Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — 1831-10-16

Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — 1831-10-16 Historical letter date: 1831-10-16. Source edition: Mary Newton Stanard, Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished, 1925, letter twenty-six. This is repository machine OCR of the printed transcription; spelling and recognition errors remain. Consult the accompanying local scan excerpt and manuscript facsimile. [Source scan page 315] LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-SIX Baltimore Odo: i6 th 1831. Dear Sir, It is a long time since I have written to you unless with an application for money or assistance. I am sorry that it is so seldom that I hear from you or even of you. for all communication seems to be at an end; and when I think of the long twenty one years that I have called you father, and you have called me son, I could cry like a child to think that it should all end in this. You know me too well to think me interested if so : why have I rejected your thousand offers of love and kindness? It is true that when I have been in great extremity, I have always applied to you for I had no other friend, but it is only at such a time as the present when I can write to you with the consciousness of making no application for assistance, that I dare to open my heart, or speak one word of old affe&ion. When I look back upon the paft and think of every thing of how much you tried to do f or me O f your forbearance and your generosity, in spite of the mot flagrant ingratitude on my part, I can not help thinking yea. myself the greatest fool in ex- iStence, I am ready to curse the day when I was born. But I am fully truly conscious that all these better feelings have come too late [Source scan page 316] 280 EDGAR ALLAN POE LETTERS I am not the damned villain even to ask you to restore me to the twentieth part of those affections which I have so deservedly lo&, and I am resigned to whatever fate is allotted me. I write merely because I am by myself and have been thinking over old times, and my only friends, until my heart is full At such a time the conversation of new acquaintance is like ice, and I prefer writing to you altho' I know that you care nothing about me, and perhaps will not even read my letter. I have nothing more to say and this time, no favour to ask Altho I am wretchedly poor, I have managed to get clear of the difficulty I spoke of in my lat, and am out of debt> at any rate. May God bless you E A P. Will you not write one word to me ?