WCP6964

[1]

Dear Sir — Thanks for your last letter and enclosures. The copy of the letter from [James Whitcomb] Riley to Mr. Foote is to me very interesting, because it accords with the writer's whole action in the matter, which seems to me so curious and unnatural-laying such great stress on the mechanical imitation of the writing, — so little on the composition in imitation not merely of Poe's rythm & music but of his very feelings, also his fantastic ideas, which are unlike those exhibited in anything else of Riley's. To say that all this is nothing, excluding [?] the design of a new form of verse, & a totally new and most musical name, are also all nothing-mere trifles, that any one could have done, is to me such absurd exaggeration of self-abnegation that there mus be a reason for it. Also, writing as if there were any moral wrong in imitating another poet; & for a short time, & for a not improper purpose, letting people think it was his, if they liked, is also absurdly exaggerated, & quite intelligible. Again in the interview you sent me (and which I return) Riley is made to say that 'the story had never been properly told before' & he proceeds to tell it. But in a letter to the Ed. of the Fortnightly from Mr. J.W. Jones, Atty. who says he saw Riley every day while the hoax was being concoted and knew all about it, he states that in 'The Philadelphia Press, about 1894, published a full page covering the whole history of the poem. Riley wrote the article' What are we to understand by this? Riley could hardly have forgotten this long whole-page account written by himself, about 8 years before he allowed the Indianapolis paper to make his say in 1902 — 'The story has never been accurately told.' you will now have seen in the April Fortnightly my difficulties as to the versions. I cannot believe the man who wrote such almost unintelliggble snuff as some of the lines in his 'Leonainie' , really composed the whole of that exquisite little poem in the version copied by my brother. I still wait for further light; but as the matter now stands I think my doubts are justified. One of our papers has stated that W. Cullen Cryant (an exquisite poet who might possibly have written Leonainie) believed it to be a genuine work of Poe. I wonder if he accepted Riley's claim! I do not say positively, that Riley did not write it, but if he did it was an inspiration, and he ought to tell us how it came to him in all its details. I wish for more light. Yours very sincerely Alfred R Wallace