The Portable Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [263]
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