"Am I right, dearest Helen, 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 for us, darling—for you and me ... to establish in America the sole unquestionable aristocracy—that of the intellect; to secure its supremacy, to lead and control it. All this I can do, Helen, and will—if you bid me and aid me."
Aware of her belief in occult and spiritual influences, he tells her that once, on hearing a lady repeat certain utterances of hers which appeared but the secret reflex of his own spirit, his soul seemed suddenly to become one with hers. "From that hour I loved you. I have never seen or 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." (No such scruple had disturbed him in the case of Mrs. Osgood and others.) He goes on thus artfully to explain the incident of his declining Mrs. Osgood's offer of an introduction to Mrs. Whitman while in Providence. "For this reason I shunned your presence. You may remember that once, when I passed through Providence with Mrs. Osgood, I positively refused to accompany her to your house. I dared neither go, or 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."
It will be observed that he is here speaking of a time when his wife, whom he "loved as man never before loved," was yet living; and also when he was giving himself up to his unreasoning passion for Mrs. Osgood, whom he had followed to Providence.
After this, who shall undertake to defend Poe from the charge of insincerity and dissimulation?
Mrs. Osgood calls Poe's letters "divinely beautiful." We cannot tell how Mrs. Whitman was affected by them, but certainly her whole course exhibits her in a constant struggle between her own inclination and the influence of friends who desired to save her from the match with Poe. As early as January 21, 1848, it was known to the public that an engagement existed between the two, and I have the authority of Mrs. Kellogg for the statement that during the summer of that year Mrs. Whitman three times renewed this engagement and was as often compelled to break it, owing to his unfortunate habits. The last engagement was made on his solemnly vowing reformation; on which a day was fixed for the marriage and the services of a clergyman bespoken by Poe himself, who thereupon wrote to Mrs. Clemm desiring her to be ready to receive himself and his bride—at Fordham!
One may imagine the dismay of poor Mrs. Clemm when she read this letter and looked around the humble home with its low-ceiled upstairs room, which had been Virginia's; the pine kitchen table and her dozen pieces of crockery. For once her strong mind and resourceful talent must have failed her. How was she to accommodate the fastidious bride of her most inconsiderate son-in-law? How even provide a wedding repast against their arrival? But happily she was spared the horror of such an experience, for on the appointed day Poe arrived at Fordham alone, though in a state of nervous excitement, which necessitated days and even weeks of careful nursing on the part of his patient and long-suffering mother-in-law.
This final separation between the two—for they never again met—was caused by Poe's intemperance at his hotel in Providence on the day previous to that appointed for his marriage. He had delivered a lecture which was enthusiastically applauded, and on his return to the hotel he found himself surrounded by an admiring crowd, whose hospitalities he at first resolutely declined, but with his usual weakness of will, finally yielded to. Of the stormy scene when, on the following day, Mrs. Whitman finally and decisively refused to marry him, she has herself given an account, representing Poe as alternately pleading and "raving" in his unwillingness to accept her decision. But there can be no question but that he was at this time either in some degree mentally unbalanced or in such a state physically as that the least excess would serve to excite his mind beyond its normal condition and render him partly irresponsible. Of this we have proof in the fact of his intention of taking his proposed bride to Fordham.
That Mrs. Whitman was really interested in her gifted and eccentric suitor is evident, and in her heart she was loyal to him, as is shown by her defence of him after his death, and also by the lines which she addressed to him some months after their separation, entitled, "The Isle of Dreams." Most of her poems written after this time had some reference to him; and it is worthy of note that no woman whom Poe professed to love ever lost her interest in him. The fascination which he exerted over them must have been something extraordinary.
As regards Poe's feelings toward Mrs. Whitman, it is evident from the beginning that there was no real love on his part. He expressed no regret at the ending of his "divine dream of love," but seems rather to have experienced toward her a degree of resentment which thus found expression in a letter to a friend:
"From this day forth I shun the pestilential society of literary women. They are a heartless, unnatural, venomous, dishonorable set, with no guiding principle but inordinate self-esteem. Mrs. Osgood is the only exception I know of."