The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1314]
When is that magazine going to appear? I am earnest to receive it!
I wish also to see the remainder of your Tales, your criticisms, etc. published by Wiley and Putnam — Shall I not soon?
Do you think proper to write to me in answer to the above questions? It would be pleasing to me to have it so.
Respectfully yours,
Geo. W. Eveleth.
Edgar A. Poe Esq.
Edgar Allan Poe to George W. Eveleth — December 15, 1846
New-York: Dec. 15 / 46.
My Dear Sir,
By way of beginning this letter let me say a word or two of apology for not having sooner replied to your letters of June 9 and Oct. 13. For more than six months I have been ill — for the greater part of that time dangerously so, and quite unable to write even an ordinary letter. My Magazine papers appearing in this interval were all in the publishers’ hands before I was taken sick. Since getting better, I have been, as a matter of course, overwhelmed with the business accumulating during my illness.
It always gives me true pleasure to hear from you, and I wish you could spare time to write me more frequently. I am gratified by your good opinion of my writings, because what you say evinces the keenest discrimination. Ten times the praise you bestow on me would not please me half so much, were it not for the intermingled scraps of censure, or [of] objection, which show me that you well know what you are talking about.
Let me now advert to the points of your two last letters:
What you say about the blundering criticism of “the Hartford Review man” is just. For the purposes of poetry it is quite sufficient that a thing is possible — or at least that the improbability be not offensively glaring. It is true that in several ways, as you say, the lamp might have thrown the bird’s shadow on the floor. My conception was that of the bracket candelabrum affixed against the wall, high up above the door and bust — as is often seen in the English palaces, and even in some of the better houses in New-York.
Your objection to the tinkling of the footfalls is far more pointed, and in the course of composition occurred so forcibly to myself that I hesitated to use the term. I finally used it because I saw that it had, in its first conception, been suggested to my mind by the sense of the supernatural with which it was, at the moment, filled. No human or physical foot could tinkle on a soft carpet — therefore the tinkling of feet would vividly convey the supernatural impression. This was the idea, and it is good within itself: — but if it fails (as I fear it does) to make itself immediately and generally felt according to my intention — then in so much is it badly con[v]eyed, or expressed. Your appreciation of “The Sleeper” delights me. In the higher qualities of poetry, it is better than “The Raven” — but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion. The Raven, of course, is far the better as a work of art — but in the true basis of all art The Sleeper is the superior. I wrote the latter when quite a boy.
You quote, I think, the 2 best lines in “The Valley of Unrest” — those about the palpitating trees. There is no more of “Politian”. It may be some years before I publish the rest of my Tales, essays &c. The publishers cheat — and I must wait till I can be my own publisher. The collection of tales issued by W. & P. were selected by a gentleman whose taste does not coincide with my own, from 72, written by me at various times — and those chosen are not my best — nor do they fairly represent me in any respect.
The critique on Rogers is not mine — although, when it appeared, I observed a similarity to my ordinary manner. The notice of Lowell’s “Brittany” is mine. You will see that it was merely a preparatory notice — I had designed speaking in full — but something prevented me. The criticism on Shelley is not mine; it is the work of Parke Godwin. I never saw it. The critic alluded to by Willis as connected with the Mirror, and as having found a parallel between Hood & Aldrich is myself. See my reply to “Outis