n's 'Sicily'" to the list of books read by the
narrator. Griswold was not above forgery (in Poe's letters) when it
suited his purpose, but would have too little to gain by such an effort
in this instance.]

MELLONTA TAUTA

TO THE EDITORS OF THE LADY'S BOOK:

I have the honor of sending you, for your magazine, an article which
I hope you will be able to comprehend rather more distinctly than I
do myself. It is a translation, by my friend, Martin Van Buren Mavis,
(sometimes called the "Poughkeepsie Seer") of an odd-looking MS. which I
found, about a year ago, tightly corked up in a jug floating in the Mare
Tenebrarum--a sea well described by the Nubian geographer, but seldom
visited now-a-days, except for the transcendentalists and divers for
crotchets.

Truly yours,

EDGAR A. POE

{this paragraph not in the volume--ED}

ON BOARD BALLOON "SKYLARK"

April, 1, 2848

NOW, my dear friend--now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly that I am
going to punish you for all your impertinences by being as tedious, as
discursive, as incoherent and as unsatisfactory as possible. Besides,
here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with some one or two hundred of
the canaille, all bound on a pleasure excursion, (what a funny idea some
people have of pleasure!) and I have no prospect of touching terra firma
for a month at least. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to do. When one has
nothing to do, then is the time to correspond with ones friends. You
perceive, then, why it is that I write you this letter--it is on account
of my ennui and your sins.

Get ready your spectacles and make up your mind to be annoyed. I mean to
write at you every day during this odious voyage.

Heigho! when will any Invention visit the human pericranium? Are we
forever to be doomed to the thousand inconveniences of the balloon?
Will nobody contrive a more expeditious mode of progress? The jog-trot
movement, to my thinking, is little less than positive torture. Upon my
word we have not made more than a hundred miles the hour since leaving
home! The very birds beat us--at least some of them. I assure you that
I do not exaggerate at all. Our motion, no doubt, seems slower than it
actually is--this on account of our having no objects about us by which
to estimate our velocity, and on account of our going with the wind. To
be sure, whenever we meet a balloon we have a chance of perceiving our