When M. Stephane Mallarmé, an enthusiastic admirer of Poe's, undertook to translate his works into French, he addressed Mrs. Whitman a complimentary letter, from which the following passages are translated: "Whatever is done to honor the memory of a genius the most truly divine the world has seen, ought it not first to obtain your sanction? Such of Poe's works as our great Baudelaire left untranslated—that is to say, the poems and many of the literary criticisms—I hope to make known to France. My first attempt, 'Le Corbeau,' of which I send you a specimen, is intended to attract attention to a future work now nearly completed. I trust that the attempt will meet your approval, but no possible success of my future design could cause you, madam, a satisfaction equal to the joy, vivid, profound and absolute, caused by an extract from one of your letters in which you expressed a wish to see a copy of my 'Corbeau.' Not only in space—which is nothing—but in time, made up for each of us of the hours we deem most memorable in the past, your wish seemed to come to me from so far, and to bring with it the most delicious return of long cherished memories; for, fascinated with the works of Poe from my infancy, it has been a long time that your name has been associated with his in my earliest and most intimate sympathies. Receive, madam, this expression of a gratitude such as your poetical soul may comprehend, for it is my inmost heart that thanks you."
Mrs. Whitman translated Mallarmé's inscription intended for the Poe monument in Baltimore. The last verse was thus rendered:
Through storied centuries thou shall proudly stand
In the Memorial City of his land,
A silent monitor, austere and gray,
To warn the clamorous brood of harpies from their prey.
E.L.D.
A LITTLE PERVERSITY IN WOMEN.
| Mrs. Philip Markham. | Philip Markham. |
| Miss Ethel Arnold. | Frank Beverly. |
(The four have been dining together and discussing the people they had met some hours before at a reception.)
Philip Markham. At all events, I call her a very beautiful woman.—Don't you say so, Beverly? I am telling Miss Arnold that I considered Miss St. John handsome.
Mrs. Markham. Oh, Philip, how can you say so?
Beverly. I admired her immensely.