The Portable Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [241]
The tone of your letter wounds me to the soul—Oh Aunty, Aunty you loved me once—how can you be so cruel now? You speak of Virginia acquiring accomplishments, and entering into society—you speak in so worldly a tone. Are you sure she would be more happy. Do you think any one could love her more dearly than I? She will have far—very far better opportunities of entering into society here than with N.P. Every one here receives me with open arms.
Adieu my dear aunty. I cannot advise you. Ask Virginia. Leave it to her. Let me have, under her own hand, a letter, bidding me good bye—forever—and I may die—my heart will break—but I will say no more.
EAP.
Kiss her for me—a million times.
For Virginia,
My love, my own sweetest Sissy, my darling little wifey, think well before you break the heart of your cousin. Eddy.
I open this letter to enclose the 5$—I have just received another letter from you announcing the rect. of mine. My heart bleeds for you. Dearest Aunty consider my happiness while you are thinking about your own. I am saving all I can. The only money I have yet spent is 50 cts for washing—I have 2.25 left. I will shortly send you more. Write immediately. I shall be all anxiety & dread until I hear from you. Try and convince my dear Virga. how devotedly I love her. I wish you would get me the Republican wh: which noticed the Messenger & send it on immediately by mail. God bless & protect you both.
Poe despised his cousin Neilson Poe (then a successful newspaper publisher) and feared that if Neilson became Virginia’s protector, he would thwart her marriage to Edgar. Poe notes that the teaching position he sought had been given to another man but assures Mrs. Clemm that his salary from White will support her and her daughter in Richmond.
EDGAR ALLAN POE TO PHILIP P. COOKE
Philadelphia Sep. 21rst. 1839.
My Dear Sir:
I recd. your letter this morning—and read it with more pleasure than I can well express. You wrong me, indeed, in supposing that I meant one word of mere flattery in what I said. I have an inveterate habit of speaking the truth—and had I not valued your opinion more highly than that of any man in America I should not have written you as I did.
I say that I read your letter with delight. In fact I am aware of no delight greater than that of feeling one’s self appreciated (in such wild matters as “Ligeia”) by those in whose judgment one has faith. You read my inmost spirit “like a book,” and with the single exception of D’Israeli, I have had communication with no other person who does. Willis had a glimpse of it—Judge Tucker saw about one half way through—but your ideas are the very echo of my own. I am very far from meaning to flatter—I am flattered and honored. Beside me is now lying a letter from Washington Irving in which he speaks with enthusiasm of a late tale of mine, “The Fall of the House of Usher,”—and in which he promises to make his opinion public, upon the first opportunity,—but from the bottom of my heart I assure you, I regard his best word as but dust in the balance when weighed with those discriminating opinions of your own, which teach me that you feel and perceive.
Touching “Ligeia” you are right—all right—throughout. The gradual perception of the fact that Ligeia lives again in the person of Rowena is a far loftier and more thrilling idea than the one I have embodied. It offers in my opinion, the widest possible scope to the imagination—it might be rendered even sublime. And this idea was mine—had I never written before I should have adopted it—but then there is “Morella.