Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

would at once command such unusual and intense interest that the publisher might give up all other enterprises, and make this one book the business of his lifetime. An edition of fifty thousand copies might be sufficient to begin with, but it would be but a small beginning. No other scientific event in the history of the world approached in importance the original developments of the book. All this and more, not in irony or jest, but in intense earnest — for he held me with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner. I was really impressed, but not overcome. Promising a decision on Monday (it was late Saturday), the poet had to rest so long in uncertainty, upon the extent of the edition, partly reconciled by a small loan meanwhile. We did venture, not upon fifty thousand, but five hundred.”† Accordingly, in the course of a few weeks, the work upon which Poe had spent so many months, and, indeed, in some respects, years of thought, was published in a handsomely-printed volume of 144 pages, as “Eureka: A Prose Poem; by Edgar A., Poe.” The work was dedicated, “with very profound respect,” to Alexander von Humboldt, and was heralded by this Preface: — “To the few who love me and whom I love — to those who feel rather than to those who think — to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities — I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in ita Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone: — let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim., as a Poem. “What I here propound it true: — therefore it cannot die: — or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will ‘rise again to the Life Everlasting’ “Nevertheless, it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead. E. A, P.” It was in a style perfectly in accordance with the magnitude and magnificence of the theme he had undertaken to dilate upon, that the poet commenced the opus magnum of his life: he begins thus — ‘‘It is with humility really unassumed — it is with a sentiment even of awe — that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn — the most comprehensive — the most difficult — the most august. “What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity — sufficiently sublime in their simplicity — for the mere enunciation of my theme? “I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical of the Material and Spiritual Universe: — of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash, moreover, as to challenge the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to question the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly reverenced of men. “In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announce — not the theorem which I hope to demonstrate — for, whatever the mathematicians may assert, there is, in this world at least, no such thing as demonstration but the ruling idea which, throughout this volume, I shall be continually endeavouring to suggest. “My general proposition, then, is this: — In the Original Unity of the Fast Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation.” No comprehending reader can deny the grandeur and fascination of this work, although if — after the mind has had time to recover from the spell which has hurried it along through the all-absorbing theme to the last startling climax — we begin to question and to doubt, Poe’s analysis of creation will, probably, be found to be no more convincing than its thousand-and-one predecessors. Yet a spell there is about it due to something more than mere witchery of words; due to the fact that startling theories bearing all the semblance of truths — truths hitherto untold, or dimly guessed at — are frequently enunciated and demonstrated as nearly as verbal. demonstration is capable of. The only critical examination of the technical merits of this work, with which we are acquainted, is contained in a very remarkable article by Dr. William Hand Browse, in the New Eclectic Magazine, on “Poe’s ‘Eureka’ and Recent Scientific Speculations,” wherein is shown how the various theories advanced by the poet have been singularly paralleled by those of the most recent and distinguished scientists and. corroborated by their discoveries. A great hindrance to the acceptance of this work by scientific inquirers is the absurd, and utterly-out-of-place attempt at humour, displayed in the tirade against the Aristotelian and Baconian schools of philosophy, at the commencement of the essay. This, and the fact that the author is well known as a writer of fiction and poetry, have combined to impede the influence of “Eureka” in the sphere where its value could beat be gauged. Poe himself was a staunch believer in the truth of his theory of creation, and was wont to discuss the knotty points in “Eureka” with an eloquence that temporarily persuaded, even if it did not permanently convince, his hearers. He could not submit to hear the merits of his work discussed by unsympathetic and incompetent critics, and after it was published in book form, and thus become public property, addressed this thoroughly characteristic letter to Mr. Charles Fenno Hoffmann, then editing the New York Literary World, respecting a flippant critique of the book which had appeared in the columns of that periodical: — “DEAR SIR, — In your paper of July 29, I find some comments on ‘Eureka,’ a late book of my own; and I know you too well to suppose, for a moment, that you will refuse me the privilege of a few words in reply. I feel, even, that I might safely claim, from Mr. Hoffman, the right, which every author has, of replying to his critic tone for tone — that is to say, of answering your correspondent, flippancy by flippancy and sneer by sneer — but, in the first place, I do not wish to disgrace the ‘World‘; and, in the second, I feel that I should never be done sneering, in