Text: James R. Lowell to Edgar Allan Poe — April 17, 1843

Boston April 17, 1843.

My Dear Friend, — Hawthorne writes me that he shall be able to send an article 1 in the course of a week or two. His terms are $5 a page, but probably, as your pages will “eat up” Copy with a less anaconda-like appetite than the fine print magazines, your best plan would be to pay him so much by the article. His wife will make a drawing of his head or he will have a Daguerreotype taken, so that you can have a likeness of him.

As to my own effigies. Page has painted a head of me which is called very fine, & which is now Exhibiting (I believe) at the National Academy in New York. This might be Daguerreotyped — or I might have one taken from my head as it is now — namely in a more civilized condition — the portrait by Page having very long hair, not to mention a beard and some symptoms of moustache, & looking altogether, perhaps, too antique to be palatable to the gentle public. But you shall use your own judgment about that.

I write now in considerable confusion, being just on the eve of quitting the office which I occupy as “Attorney & Counsellor at Law.” I have given up that interesting profession, & mean to devote myself wholly to letters. I shall live with my father at Cambridge in the house where I was born. I shall write again soon & send you a poem and some data for a biographical sketch. Take my best love in exchange for your ready sympathy & use me always as you may have occasion as your affectionate friend. J. R. L.

My address will be “Cambridge, Mass.” in future. I do hope and trust that your magazine will succeed. Be very watchful of your publishers & agents. They must be driven as men drive swine, take your eyes off them for an instant & they bolt between your legs & leave you in the mire.

J. R. L.