When I spoke to you of what I felt, saying that I loved now for the first time, I did not hope you would believe or even understand me; nor can I hope to convince you now—but if, throughout some long, dark summer night, I could but have held you close, close to my heart and whispered to you the strange secrets of its passionate history, then indeed you would have seen that I have been far from attempting to deceive you in this respect. I could have shown you that it was not and could never 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—“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. . . .
And now, in the most simple words at my command, let me paint to you the impression made upon me by your personal presence.—As you entered the room, pale, timid, hesitating, and evidently oppressed at heart; as your eyes rested appealingly, for one brief moment, upon mine, I felt, for the first time in my life, and tremblingly acknowledged, the existence of spiritual influences altogether out of the reach of the reason. I saw that you were Helen—my Helen—the Helen of a thousand dreams—she whose visionary lips had so often lingered upon my own in the divine trance of passion—she whom the great Giver of all Good had preordained to be mine—mine only—if not now, alas! then at least hereafter and forever, in the Heavens.—You spoke falteringly and seemed scarcely conscious of what you said. I heard no words—only the soft voice, more familiar to me than my own, and more melodious than the songs of the angels. Your hand rested within mine, and my whole soul shook with a tremulous ecstasy. And then but for very shame—but for the fear of grieving or oppressing you—I would have fallen at your feet in as pure—in as real a worship as was ever offered to Idol or to God. And when, afterwards, on those two successive evenings of all-Heavenly delight, you passed to and fro about the room—now sitting by my side, now far away, now standing with your hand resting on the back of my chair, while the praeternatural thrill of your touch vibrated even through the senseless wood into my heart—while you moved thus restlessly about the room—as if a deep Sorrow or a more profound Joy haunted your bosom—my brain reeled beneath the intoxicating spell of your presence, and it was with no merely human senses that I either saw or heard you. It was my soul only that distinguished you there. I grew faint with the luxury of your voice and blind with the voluptuous lustre of your eyes.
Let me quote to you a passage from your letter:—“You will, perhaps, attempt to convince me that my person is agreeable to you—that my countenance interests you:—but in this respect I am so variable that I should inevitably disappoint you if you hoped to find in me to-morrow the same aspect which won you to-day. And, again, although my reverence for your intellect and my admiration of your genius make me feel like a child in your presence, you are not, perhaps, aware that I am many years older than yourself. I fear you do not know it, and that if you had known it you would not have felt for me as you do.”—To all this what shall I—what can I say—except that the heavenly candor with which you speak oppresses my heart with so rich a burden of love that my eyes overflow with sweet tears. You are mistaken, Helen, very far mistaken about this matter of age. I am older than you; and if illness and sorrow have made you seem older than you are—is not all this the best of reason for my loving you the more? Cannot my patient cares—my watchful, earnest attention—cannot the magic which lies in such devotion as I feel for you, win back for you much—oh, very much of the freshness of your youth? But grant that what you urge were even true. Do you not feel in your inmost heart of hearts that the “soul-love” of which the world speaks so often and so idly is, in this instance at least, but the veriest, the most absolute of realities? Do you not—I ask it of your reason, darling, not less than of your heart—do you not perceive that it is my diviner nature—my spiritual being—which burns and pants to commingle with your own? Has the soul age, Helen? Can Immortality regard Time? Can that which began never and shall never end, consider a few wretched years of its incarnate life? Ah, I could weep—I could almost be angry with you for the unwarranted wrong you offer to the purity—to the sacred reality of my affection.—And how am I to answer what you say of your personal appearance? Have I not seen you, Helen, have I not heard the more than melody of your voice? Has not my heart ceased to throb beneath the magic of your smile? Have I not held your hand in mine and looked steadily into your soul through the crystal Heaven of your eyes? Have I not done all these things?—or do I dream?—or am I mad? Were you indeed all that your fancy, enfeebled and perverted by illness, tempts you to suppose that you are, still, life of my life! I would but love you—but worship you the more:—it would be so glorious a happiness to be able to prove to you what I feel! But as it is, what can I—what am I to say? Who ever spoke of you without emotion—without praise? Who ever saw you and did not love?
