The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1429]
“I cannot,” you say to me “I cannot understand how you can fail to perceive, intuitively, that I should appreciate your works. I did not doubt, for an instant, that you would place a proper estimate upon mine.” — In all my experience in letters, and I dare to say in all yours (which has been much more extensive,) there is recorded, as occurring between two authors, no passage that can equal that, which it seems to me, nay, which I know, the noblest Greek might be proud to have written. If I had never seen you, — never read one other line of your writing, but had only heard that you had written & had written well, I could have sworn to you a friendship for that alone. I cannot even conceive how, for the occasion, the moral sublime could ever rise higher, nor how a nobler sentiment could be more nobly expressed.
You are right; I did not fail to appreciate yours; & when yesterday I finished your book of “Tales”, it was only to feel new regret for the thought that I could not be allowed to associate with one, whose every page that I read convinced me, more & more, that I had more congeniality of thought & feeling with than any other writer whom I as yet have read. I will quote you but one instance out of many; you say; “It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, & the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.” The sentiment of this last clause I have never met anywhere else, but my mind instantly responded to its truth as to a thought the germ of which had long lain planted in my own head & had suddenly, touched by one ray of sunlight, burst into the maturity of form & expression. (The clock strikes two; I am too late already for the post; the more to be regretted that this day is Saturday, & you live from me so far that I cannot send my letter to you by any other conveyance.)
As I cannot promise myself any longer any advantage from hurrying, I will add more legibly, if a very bad pen will let me, that yr. criticism on Longfellow (which I began this morning — the reply to Outis I mean, which I have only hitherto had a chance to read in parts) I shall now read with tenfold satisfaction; you know we think alike of that certainly over-estimated however estimable poet. And by the by, as my set (in the nos. lately purchased for the sake of Page’s Essay) lacks two parts of the Series, I shall endeavor if possible to get down as far as Clinton Hall this afternoon; in which case I will leave there the letter with a mind to have it forwarded directly to you, as of importance. I do not want you for one moment, my dear Sir, to remain in any doubt of how truly I am yours,
Laughton Osborn
Edgar A. Poe, Esq.
Laughton Osborn to Edgar Allan Poe — October 1, 1845
Dear Sir:
A part of my MS (from P. 13 to P. 18 — both inclusive) is wanting. Will you have the goodness to look it up for me? It will spare me the labor of a re-transcript for which I am but poorly capable at present, for there have been certain liberties taken with the copy which I (who am as wise as yourself in that point — see your pithy note to the “Chambersburg Times”) wish to restore to its integrity. Besides, I like to keep all my MSS that have been printed from, and the loss or mutilation of the present would break the series. If you can find the title page you can much oblige me by adding it to the rest.
I enclose you two or three poems which you may like to have for your magazine. You must not and will not I am convinced from any feeling of delicacy hesitate to reject them if not suitable because I offer them absolutely without the least desire to extend my own reputation by their publication, but solely with the view of aiding you to make up the matter for