’ I said this, I repeat, in no hope that you could believe me, but because I could not help feeling how unequal were the heart riches we might offer each to each; — I, for the first time, giving my all at once and for ever, even while the words of your poem were yet ringing in my ears. “Ah, Helen, why did you show them to me I There seemed, too, so very especial a purpose in what you did. Their very beauty was cruelty to me.” . . . The poem alluded to was one entitled “April Nights,” and had just been returned to Mrs. Whitman by the editor of the Columbian Magazine, with a request that she would alter a line in the manuscript. The lines were not shown for the special purpose Poe would seem to indicate. The poet’s own passionate words will, however, best portray the influence