Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas H. Chivers — 1844-07-10

Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas H. Chivers — 1844-07-10 Local historical letter reading from the Poe Society’s manuscript-text page, with modern correction glosses and website material excluded. The scholarly checklist documents an early printed witness in Century Magazine, January 1903, volume 65, pages 441–442. This record preserves the electronic letter text, not a scan of that printed witness or the autograph. Catalogue identity and date checked against the repository heading. Source brackets and manuscript deletion marks, where present, identify uncertain readings or revisions and are retained. Typography is simplified. The transcription has not been independently proofread word by word. New-York July 10. 44. My Dear Friend, Yours of June 15 was forwarded here to me on the 25th [ul]t. Believe me, I am truly pleased to h[ea]r from you again. The two letters of which you speak were received; but, in the hurry of mere business, I chanced to file them away among a package of letters endorsed “answered,” and thus it was that I failed to reply. For many months I have been haunted by the sentiment of some duty unperformed, but was unable to say what it was. Touching the “Penn Magazine” or rather the “Stylus”, (for this is the title I should finally adopt) — I have by no means given up the intention of issuing it; my views respecting it are only confirmed by time, and more intimate acquaintance with our literature, as well as with the business of Magazine publication. I am only “biding my time” — awaiting m[e]ans and opportunity. Should you conclude to join me, we will not fail to make fame and fortune. When you feel ready to attempt the enterpriz[e], you will find me here — at New York — where I live, [at] present, in strict seclusion, busied with books and [ambiti]ous thoughts, until the hour shall arrive when I may come forth with a certainty of success. A Magazine like Graham's will never do. We must do something far better — but we will talk of these matters personally. When you come to New-York, put a letter to my address in the P. Odice, and we will thus find each other. I have been lately lecturing on “American Poetry” and have drawn profuse tears from large and intellectual audiences by the recital of your “Heavenly Vision” — which I can never weary of repeating. You mistake me in supposing I dislike the transcendentalists — it is only the pretenders and sophists among them. My own faith is indeed my own. You will find it, somewhat detailed, in a forthcoming number of the “Columbian Magazine”, published here. I have written for it an article headed “Mesmeric Revelation,” which see. It may be out in the August or September number. I disagree with you in what you say of man's advance towards perfection. Man is now only more active, not wiser, nor more happy, than he was 6000 years ago. To say that we are better than ou[r] progenitors, is to make the foregone age[s] only the rudiment of the pre[se]nt & future; whereas each individual man is the rudiment of a future material (not spiritual) being. It were to suppose God unjust to suppose those who have died before us possessed of less advantage than ourselves. There is no such thing as spirituality. God is material. All things are material; yet the matter of God has all the qualities which we attribute to spirit: thus the difference is scarcely more than of words. There is a matter without particles — of no atomic composition: this is God. It permeates and impels all things, and thus is all things in itself. Its agitation is the thought of God, and creates. Man and other beings (inhabitants of stars) are portions of this unparticled matter, individualized by being incorporated in the ordinary or particled matter. — Thus they exist rudimentally. Death is the painful metamorphosis. The worm becomes the butterfly — but the butterfly is still material — of a matter, however, which cannot be recognized by our rudimental organs. But for the necessity of the rudimental life, t