Text: 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 to leave me the paper.

Very truly yours
M. E. Hewitt