The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1357]
I enclose my brother’s letter, trusting that you may pardon the apparent indelicacy of so doing – thinking you might perhaps like to see the story as told in the original press – and better told, I think, than the one in rhyme. You will find the commencement near the bottom of the third page.
Pray pardon the liberty I have taken in addressing you thus uncerimoniously (sic), and oblige me by returning the letter to my address.
Very respectfully
And truly yours
M. E. Hewitt
Athenaeum Hotel
March 15th/45
Edgar Allan Poe to Mary E. Hewitt - March 20, 1845.]
Dear Madam,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your little package and note.
The coincidence to which you call my attention is certainly remarkable, and the story as narrated by your brother is full of rich interest, no particle of which, most assuredly, is lost in your truly admirable paraphrase. I fear, indeed, that my enthusiasm for all that I feel to be poetry, has hurried me into some indiscretion touching the "Tale of Luzon". Immediately upon reading it, I took it to the printer, and it is now in type for the "Broadway Journal" of this week. As I re-peruse your note, however, (before depositing it among my most valued autographs) I find no positive warrant for the act -- I am by no means sure that you designed the poem for our paper. If I have erred, then, I have to beg that you will point out the penance.
Very respectfully and admiringly
Yours,
Edgar A Poe.
To. Mrs Mary E. Hewitt.
"Broadway Journal" Office
March 20 -- 45.
Mary E. Hewitt to Edgar Allan Poe — March 21, 1845
My dear Sir,
“You have spoken roses,” and I hardly know how to reply to words so polite and complimentary.
I certainly intended to place the “Tale of Luzon” quite at your disposal — and beg you to believe that I appreciate highly the kindness that has prompted your favorable notice of my lines. After the “Raven,” my verse seemed to me but a broken chime — and since sending it to you, I have wondered at my own temerity. I shall be proud to see it published in the columns of the “Broadway Journal.”
Very truly
(portion of letter, with signature, cut away.)
Athenaeum Hotel March 21st/45
To Edgar A. Poe, Esq.
Mary E. Hewitt to Edgar Allan Poe — May 29, 1845
Dear Mr Poe
I send you a translation that I have made from the old French edition (1716) of Madame Dacier.
The Greek line at the top, which I have copied from the same volume, and of which language I am of course femeninely (sic), I hope you may find correctly transcribed. The decapitated state of my manuscript — for which I beg leave to apologize — will betray the fact of my having made more than one attempt at copying the hieroglyphics. After all perhaps the quotation was unnecessary and may appear like an affectation, or pedantry in your correspondent — so have the kindness to strike it out if you think it best to do so.
With compliments to Mrs Poe — whose acquaintance I am happy to have made —
I remain
Very sincerely yours
M. E. Hewitt
Athenaeum Hotel, May 29th
Mary E. Hewitt to Edgar Allan Poe — November 10, 1845
Athenaeum Hotel Nov. 10th, 1845
Dear Mr. Poe,
Permit me to tell you how much your very, very kind and encouraging notice of my volume has gratified me.
The Broadway Journal was the Scylla and Charybdis of my fear, and its editor’s criticism more to be dreaded than that of fifty Blackwoods. Judge then of the measure and quality of my delight on finding that I had passed the strait in safety! I fear that I was guilty of tossing up an imaginary cap, in my heart, at all future critics, with the “N(orth) American” at the top, and of whispering something to myself that if uttered might have sounded very like defiance! — I enclose you a little song for the Journal — and don’t think it was written to anybody in earnest, but only for the music that it never was set to. And may I ask you to be so kind as to tell your carrier not to forget