, like myself,
from Nicholas le Poer, had long ministered to my genealogical proclivities
by stories which from my childhood had vaguely haunted and charmed my
imagination. When I discovered certain facts of Poe's history of which he
had previously made little account, he seemed greatly impressed by my
theory of our relationship. Of course I endowed him with my traditional
heirlooms. John Savage, who wrote some fine papers on Poe, which I _think_
appeared in the _Democratic Review_, perhaps in 1858, said to a friend of
mine that the things most interesting and valuable to him in my little
book (_Poe and his Critics_) were its genealogical hints."

When M. Stephane Mallarme, 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 Mallarme'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.