the present instance, were I once to begin. Lamartine blames Voltaire for the use which he made of (ruse) misrepresentations, in his attacks on the priesthood; but our young students of Theology do not seem to be aware that in defence, or what they fancy to be defence, of Christianity, there is anything wrong in such gentlemanly peccadillos as the deliberate perversion of an author’s text — to say nothing of the minor indecora of reviewing a book without reading it and without having the faintest suspicion of what it is about. “You will understand that it is merely the misrepresentations of the critique in question to which I claim the privilege of reply: — the mere opinions of the writer can be of no consequence to me — and I should imagine of very little to himself — that is to say if he knows himself, personally, so well as I have the honour of knowing him. The first misrepresentation is contained in this sentence: — ‘This letter is a keen burlesque on the Aristotelian or Baconian methods of ascertaining Truth, both of which the writer ridicules and despises, and pours forth his rhapsodical ecstasies in a glorification of a third mode — the noble at of guessing.’ What I really say is this: — ‘That there is no absolute certainty either in the Aristotelian or Baconian process — that, for this reason, neither Philosophy is so pro found as it fancies itself — and that neither has a right to sneer at that seemingly imaginative process called Intuition (by which the great Kepler attained his laws); since ‘Intuition,’ after all, is but the conviction arising from those inductions or deductions of which the processes are so shadowy as to escape our consciousness, elude our reason, or defy our capacity of expression.’ The second misrepresentation runs thus: — ‘The development of electricity and the formation of stars and suns, luminous and non luminous, moons and planets, with their rings, &c., is deduced, very much according to the nebular theory of Laplace, from the principle propounded above.’ Now the impression intended to be made here upon the reader‘a mind, by the ’Student of Theology,’ is, evidently, that my theory may be all very well in its way, but that it is nothing but Laplace over again, with some modifications that he (the Student of Theology) cannot regard as at all important. I have only to say that no gentleman can accuse me of the disingenuousness here implied; inasmuch as, having proceeded with my theory to that point at which Laplace’s theory meets it, I then give Laplace’s theory in full, with the expression of my, firm conviction of its absolute truth at all points. The ground covered by the great French astronomer compares with that covered by my theory, as a bubble compares with the ocean on which it floats; nor has he the slightest allusion to ‘the principle propounded above,’ the principle of Unity being the source of all things — the principle of Gravity being. merely the Reaction of the Divine Act which irradiated all things from Unity. In fact, no point of my theory has been even so much as alluded to by Laplace. I have not considered it necessary, here, to speak of the astronomical knowledge displayed in the ’stars and suns’ of the Student of Theology, nor to hint that it would be better grammar to say that I development and formation’ are, than that development and formation is. The third misrepresentation lies in a footnote, where the critic says, I Further than this, Mr. Poe’s claim that he can account for the existence of all organised beings, man included., merely, from those principles on which the origin and present appearance of suns and worlds are explained, must be set down. as mere bald assertion, without a particle of evidence. In other words, we should term it arrant fudge.’ The perversion at this point is involved in a wilful misapplication of the word I principles.’ I say I wilful,’ because, at page 63, I am particularly careful to distinguish between the principles proper, Attraction and Repulsion, and those merely resultant sub-principles which control the universe in detail. To theme sub-principles, swayed by the immediate spiritual influence of Deity, I leave, without examination, all that which the Student of Theology so roundly asserts I account for on the principles which account for the constitution of suns, &c. . . . . “Were these ‘misrepresentations’ (is that the name for them?) made for any less serious a purpose than that of branding my book as I impious,’ and myself as a I pantheist,’ a ‘polytheist,’ a Pagan, or a God knows what (and indeed I care very little so it be not a; Student of Theology’), I would have permitted their dishonesty to pass unnoticed, through pure contempt for the boyishness — for the turn-down-shirt-collarness of their tone: but, as it is, you will pardon me, Mr. Editor, that I have been compelled to expose a ‘critic,’ who, courageously preserving his own anonymosity, takes advantage of my absence from the city to misrepresent, and thus vilify me, by name. EDGAR A. POE. “FORDHAM, September 20, 1848.” Some small pecuniary recompense, probably, accrued to Poe from the publication of “Eureka,” for directly after that event, and some months previous to the writing of the above letter, he started on his long-projected tour, the object of which was to raise the means, by lectures and obtaining subscribers’ names, to start the Stylus. He is first heard of at Richmond, Virginia, where he renewed several old, and made some new, acquaintanceships. Among the latter was Mr. John R. Thompson’s, who had become proprietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, the periodical upon which Poe’s editorial career had commenced, and to the pages of which he now agreed to resume contributing. As they became more intimate, Mr. Thompson became much attached to the poet, — as, indeed, did all who were personally acquainted with him — and