Text: Anonymous “Editorial Etchings,” Cosmopolitan Art Journal (New York, NY), vol. 3, no. 1, December 1858, p. 51.

[page 51, column 3, continued:]

—— a friend told us, the other day, of one of Edgar A. Poe's sarcasms, which is worth repeating. Poe had been told that certain ladies in the literary world had resolved to expose him, for some of his misdemeanors. He answered: “they are very good at exposures!” Those who have frequented some literary soirees, will especially appreciate the significance of the sarcasm.

Poe was once dunned savagely for a grocer's bill long overdue. He immediately sat down, penned one of his most savage onslaughts upon one of “the literati,” and upon the strength of it borrowed the amount needed to free him from the grocer. “There, sir!” said he, “grow, sir, you grocer puppy, into a dog, sir, and may you then be dogged, sir, as you have dogged Poe, sir. Now, go sir, and be ——— to you.” This, properly expressed, would look very like a Poe-stanza. It goes to show that some of his conceptions may have originated in moments of high-feeling, instead of having all been coolly “coined,” with great labor, as he intimates they were.