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

that called forth the words of indignant protest which have already been cited from his letter of the 18th of October. Directly he had read the letter some casual visitors arrived, and he arose to take his departure. “I saw by the expression of his countenance,” said Mrs. Whitman, “as he held my hand for a moment, in taking leave of me, that something had strangely moved him I said, ‘We shall see you this evening?’ He merely bowed without replying.” That evening, as was but natural to have foreseen, Poe sent Mrs. Whitman a note of renunciation and farewell, therein remarking that if they met again it would be as strangers. Instead of returning to New York immediately, as in his note he had avowed his intention to do, Poe passed a night of wild delirium at the hotel in Providence. In the morning he arrived at Mrs. Whitman’s residence, in a state of delirious excitement, calling upon her and imploring her to save him from some terrible impending doom. The tones of his voice rang through the house and were most appalling. “Never have I heard anything so awful,” records Mrs. Whitman, “awful even to sublimity. It was long before I could nerve myself to see him. My mother was with him more than two hours before I entered the room. He hailed me as an angel sent to save him from perdition. . . . In the afternoon he grew more composed and my mother sent for Dr. Okie, who, finding symptoms of cerebral congestion, advised his removal to the house of his friend, Mr. Pabode, where he was kindly cared for. “Of course,” continues Mrs. Whitman, “gossip held high carnival over these facts, which were related, doubtless, with every variety, of sensational embellishment. You will see, therefore, that Griswold had ample material to work on; he had only to turn the sympathising physician into a police officer, and the day before the betrothal into the evening before the bridal, to make out a plausible story.” The ultimate result of this terrible scene was that Mrs. Whitman decided upon becoming the wife of Poe, in the hope of being enabled to preserve him from his impending doom. Some days after the recovery from his delirium, when he again urged his a suit, she permitted him to extract from her a promise that she would become his wife, upon condition that he never touched intoxicants again, declaring that nothing save his own infirmity should cause her to recede from her plighted troth. It was in commemoration of this, and ‘of the terrible trial through which she had just passed, that Mrs. Whitman composed her lines to “Arcturus,” beginning, — “Star of resplendent front! thy glorious eye Shines on me stilt from out yon clouded sky — Shines on me through the horrors of a night More drear than ever fell o’er day so bright,” and ending,* — “I see the dawn of a diviner day, A heaven of joys and hopes that cannot die — Immortal in their own infinity.” Notwithstanding the heartrending representations of her mother and friends, Mrs. Whitman resolved to adhere to her promise, and in reliance upon it Poe returned to New York, to make arrangements for his marriage. On his homeward journey, by means of the Long Island Sound Boat, he sent the following note to prove that he was keeping his word: — “November 14, 1848. “MY OWN DEAREST HELEN, — So kind, so true, so generous — so unmoved by all that would have moved one who had been less than angel: — beloved of my heart, of my imagination, of my intellect — life of my life — soul of my soul — dear, dearest Helen, how shall I ever thank you as I ought. “I am calm and tranquil, and but for a strange shadow of coming evil which haunts me I should be happy. That I am not supremely happy, even when I feel your dear love at my heart, terrifies me. What can this mean? “Perhaps, however, it is only the necessary reaction after such terrible excitements. “It is five o’clock, and the boat is just being made fast to the wharf. I shall start in the train that leaves New York at 7 for Fordham. I write this to show you that I have not dared to break my promise to you. And now dear, dearest Helen, be true to me.“. . . During the brief period of visionary anticipations which now intervened, Poe confided his hopes and fears, his expected triumphs or foreboded troubles, to Mrs. Whitman, in a series of idiosyncratic epistles, which, says their recipient, “enable one to understand, as nothing else could, the singular and complex elements of his nature. The intense. superstition, the haunting dread of evil, the tender remorseful love, the prophetic imagination — now proud and exultant, now melancholy and ominous — the keen susceptibility to blame, the sorrowful and indignant protest against unjust reproach.” In one of the letters to Mrs. Whitman appertaining to this epoch the following passages occur: — “Without well understanding why, I had been led to fancy you ambitious . . . It was then only — then when I thought of you — that I dwelt exultingly upon what I felt that I could accomplish in Letters and in Literary influence — in the widest and noblest field of human ambition. . . . — When I saw you, however — when I touched your gentle hand — when I heard your soft voice, and perceived how greatly I had misinterpreted your womanly nature — these triumphant visions melted sweetly away in the sunshine of a love ineffable, and I suffered my imagination to stray with you, and with the few who love us both, to the banks of some quiet river, in some lovely valley of our land “Here, not too far secluded from the world, we exercised a taste controlled by no conventionalities, but the sworn slave of a natural art, in the building for ourselves of a cottage which no human being could ever pass without an ejaculation of wonder at its strange, weird, and incomprehensible yet most simple beauty. Oh, the sweet and gorgeous, but not often rare flowers in which we half buried it! the grandeur of the magnolias and tulip-trees which stood guarding it — the luxurious