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Edgar A. Poe.

“DEARY, Deary,” says a Waverly [[Waverley]] Partington, “what is the world coming to? Poe has actually written in the same style of Chivers, it is said.” I dont care if he wrote in a dozen styles. Now likely as not he was one of those that wrote what he chose, and when he chose, and the way he chose. A real mocking bird, wa’nt he? Well, P. always loved the “mocking birds,” because they don’t everlastingly make the same sounds; but all birds havn’t that gift, you know.

Girls, (now I think of it,) it never will do for you to make your bread as your grandmother’s did; if you do, though the flour, and the milk and the yeast is your own, and you knead and bake it yourselves, your grandmothers will have the praise; you little “echoes,” as sure as Fiat Justitia dines with you, I guess the roses will mount your cheeks, when he tells you, (in severe tones,) that he has tasted a crumb from an old loaf — that there is no mistaking this matter — that one loaf was taken from the other just as sure as the first was ever baked. Girls, girls, I say, make your own receipts, or you never will prove that you have “originality.” True, you may gain “notoriety” as housewives, but you will never be natural cooks like your grandmothers.

When I write, I shall startle the world by writing without rule, measure, or style; and for keeping house, I’ve a snug little plan of my own. My chairs will be on their sides, the tables and time-piece bottom upwards, my drawer handles inside, my kittens in cages, and my canaries at liberty — in short, you don’t catch me “dying into an echo,” as poor Poe would, if he had lived long enough to; depend upon it, I will prove that I have some original ideas and some little ways of my own, or you see, I never should be considered a genuine Partington.

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