The date he placed at the top of his page was “September 11, 1835.”

“I received a letter yesterday,” he wrote, “which tells me you are back in town.  I hasten therefore, to write you and express by letter what I have always found it impossible to express orally—­my deep sense of gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance and kindness.

“Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine—­at a salary of $520 per annum.”

He had not intended to mention his troubles to Mr. Kennedy, but with each word he wrote the impulse to unburden himself which he always felt when talking to this kind, sympathetic man, grew stronger and he found his pen almost automatically taking an unexpected turn.  It was out of the abundance of his anguished heart that he added: 

“The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons—­but alas! it appears that nothing can now give me pleasure—­or the slightest gratification.  Excuse me, my Dear Sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency.  My feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed.  You will believe me when I say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improvement in my circumstances; for a man who is writing for effect does not write thus.  My heart is open before you—­if it be worth reading, read it.  I am wretched and know not why.  Console me—­for you can.  Convince me that it is worth one’s while to live.  Persuade me to do what is right.  You will not fail to see that I am suffering from a depression of spirits which will ruin me if it be long continued.  Write me then, and quickly.  Urge me to do what is right.  Your words will have more weight with me than the words of others—­for you were my friend when no one else was.”

Some men of more goodness than wisdom might have read this letter with impatience—­perhaps disgust, and tossed it into the waste basket, not deeming it worth an answer, or pigeon-holed it to be answered in a more convenient season—­which would probably never have arrived.  It is easy to imagine the contempt with which John Allan would have perused it.  Not so John Kennedy.  Busy lawyer and successful man of letters and of the world though he was, he had gone out of his way to stretch a hand to the gifted starveling he had discovered struggling for a foothold on the bottommost rung of the ladder of literary fame, and had not only helped him up the ladder but had drawn him, in his weakness and his strength, into the circle of his friendship, and now he had no idea of letting him go.  Mr. Kennedy was a great lawyer with a great tenderness for human nature, born of a great knowledge of it.  He did not expect young men—­even talented ones—­to be faultless or to be fountains of sound sense, or even always to be strong of will.  When he received Edgar Poe’s wail he had just returned to his office after a long vacation and found himself over head and ears in work; but he responded at once.  If it had seemed to him a foolish letter he did not say so.  If it had shocked or disappointed him, he did not say so.  He wrote in the kindly tolerant and understanding tone he always took with his protege a letter wholesome and bracing as a breath from the salt sea.