is letters of the
period, 'the most earnest epoch of his life;' and such I devoutly and
emphatically believe it to have been. You ask me to furnish you with
extracts from his letters, literary or otherwise. There are imperative
reasons why these letters cannot and _ought_ not to be published at
present--not that there was a word or a thought in them discreditable to
Poe, though some of them were imprudent, doubtless, and liable to be
construed wrongly by his enemies. They are for the most part strictly
_personal_. The only extract from them of which I have authorized the
publication is a fac-simile of a paragraph inserted between the 68th and
69th pages of Mr. Ingram's memoir in Black's (Edinburgh) edition of the
complete works of Poe. The paragraph in the original letter (dated
November 24, 1848) consists of only eight lines: 'The agony which I have
so lately endured--an agony known only to my God and to myself--seems to
have passed my soul through fire, and purified it from all that is weak.
Henceforward I am strong: this those who love me shall see, as well as
those who have so relentlessly endeavored to ruin me. It needed only some
such trials as I have just undergone to make me what I was born to be by
making me conscious of my own strength.' This and a protest against the
charge of indifference to moral obligations so often urged against him,
which I permitted Mr. Gill to extract for publication from a long letter
filled with eloquent and proud remonstrance against the injustice of such
a charge, are the only passages of which I have authorized the
publication. Other letters have been published without my consent. I have
endeavored to reconcile myself to the unauthorized use of private letters
and papers, since the effect of their publication has been on the whole
regarded as favorable to Poe."

It was Mrs. Whitman who first attempted to trace Edgar Poe's descent from
the old Norman family of Le Poer, which emigrated to Ireland during the
reign of Henry II. of England. Lady Blessington, through her father,
Edmund Power, claimed the same illustrious descent. The Le Poers were
distinguished for being improvident, daring and reckless. The family
originally belonged to Italy, whence they passed to the north of France,
and went to England with William the Conqueror. In a letter dated January
3, 1877, Mrs. Whitman says: "For all that I said on the subject I _alone_
am responsible. A distant relative of mine, a descendant