Letter from Edith Matilda Thomas to Joseph Marshall Stoddart

1.23.94 West New Brighton, Staten Island, New York [?2ck?] January 15 1894 Dear Ms Stoddart: I am so confident you will find among the enclosed [manuscripts] something you will like to use_ else I should scarcely venture to send such a handful! ~ I don't believe in pleading personality, in behalf of a work of art; and yet with regard to these poems, I am moved to tell you that their author is a New York journalist_ whom his circle of friends see sinking rapidly under illness and the pressure of necessary work. If some of these poems should find favor, it might be a pleasure to you as well as

those more intimately acquainted with the case, to know that encouragement in a dark time had been conferred upon a fellow - mortal. _ And since so much has been written here, it may be added that the same writer had a poem in a Summer Number of the Century - "In Granada"_ May I hope to have an early reply? Pardon prolixity - & believe me, Sincerely yours, Edith M. Thomas.