The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1423]
Very Resply, Yr. Ob. Svt.,
Mess. Sam. Williams
Wm. Graeff Jr.
Edgar A. Poe
NEAL, JOHN
Edgar Allan Poe to John Neal — October - November 1829
(. . . . )
I am young — not yet twenty — am a poet — if deep worship of all beauty can make me one — and wish to be so in the common meaning of the word. I would give the world to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination (By the way, do you remember, or did you ever read the exclamation of Shelley about Shakspeare “What a number of ideas must have been afloat befor such an author could arise!”). I appeal to you as a man that loves the same beauty which I adore — the beauty of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth — there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother — it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent — their affections are always running in the same direction — the same channel and cannot help mingling. I am and have been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot therefore be said that
‘I left a calling for this idle trade
‘A duty broke — a father disobeyed —
for I have no father — nor mother.
I am about to publish a volume of “Poems” — the greater part written before I was fifteen. Speaking about ‘Heaven’, the Editor of the Yankee says, He might write a beautiful, if not a magnificent poem — (the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard). I am very certain that, as yet I have not written either — but that I can, I will take >>my<< oath — if they will give me time.
The poems to be published are ‘Al Aaraaf’ “Tamerlane, one about four, the other about three hundred lines, with smaller pieces. Al Aaraaf has some good poetry and much extravagance which I have not had time to throw away”
Al Aaraaf is a tale of another world — the Star discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared and disappeared so suddenly — or rather it is no tale at all. I will insert an exctract about the palace of its presiding Deity, in which you will see that I have supposed many of the lost sculptures of our world to have flown (in Spirit) to the star Al Aaraaf — a delicate place more suited to their divinity.
(Here appear several excerpts from Poe’s poems.)
Edgar Allan Poe to John Neal — December 29, 1829
(Beginning of letter missing, and not recorded)
. . . . [w]as intended — I mention this merely to assure [y]ou that the delay was none of mine, as [i]n all matters, however trivial, I dete[st it]. I now forward them —
I thank you, Sir, for the kind interest you [e]xpress for my worldly as well as poetical [w]elfare — a sermon of prosing would [h]ave met with much less attention —
You will see that I have made the alterations you suggest “ventur’d out” in place of peer-ed — [w]hich is, at best, inapplicable to a statue — [a]nd other corrections of the same kind — [there is] much, however (in metre) to be corrected — [b]ut I did not observe it till too late —
I wait anxiously for your notice of the book — I think the best lines for sound are these in Al Aaraaf.
There Nature speaks and even ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings.
But the best thing (in every other respect) is the small piece headed “Preface.”
I am certain that these lines have never been surpassed.
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very air on high
With tumult as they thunder by
I hardly have had time for cares
Thro’ gazing on th’ unquiet sky
“It is well to think well of one’s self” — so sings somebody —
You will do me justice however —
I am D[ear] Sir,
Sincerely Yours,
Edgar A. Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe to John Neal — September 4, 1835
Richmond, Va. Sep. 4, 1835
My Dear Sir,
Herewith I send a number of the Southern Literary Messenger, a Magazine of which I have lately obtained the Editorship. Do you think you could send me regularly in exchange, The Galaxy or any other paper of wh: [which] you