1841 April, to Frank, Philada.

              Dear Frank
Somewhere in the Month of April, AD

1841

If you are in want of a mystery profound enough

to merit the attention and task the scrutiny of your

powerful mind - endeavor to ascertain if you can what whim

has led me to take this mammoth sheet for my letter instead

of confining myself as heretofore to the narrower limits of

a [Quarto]  It has puzzled me – I thought first of greatness

in the Abstract – how greatness Sympathises with greatness –

How you cant get a Barrel of praties in a Bushel Basket –

and wondered if that was the reason – Some I reasoned Are

born to greatness – some achieve greatness and some have

greatness thrust upon them – and I have come to that

conclusion that struggle against it as I may in spite of all

I may do – greatness is my destiny. ------

“Tantaeni

animis celestibus irae!!” as [Maro] said when the Caelicoli

plagued poor Aeneas half out of his wits. ---  I know

Francis that the provocation was extreme – like unto the

emotions of a female Tiger robbed of her young by some

felonious and ruthless hand – some Yankee Menagerie-Keeper –

who reflects (not the Keeper but the Tiger) that her striped

Darlings will be exposed to the vulgar eye far from their

native land. far from her and from her caresses. – who knows

that in them she has lost perhaps the prop of her declining

years and feels that she is altogether lonely –



“They will never come she said”
“She said I am

a-weary a-weary”
“Would God that I were dead”!

–

like unto her heart-rending emotions are emotions

of a Poet moaning over the loss the abstraction by

unhallowed hands of his fancy’s creations – his children of

the Brain  She whet her incisors – He mends his pen –


Her sullen growl resounds thro the forest. = fearful

flies the trembling thief – the invader of their domestic

hearth and social joys. – She sees him in the blue distance

farther than any eye can pierce save the eye of a Mother

bereaved of her offspring --  Guilty wretch! and dont thou

expect such crimes to prosper – Fly as thou may the avenger

is behind – She springs from the tangled Brush – one blow

and her little ones are free and the blood of the ravisher =

washes down his bones – The Poets eye rolls in indignant

fury – He paces up and down – and much Ink must be shed. 

Black ink – to expiate his wrongs ------

But Frank I

quote from “L’Entreprise No. 8” “Memory is mortal

forgiveness divine” – There is a difference between the

charity of the Christian and the blind revenge of the beasts

that perish – and I see that thou art well acquainted with

the precept concerning the smiting of one cheek and the

subsequent turning of the other – since – when thou wast

informed of the use I had made of thy Serenade thee sends me

on another piece which I am sorely tempted to appropriate to

the same purpose – viz. “The Thief” an Indignation ode

-----

But “L’Entreprise” is of the things that have

been = its star has set – When it again rises and illumes

our horizon once more – any pieces you may favor me with

will meet with particular attention and speedy insertion –

To Encourage your Modesty I will only hint