University of Virginia Library

Letter from [John Allan?] to Edgar Allan Poe, dated March 20, 1827
Manuscript, Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia

your letter of Monday was received this
morning, I am not at all surprized at any step
you may take, at any thing you can say, or
any thing you may do, you are a much
better judge of the propriety of your own conduct
and general treatment of those who have had the charge
of your infancy I have watched with parental
solicitude & affection over your tender years
affording you such means of instruction as was
in their power & which was performed with
pleasure until you became a much better judge
of your own conduct, rights & priviledges, than
they, it is true: I taught you to aspire, even to
eminence in Public Life, but I never expected
that Don Quixotte. Gil Blas: Jo; Miller & such
works were calculated to promote the end

It is true and you will not deny it, that
the charge of eating the Bread of idleness, was
to urge you to perseverance & industry in
receiving the classics, in perfecting yourself
in the mathematics, mastering the French
&c.. &c.. how far I succeeded in this you can
best tell, but for one who had conceived so
good an opinion of himself, this future instruction
I hesitate not to say, that you have not
evinced the smallest disposition to comply
with my wishes, it is only on this subject

I wish to be understood. your Heart will tell
you if it is not made of Marble whether I have
not had good reason to fear for you, in more
ways than one. I should have been justly
chargeable, in reprimanding you for faults had
I had any other object than to correct them

your list of grievances require no answer
the world will reply to them—& now that you
have shaken off your dependance & declared
for your own Independance—& after such a
list of Black charges—you Tremble for the
consequences unless I send you a supply of
money