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Text: Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — October 30, 1829







Balto: Oct: 30. 1829.

    Dear Pa —
 
    I received your letter this evening and am grieved that I can give you no positive evidence of my industry & zeal as regards the appt at W. Point: unless you will write to Mr Eaton himself who well remembers me & the earnestness of my application.
 
    But you are labouring under a mistake which I beg you to correct by reference to all my former letters — I stated that Mr Eaton told me that an appt could be obtained by Sepr provided there were a sufficient number rejected at the June examination & regretted that I had not made an earlier application — that at all events, with the strong recommendations I had brought that I should have an appt at the next term which is in June next —

     So far from having any doubts of my appt at that time, I am as certain of obtaining it as I am of being alive —
 
    If you find this statement to be incorrect then condemn me — otherwise acquit me of any intention to practise [[sic]] upon your good nature — which I now feel myself to be above —
 
    It is my intention upon the receipt of your letter to go again to Washington &, tho’ contrary to the usual practice, I will get Mr Eaton to give me my letter of appt now [page 2:] — it will consist of an order to repair to W. P. in June for examination &c — & forward it to you that all doubts may be removed — I will tell him why I want it at present & I think he will give it.

     I would have sent you the M. S. of my Poems long ago for your approval, but since I have collected them they have been continually in the hands of some person or another. & I have not had them in my own possession since Carey & Lea took them — I will send them to you at the first opportunity —
 
    I am sorry that your letters to me have still with them a tone of anger as if my former errors were not forgiven — if I knew how to regain your affection God knows I would do any thing I could —

I am
Yours affectionately
        Edgar A. Poe







Notes:

This letter is printed here with permission from the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. A photographic facsimile of this letter was published in Mary Newton Stannard, Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished in the Valentine Museum Richmond, Virginia, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1925.
 
[S:1 - MS, 1829]