The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1414]
I am profoundly excited by music, and by some poems — those of Tennyson especially — whom, with Keats, Shelley, Coleridge (occasionally) and a few others of like thought and expression, I regard as the sole poets. Music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of Poetry. The vagueness >>and<< of exultation arous[ed by] a sweet air (which should be strictly indefinite & never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at in poetry. Affectation, within bounds, is thus no blemish.
I still adhere to Dickens as either author, or dictator, of the review. My reasons would convince you, could I give them to you — but I have left myself no space. I had two long interviews with Mr D. when here. Nearly every thing in the critique, I heard from >>D<< him or suggested to him, personally. The poem of Emerson I read to him.
I have been so negligent as not to preserve copies of any of my volumes of poems — nor was either worthy preservation. The best passages were culled in Hirst’s article. I think my best poems, “The Sleeper”, “The Conqueror Worm”, “The Haunted Palace”, >>”A Paen”<< “Lenore”, “Dreamland” & “The Coliseum” — but all have been hurried & unconsidered. My best tales are “Ligeia”; The “GoldBug”; The “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, The “Tell-Tale Heart”, The “Black Cat”, “William Wilson”, & “The Descent into the Maelstrom.” “The Purloined Letter,” forthcoming in the “Gift”, is, perhaps, the best of my tales of ratiocination. I have lately written, for Godey, “The Oblong-Box”, and “Thou art the Man” — as yet unpublished. With this, I mail you “The Gold-Bug”, which is the only one of my tales I have on hand.
Graham has had, for 9 months, a review of mine on Longfellow’s “Spanish Student”, which I have “used up”, and in which I have exposed some of the grossest plagiarisms ever perpetrated. I can’t tell why he does not publish it. — I believe G. intends my Life for the September number, which will be made up by the 10th August. Your article shd be on hand as soon as convenient.
Believe me your true friend.
E A Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell — August 18, 1844
New-York: August 18. 1844
My Dear Friend,
With this letter I take the liberty to mail you a number of the “Columbian Magazine,” in which you will find a paper on “Mesmeric Revelation”. In it I have endeavoured to amplify some ideas which I suggested in my last letter.
You will observe many corrections & alterations. In fact the article was wofully misprinted; and my principal object in boring you with it now, is to beg of you the favor to get it copied (with corrections) in the Brother Jonathan — I mean the Boston Notion — or any other paper where you have interest. If you can do this without trouble, I would be very deeply indebted to you. I am living so entirely out of the world, just now, that I can do nothing of the kind myself.
In what are you occupied? — or is it still the far niente? For myself I am very industrious — collecting and arranging materials for a Critical History of Am. Literature. Do you ever see Mr Hawthorne? He is a man of rare genius. A day or two since I met with a sketch by him called “Drowne’s Wooden Image” — delicious. The leading idea, however, is suggested by Michael Angelo’s couplet:
Non ha l’ottimo artiste alcun concetto
Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva
To be sure Angelo half-stole the thought from Socrates.
How fares it with the Biography? I fear we shall be late.
Most truly your friend.
Edgar A Poe
James Russell Lowell to Edgar Allan Poe — September 27, 1844
Elmwood, September 27, 1844
My Dear Friend, — I kept back the biography a short time in order to send it on by a private hand. It is not half so good as it ought to be, but it was written under many disadvantages, not the least of which was depression of spirits which unfits a man for anything. I wish you to make any suggestions about