Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 141: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Mar. 7, 1876,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), pp. 401-402 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 401, continued:]

141. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 286

Dear Mr. Ingram,

Your letter of Feb. 14th was received the day after mine was mailed.

To the letter of which I sent you a copy Mr. Gill returned an evasive answer, affecting to sustain his plea by the most futile representations. But what he says now about anything can avail him little. I was informed yesterday that his creditors, who had consented to receive 13 cents on a dollar, had just learned that he had withheld from the account rendered to them of his assets $60,000. They are filled with [page 402:] indignation against him and intend to hold him to a strict account.

The popular feeling is entirely against him. The publisher's pamphlet in which he inserted his “Reply” has “no circulation,” so I was informed by a bookseller of this city. Nothing that he could say could injure you. If he does not clear himself from his present business “complications” (to speak mildly), he will not have the temerity to return to the charge against me. For I have shown him that it is with me that he will have to measure swords in this contest, and though I shrink from “broil & battle,” I can meet him in the cause of truth & justice in a fair fight.

I cannot understand you when you say in your letter of Feb. 14th that I took Gill's claim “as a matter of course.” Was there not an exclamation point to indicate my surprise at the assertion? It was to me so palpably absurd a pretension that I may not have thought it necessary even to indicate my surprise in any way. I had told you frankly from the beginning of my correspondence with you all that I knew or thought about the proceedings of the author of “The Romance of Edgar Poe” and about the inception & progress of the work. I did not suspect that you were in any doubt about what I might feel or say on the subject.

I do not remember where the quotation of Mrs. Browning's letter was first seen by me. I have seen it in many publishers’ articles, but cannot at this moment recall where.

I am very weary & heavyhearted and can only say goodnight, with sincerest wishes for your happiness & success. Ever your friend,

I am too tired tonight to say much that I wished to say. Perhaps another time will come for all.