The life of Edgar Allan Poe .. . y. Oh, the sweet andgorgeous, but not often rare, flowers in which we half-buriedit — the grandeur of the magnolias and tulip-trees which stoodguarding it — the luxurious velvet of its lawn — the lustre ofthe rivulet that ran by its very door —the tasteful yet quietcomfort of its interior — the music— the books — the unos-tentatious pictures — and, above all, the love, the love thatthrew an unfading glory over the whole ! — Alas ! all is nowa dream. This letter of eloquent protest and appeal bearsdate October i8, 1848. No engagement at thetime subsisted between
The life of Edgar Allan Poe .. . y. Oh, the sweet andgorgeous, but not often rare, flowers in which we half-buriedit — the grandeur of the magnolias and tulip-trees which stoodguarding it — the luxurious velvet of its lawn — the lustre ofthe rivulet that ran by its very door —the tasteful yet quietcomfort of its interior — the music— the books — the unos-tentatious pictures — and, above all, the love, the love thatthrew an unfading glory over the whole ! — Alas ! all is nowa dream. This letter of eloquent protest and appeal bearsdate October i8, 1848. No engagement at thetime subsisted between the parties. Shortly after its date, an incident occurredwhich has been widely chronicled as an out-rage on the eve of an appointed marriage. Mrs. Whitman has permitted us to publish herown clear and authentic statement of the factsw4iich underlie this scandal, thereby placing thestory in its true light, and imparting a pro-found interest to the fragment of a letter towhich she alludes, and of which we present. GRISWOLDS MISSTATEMENT. 210^ 2ifac-shnile copy. Later, a conditional engage-ment was made. The poet was not able toadhere to the conditions, and the lady was, induty and honor to her family, bound to give upthe alliance. But it was not broken under any such circum-stances as those fabricated by Dr. Griswold inhis narration of the affair in his memoir. As thismisstatement of Griswold is probably the mostserious of all his published misrepresentations,we have taken special pains to gather the evi-dence of its fLilsity; evidence that Griswold de-liberately suppressed, although most of it waspublished previous to his issue of his memoir ofPoe in a permanent form. The correspondencewhich we quote, principally comprises letters fromWm. J. Pabodie, Esq., a prominent lawyer ofProvidence, very intimately acquainted both withPoe and with Mrs. Whitman, at the time of theirengagement. To the editors of the New York Tribune,Mr. Pabodie writes, after the misstatemen
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