Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 137: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Feb. 13, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 390-392 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 390, continued:]

137. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 283

My dear Mr. Ingram,

In your letter of 19th Jan. you remind me “that some of your questions are still unanswered,” “that I have never denied the authorship of that letter to Mrs. Oakes Smith.” [page 391:]

I think I told you that I had no copy of Mrs. Smith's article on Poe. I vaguely remember that either in a private letter to me, or in a published article on Poe, perhaps in both, she said that Poe, with all his charm of manner, impressed her as being insincere!

I think that I earnestly controverted this charge, admitting that he had his faults, but that a want of sincerity was not one of them. If I ever said or wrote to her anything in relation to his faults, it was in this connection.

In truth, he was not a Sir Galahad, nor “One who ever / Moved among us in white armor.” He could, doubtless, have said with Hamlet, “I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious.”

His letters are eloquent with expressions of heartfelt contrition & remorse.

It is enough that his faults & his errors were not of a nature to alienate my heart's love & loyalty. There are faults of baseness & perfidy & dishonor which would inevitably change love & loyalty into sorrowful indignation & disdainful pity.

I will copy for you the letter of Mrs. Oakes Smith to me, after reading the little volume which brought to me the pleasure of your acquaintance, a friendship uninterrupted for two years, until an impalpable cloud from some wild weird clime out of space, out of time, seems to have overshadowed it. Sic transit.

In relation to your introduction to certain portions of Mrs. N[ichol]s’ paper. You will remember that having urged me to criticise your “Memoir,” saying, “There must be so much you could suggest for revision, omission, or addition,” I pointed out the passages which seemed to me “too painful” for publication in Mrs. Nichols’ interesting paper. In your reply, dated March 14, 1875, you say, “Mrs. N[ichols] was, as I have said, the author of the Sixpenny Maga. paper. Now, strictly between ourselves & the post, I cannot rely very much upon either the accuracy or the friendliness of either the Dr. or his wife. I trust I am not misjudging them.”

Certainly, I had no idea of questioning Mrs. N[ichol]s’ friendliness to you when I expressed my regret that these papers were retained in Widdleton's volume. The article was in many respects admirable, & in objecting to certain passages I certainly had no idea that I was wounding your feelings or transgressing the critical license which you had so generously asked me to exercise.

I frankly explained to you my relations with Mr. Gill when you first sought information from me. I have dealt frankly & openly & disinterestedly with both. I believe I told you in my last that Mr. Gill had had nothing from me since the winter of 1873-74.

I think he sincerely regrets the impulsive & aggressive letter which he wrote to Widdleton, but he is a Northerner & what can be expected [page 392:] of him? As for me, my Southern relatives, before the War, were “thick as the leaves in Vallombrossa.” I was even named for the wife of a Governor of South Carolina & a Senator from that state to the Congress of the United States, that is to say, for my Aunt Sarah Power, wife of Gov. David R. Williams, so that I ought to have some claim to consideration.

But enough. I am too sad for jesting. And so, bon soir, your friend,

P.S. I have answered the questions you proposed to me. Will you tell me what friend & correspondent of mine it was who wrote to you that “even your grandchildren would curse the day that your name became associated with that rogue's”? He [Gill] is a bankrupt in business and doubtless in reputation, but so are all, or nearly all, the “solid men” of Boston & New York — even the Capital of the nation is suspected of having some people of problematical reputation under its marble domes. It's “a bad lot,” as you Englishmen say, n’est ce pas?

There are so many arrows in your two last letters that I had almost forgotten one of the sharpest. In your letter of the 13th Jan. you say, “I have found my Southern correspondents strictly honorable, not answering questions where they were not certain.” Is it, then, that your Northern correspondents have willfully misled you by answering questions where they were not certain?