The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1269]
Thought is a spontaneity of the soul, subject, in a great measure, to volition. Des Cartes believed that the essence of the soul consisted in actual cognitation. But this is impossible, as the operation of thinking is nothing but an attribute of the soul.
Creation is silence: destruction noise. From the inaudible thoughts of God were the stars born. Thunder is the voice of Nature hushing her own self to repose. It is that voice by which she wishes to sing herself into silence of the Deity. Silence is bliss. Thought is silence. Therefore, thought is bliss. It is the sapphire silence of the soul. Paraclesus says that silence is the language of spirits. — This is my answer to your “agitation.” —
I do not believe that the souls of men, at death, “go every where,” but into Sheol. This is an immemorial tradition. This is the soul’s rest. It is the “pure earth” of Plato. This, Gortius, as well as Dr. Whitby, has remarked, when referring to that remarkably familiar saying of the Chaldeans, “Seek Paradise, the glorious country of the soul;” and also their familiar saying to a dying person; “Let his sould be in Paradise.” There is also another expression of theirs which Dr. Gregory mentions from Theophilact; “Paradise is the region of the soul’s rest.”
This shows that when a Man dies his sould does not go “every where,” but to Sheol, to wait for the resurrection of his body. This is the place where Christ promised to meet the thief on the cross. He did so, while his body lay in the grave. When a man dies, we speak of his death in the usual, but not in the actual, way. There is a dissolution of the union of his soul and body, which union constitutes his person while in this life; but his personality is something very far above this. The soul of Man is to his body what he Divinity was to the Son of God. Death is the analysis of his synthetic being. The “metamorphosis,” as your beautifully term it, is not a “painful” one. What appears to be pain is only the effort of organic life to carry on his accustomed functions. The soul then casts off the wornout garments of mortality to put on the golden garments of the Angels.
You individualize Man by incorporating the “unparticled “ in the “particled matter.” But this is making his individuality depend only upon a peculiar mannerof being; whereas I make his personality exist in his selfconscious soul, which shows that his soul may exist in Sheol, after its separation from the body.
Write upon the receipt of this, and tell me all about the literature of the day. Do not fail to send me the Magazine, containing your “Mesmeric Revelation.” I intend to get all your writings. Write soon.
Yours most sincerely,
Thos. H. Chivers
E. A. Poe, Esqr.
Thomas H. Chivers to Edgar Allan Poe — September 24, 1844
Oaky Grove, Ga., Sept. 24th, 1844.
My Dear Friend, — I have been looking with great anxiety for another one of your transcendental letters in answer to mine about the intellectual advancement of man; but you have not written to me up to this time. You must write oftener. Your last letter gave me such intellectual delight — the highest pleasure that a man can enjoy on earth — such as the Angels feel in heaven — that I desire, very much, to receive another one from you. 1 have been studying it ever since I received it. There is a great deal of Seraphic wisdom contained in it. I shall say no more about your objections to my ideas of the intellectual advancement of man towards perfection, until you write to me again. I am astonished