velvet of its lawn — the lustre of the rivulet that ran by the very door — the tasteful yet quiet comfort of the interior — the music — the books — the unostentatious pictures, and, above all, the love — the love that threw an unfading glory over the whole! . . . Alas! all is now a dream.” In this letter was shadowed forth the ideal pastoral home that, subsequently, was more fully depictured in “Landor’s Cottage.” In the next extract from the correspondence Poe is seen striving to arouse Mrs. Whitman’s temperament into accordance with another mood of his impulsive nature. Writing on Sunday, the 22nd of November, he says: — “I wrote you yesterday, sweet Helen, but through fear of being too late for the mail omitted some things I wished to say. I fear, too, that my letter must have seemed cold — perhaps even harsh or selfish — for I spoke nearly altogether of my own griefs. Pardon me, my Helen, if not for the love I bear you, at least for the sorrows I have endured — more I believe than have often fallen to the lot of man. How much have they been aggravated by my consciousness that, in too many instances, they have arisen from my own culpable weakness or childish folly! My sole hope now is in you, Helen. As you are true to me or fail me, so do I live or die. . . . “Was I right, dearest Helen, in my first impression of you? — you know I have implicit faith in first impressions — was I right in the impression that you are ambitious? If so, and if you will have faith in me, I can and will satisfy your wildest desires. It would be a glorious triumph, Helen, for us — for you and me. “I dare not trust my schemes to a letter — nor indeed have I time even to hint at them here. When I see you I will explain all — as far, at least, as I dare explain all my hopes even to you. “Would it not be ‘glorious,’ darling, to establish, in America, the sole unquestionable aristocracy — that of intellect — to secure its supremacy — to lead and to control it! All this I can do, Helen, and will — if you bid me — and aid me.” But these aerial chateaux d'Espagne of the poet were even more transient than the few brief interludes permitted him of undisturbed happiness. Those who have thus far followed the history of Poe’s career will fully comprehend the force of his allusions in the following letter — a letter that really contains the basis of Griswold’s degrading fabrication of the poet having “borrowed fifty dollars from a distinguished literary woman of South Carolina,” and when asked for the money’s return, or a written acknowledgment of his indebtedness, for the satisfaction of the lady’s husband, “denied all knowledge of it, and threatened to exhibit a correspondence which would make the woman infamous.” The woman referred to is dead, but the story has recently been unearthed, and her name dragged before the public by certain papers ‘of New York, in which city, however, still resides one who knew and can testify to Poe’s veracity in this affair. All the wrong he did was — when goaded by her imputations as to the impropriety of his corresponding with a married lady — with his wife’s dear friend, Mrs. Osgood — to hastily exclaim, “I She had better look to her own letters!” Only that and nothing more.* This communication is dated two days later than the one last quoted: — “In little more than a fortnight, dearest Helen, I shall once again clasp you to my heart: — until then I forbear to agitate you by speaking of my wishes — of my hopes, and especially of my fears. You say that all depends on my own firmness. If this be so, all is safe — for the terrible agony which I have so lately endured — an agony known only to my God and to myself — seems to have passed my soul through fire and purified it from all that is weak. Henceforward I am strong: — this those who love me shall see — as well as those who have so relentlessly endeavoured to ruin me. It needed only some such trials as I have just undergone, to make me what I was born to be, by making me conscious of my own strength. — But all does not depend, dear Helen, upon my firmness — all depends upon the sincerity of your love. “You allude to your having been ‘tortured by reports which have all since been explained to your entire satisfaction.’ On this point my mind is fully made up. I will rest neither by night nor by day until I bring those who have slandered me into the light of day — until I expose them, and their motives to the public eye. I have the means and I will ruthlessly employ them. On one point let me caution you, dear Helen. No sooner will Mrs. E—— hear of my proposals to yourself, than she will set in operation every conceivable chicanery to frustrate me: — and, if you are not prepared for her arts, she will infallibly succeed — for her whole study, throughout life, has been the gratification of her malignity by such means as any other human being would die rather than adopt. You will be sure to receive anonymous letters so skilfully contrived as to deceive the most sagacious. You will be called on, possibly, by persons whom you never heard of, but whom she has instigated to call and vilify me — without even their being aware of the influence she has exercised. I do not know any one with a more acute intellect about such matters than Mrs. Osgood — yet even she was for a long time completely blinded by the arts of this fiend, and simply because her generous heart could not conceive how any woman could stoop to machinations at which the most degraded of the fiends would shudder. I will give you here but one instance of her baseness, and I feel that it will suffice. When, in the heat of passion” . . . [Here follows the narrative given at pp. 70, 71, chapter the sixteenth.] The letter then proceeds: — “If you value your happiness, Helen, beware of this woman! She did not cease her persecutions here. My poor Virginia was continually tortured (although not deceived) by her anonymous letters, and on her deathbed declared that Mrs. E—— had been her murderer. Have