But now a deadly terror oppresses me; for I too clearly see that these objections—so groundless—so futile when urged to one whose nature must be so well known to you as mine is—can scarcely be meant earnestly; and I tremble lest they but serve to mask others, more real, and which you hesitate—perhaps in pity—to confide to me. Alas! I too distinctly perceive, also, that in no instance you have ever permitted yourself to say that you love me. You are aware, sweet Helen, that on my part there are insuperable reasons forbidding me to urge upon you my love. Were I not poor—had not my late errors and reckless excesses justly lowered me in the esteem of the good—were I wealthy, or could I offer you worldly honors—ah then—then—how proud would I be to persevere—to sue—to plead—to kneel—to pray—to beseech you for your love—in the deepest humility—at your feet—at your feet, Helen, and with floods of passionate tears.
And now let me copy here one other passage from your letter:—“I find that I cannot now tell you all that I promised. I can only say to you that had I youth and health and beauty, I would live for you and die with you. Now, were I to allow myself to love you, I could only enjoy a bright, brief hour of rapture and die—perhaps [illegible].”—The last five words have been [illegible] Ah, beloved, beloved Helen the darling of my heart—my first and my real love!—may God forever shield you from the agony which these your words occasion me! How selfish—how despicably selfish seems now all—all that I have written! Have I not, indeed, been demanding at your hands a love which might endanger your life? You will never, never know—you can never picture to yourself the hopeless, rayless despair with which I now trace these words. Alas Helen! my soul!—what is it that I have been saying to you?—to what madness have I been urging you?—I who am nothing to you—you who have a dear mother and sister to be blessed by your life and love. But ah, darling! if I seem selfish, yet believe that I truly, truly love you, and that it is the most spiritual of love that I speak, even if I speak it from the depths of the most passionate of hearts. Think—oh, think for me, Helen, and for yourself! Is there no hope?—is there none? May not this terrible disease be conquered? Frequently it has been overcome. And more frequently are we deceived in respect to its actual existence. Long-continued nervous disorder—especially when exasperated by ether or [omitted] —will give rise to all the symptoms of heart-disease and so deceive the most skillful physicians—as even in my own case they were deceived. But admit that this fearful evil has indeed assailed you. Do you not all the more really need the devotionate care which only one who loves you as I do, could or would bestow? On my bosom could I not still the throbbings of your own? Do not mistake me, Helen! Look, with your searching—your seraphic eyes, into the soul of my soul, and see if you can discover there one taint of an ignoble nature! At your feet—if you so willed it—I would cast from me, forev
er, all merely human desire, and clothe myself in the glory of a pure, calm, and unexacting affection. I would comfort you—soothe you—tranquillize you. My love—my faith—should instil into your bosom a praeternatural calm. You would rest from care—from all worldly agitation. You would get better, and finally well. And if not, Helen,—if not—if you died—then at least would I clasp your dear hand in death, and willingly—oh, joyfully—joyfully—joyfully—go down with you into the night of the Grave.
Write soon—soon—oh, soon!—but not much. Do not weary or agitate yourself for my sake. Say to me those coveted words which would turn Earth into Heaven. If Hope is forbidden, I will not murmur if you comfort me with Love.—The papers of which you speak I will procure and forward immediately. They will cost me nothing, dear Helen, and I therefore re-enclose you what you so thoughtfully sent. Think that, in doing so, my lips are pressed fervently and lingeringly upon your own. And now, in closing this long, long letter, let me speak last of that which lies nearest my heart—of that precious gift which I would not exchange for the surest hope of Paradise. It seems to me too sacred that I should even whisper to you, the dear giver, what it is. My soul, this night, shall come to you in dreams and speak to you those fervid thanks which my pen is all powerless to utter.
EDGAR
P. S. Tuesday Morning.—I beg you to believe, dear Helen, that I replied to your letter immediately upon its receipt; but a most unusual storm, up to this moment, precludes all access to the City.
