Text: John C. Miller, ed., “Entry 026: Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram, Mar. 17, 1874,” Poe's Helen Remembers (1979), p. 85 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 85, continued:]

26. Sarah Helen Whitman to John H. Ingram. Item 134

My dear Mr. Ingram,

I send you this note — this fragment of a note [from Poe's letter of Nov. 14, 1848], written at an epoch memorable alike to both of us, because it shows the conflict of his tortured spirit with the relentless doom that awaited it — and because I know that it cannot but awaken in a heart like yours the tenderest & most compassionate sympathy.

The next time I write I will try to tell you something of the letters, etc. which followed that first visit to Providence in Sept.

There is so much that is strange & almost incredible in our brief acquaintance that it must seem to one not acquainted with the private history of this epoch of his life apocryphal. It is for your private satisfaction that I shall write it.