SIR,--Will you please say to “Old Nick” that he does not tell the truth. His statements regarding me, in your paper, February 10, are not correct. Lucy Larcom is not a “literary thiefess;” “Hannah Binding Shoes” was not written “five or six years,” but about four years since. I have only to blush that I wrote it, and that I sent it to the editor of the “Knickerbocker.”
The latter was done at a time when it seemed desirable for me to attempt writing for pecuniary profit,--a very ridiculous idea, of course,--and I enclosed the poem in a letter, intimating such a desire to that gentleman, and supposing that courtesy would suggest that the letter should be answered, or the poem returned. As neither of these things was done, I innocently considered it my own property, and sent it to “The Crayon,” as an original composition.
I hereby reclaim from “Old Nick,” my “stolen goods,” which he has inadvertently advertised.
She wrote rather a severe letter to the “most honorable Old Nick” himself, in which she says, “In my ignorance, I supposed that editors were as polite as other people, in such matters as answering letters, and acknowledging even small favors. I am sure I never would have sent you a poem, if I had supposed you would one day have accused me of stealing it, and I hereby promise with sincere penitence, never to do so again. I suppose I can hardly look for the courtesy of an explanation as public as your accusation has been.”
She also wrote an explanation to Mr. John Durand, the editor of “The Crayon.”
DEAR MR. DURAND,--“Hannah Binding Shoes” I may truly say is “a poor thing, sir, but mine own.” I should hardly have supposed that the identity of so humble an individual would be thought worth calling in question. The poem was written four years since, and was sent to the editor of the “Knickerbocker” in my own name, but as I received no acknowledgment from him, and have never seen a copy of the paper since, I supposed it either failed to reach him, or was not accepted. Was I not justifiable in sending it to you? I had no idea that it had been published before.
“Hannah Binding Shoes” was set to music, and became very popular. Rev. Samuel Longfellow wrote her, “I wish you could have heard, as I did the other evening, ‘Hannah’ sung by Adelaide Phillips.” Together with its sequel, “Skipper Ben,” it recalled an incident very common in a New England sea-town, where ships were lost and lovers never returned, where every home had in it hearts that beat for those out at sea, and where women stood on the shore and strained their eyes looking for a sail. In these verses, as in all her poetry of the sea, she has caught the dirge in the wind, and the lonesome sound of beating waves when the skipper “faced his fate in a furious night.”