A lengthy section of this letter, recollecting Poe’s first awareness of Mrs. Whitman and then the effect of the Valentine she sent him in 1848, has been omitted. So too is a passage in which Poe interprets as miraculously prophetic the fact that his first great poem was titled “To Helen.” The author’s ardent language suggests the intensity of the attraction that led him to propose marriage (in a cemetery) during his first face-to-face meeting with Mrs. Whitman, a widow six years his senior. That age difference provokes Poe’s fascinating rationalization of his devotion. From the outset, Mrs. Whitman’s misgivings and her mother’s active mistrust of Poe doomed the courtship, in which Poe persisted through December 1848, when he received a final, definitive refusal.
EDGAR ALLAN POE TO ANNIE L. RICHMOND
Fordham Nov. 16th 1848—
Ah, Annie Annie! my Annie! what cruel thoughts about your Eddy must have been torturing your heart during the last terrible fortnight, in which you have heard nothing from me—not even one little word to say that I still lived & loved you. But Annie I know that you felt too deeply the nature of my love for you, to doubt that, even for one moment, & this thought has comforted me in my bitter sorrow—I could bear that you should imagine every other evil except that one—that my soul had been untrue to yours. Why am I not with you now darling that I might sit by your side, press your dear hand in mine, & look deep down into the clear Heaven of your eyes—so that the words which I now can only write, might sink into your heart, and make you comprehend what it is that I would say—And yet Annie, all that I wish to say—all that my soul pines to express at this instant, is included in the one word, love—To be with you now—so that I might whisper in your ear the divine emotions, which agitate me—I would willingly—oh joyfully abandon this world with all my hopes of another:—but you believe this, Annie—you do believe it, & will always believe it—So long as I think that you know I love you, as no man ever loved woman—so long as I think you comprehend in some measure, the fervor with which I adore you, so long, no worldly trouble can ever render me absolutely wretched. But oh, my darling, my Annie, my own sweet sister Annie, my pure beautiful angel—wife of my soul—to be mine hereafter & forever in the Heavens—how shall I explain to you the bitter, bitter anguish which has tortured me since I left you? You saw, you felt the agony of grief with which I bade you farewell—You remember my expressions of gloom—of a dreadful horrible foreboding of ill—Indeed—indeed it seemed to me that death approached me even then, & that I was involved in the shadow which went before him—As I clasped you to my heart, I said to myself—“it is for the last time, until we meet in Heaven”—I remember nothing distinctly, from that moment until I found myself in Providence—I went to bed & wept through a long, long, hideous night of despair—When the day broke, I arose & endeavored to quiet my mind by a rapid walk in the cold, keen air—but all would not do—the demon tormented me still. Finally I procured two ounces of laudanum & without returning to my Hotel, took the cars back to Boston. When I arrived, I wrote you a letter, in which I opened my whole heart to you—to you—my Annie, whom I so madly, so distractedly love—I told you how my struggles were more than I could bear—how my soul revolted from saying the words which were to be said—and that not even for your dear sake, could I bring myself to say them. I then reminded you of that holy promise, which was the last I exacted from you in parting—the promise that, under all circumstances, you would come to me on my bed of death—I implored you to come then—mentioning the place where I should be found in Boston—Having written this letter, I swallowed about half the laudanum & hurried to the Post-Office—intending not to take the rest until I saw you—for, I did not doubt for one moment, that my own Annie would keep her sacred promise—But I had not calculated on the strength of the laudanum, for, before I reached the Post Office my reason was entirely gone, & the letter was never put in. Let me pass over, my darling Sister, the awful horrors which succeeded—A friend was at hand, who aided & (if it can be called saving) saved me—but it is only within the last three days that I have been able to remember what occurred in that dreary interval—It appears that, after the laudanum was rejected from the stomach, I became calm, & to a casual observer, sane—so that I was suffered to go back to Providence—Here I saw her, & spoke, for your sake, the words which you urged me to speak—Ah Annie Annie! my Annie!—is your heart so strong?—is there no hope!—is there none?—I feel that I must die if I persist, & yet, how can I now retract with honor?