Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 2, Ms 0156, Box 2, Folder 24c, George William Curtis to HHJ, 1881.
Transcribed by Gloria Helmuth, 2003.

Envelope addressed:
Mrs. Helen Jackson
[crossed out: Park House]
Boston,
Mass.
Care
Roberts Bros.
Postmark: BOSTON MASS. JAN 14 1881

[Letterhead crossed out] West New Brighton

Staten Island
N.Y.

Albany 13 Jan. 1881.

Dear Mrs. Jackson.

I have received here your note of the 8th and my absence from home must explain my seeming negligence in replying. I have to beg to ask your pardon for not acknowledging your note with the letter for publication, and I can plead only that as I meant to print the letter a reply did not seem imperative that I confess my remissness and I will hold myself admonished hereafter.

To the very serious charge of unfair dealing with you note - and I don't know whether I ought to say that I am glad or sorry that such a charge is for the first time made against me as an editor - I have to say that it did not occur to me that you did not see that the article was merely an abstract of Mr. Schurz's own statements, and that your reply really traversed what he said and what I had repeated. In order therefore that there might be no further misunderstanding, I quoted his own words to show that, in one or two instances you had been apparently unfair.

I am obliged by your note as it will put me on my guard hereafter in similar circumstances.

Truly yours

George William Curtis