—Ah beloved, think—think for me & for yourself—do I not love you Annie? do you not love me? Is not this all? Beyond this blissful thought, what other consideration can there be in this dreary world! It is not much that I ask, sweet sister Annie—my mother & myself would take a small cottage at Westford—oh so small—so very humble—I should be far away from the tumults of the world—from the ambition which I loathe—I would labor day & night, and with industry, I could accomplish so much—Annie! it would be a Paradise beyond my wildest hopes—I could see some of your beloved family every day, & you often—oh VERY often—I would hear from you continually—regularly & our dear mother would be with us & love us both—ah darling—do not these pictures touch your inmost heart? Think—oh think for me—before the words—the vows are spoken, which put yet another terrible bar between us—before the time goes by, beyond which there must be no thinking—I call upon you in the name of God—in the name of the holy love I bear you, to be sincere with me—Can you, my Annie, bear to think I am another’s? It would give me supreme—infinite bliss to hear you say that you could not bear it—I am at home now with my dear muddie who is endeavoring to comfort me—but the sole words which soothe me, are those in which she speaks of “my Annie”—she tells me that she has written you, begging you to come on to Fordham—ah beloved Annie, IS IT NOT POSSIBLE? I am so ill—so terribly, hopelessly ILL in body and mind, that I feel I CANNOT live, unless I can feel your sweet, gentle, loving hand pressed upon my forehead—oh my pure, virtuous, generous, beautiful, beautiful sister Annie!—is it not POSSIBLE for you to come—if only for one little week?—until I subdue this fearful agitation, which if continued, will either destroy my life or, drive me hopelessly mad—Farewell—here & hereafter—
Forever your own
EDDY—
In part Poe pursued his romance with Mrs. Whitman (as this letter makes clear) because Mrs. Nancy “Annie” Richmond, his muse and confidante, had encouraged him to do so. Here Poe virtually begs Annie to reverse herself and oppose the courtship; indeed, his account of the biz
arre episode in which he ingested laudanum (opium) implies that he meant to create a crisis that would bring Annie to his bedside. One cannot know whether this was a genuine suicide attempt or a desperate ploy for Annie’s attention, or both. Poe seems to have no sense of impropriety in writing a love letter to Mrs. Richmond, a married woman, or of speaking of his own marriage to Mrs. Whitman as “another terrible bar” (my underscoring, Poe’s italics) to a relationship with Annie. Tellingly, several romantic phrases in this letter also appear in the preceding letter to Mrs. Whitman. Understandably, Annie may have urged Poe’s courtship with Mrs. Whitman to redirect his amorous attentions.
EDGAR ALLAN POE TO FREDERICK W. THOMAS
Fordham, near New-York Feb. 14—49.
My dear friend Thomas,
Your letter, dated Nov. 27, has reached me at a little village of the Empire State, after having taken, at its leisure, a very considerable tour among the P. Offices—occasioned, I presume, by your endorsement “to forward” wherever I might be—and the fact is, where I might not have been, for the last three months, is the legitimate question. At all events, now that I have your well-known M.S. before me, it is most cordially welcome. Indeed, it seems an age since I heard from you and a decade of ages since I shook you by the hand—although I hear of you now and then. Right glad am I to find you once more in a true position—in the “field of Letters.” Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path. I shall be a litterateur, at least, all my life; nor would I abandon the hopes which still lead me on for all the gold in California. Talking of gold, and of the temptations at present held out to “poor-devil authors”, did it ever strike you that all which is really valuable to a man of letters—to a poet in especial—is absolutely unpurchaseable? Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven, exercise of body & mind, with the physical and moral health which result—these and such as these are really all that a poet cares for:—then answer me this—why should he go to California? Like Brutus, “I pause for a reply”—which, like F. W. Thomas, I take it for granted you have no intention of giving me.—[I have read the Prospectus of the “Chronicle” and like it much especially the part where you talk about “letting go the finger” of that conceited body, the East—which is by no means the East out of which came the wise men mentioned in Scripture!] I wish you would come down on the Frogpondians. They are getting worse and worse, and pretend not to be aware that there are any literary people out of Boston. The worst and most disgusting part of the matter is, that the Bostonians are really, as a race, far inferior in point of anything beyond mere talent, to any other set upon the continent of N. A. They are decidedly the most servile imitators of the English it is possible to conceive. I always get into a passion when I think about. It would be the easiest thing in the world to use them up en masse. One really well-written satire would accomplish the business:—but it must not be such a dish of skimmed milk-and-water as Lowell’s.
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