Text: George E. Woodberry, “The Poe-Chivers Papers: Selections from the Correspondence of Edgar Allan Poe,” Century Magazine (New York, NY), vol. XXVI, no. 4, February 1903, pp. 544-558

[page 544:]

CHIVERS did not remain long in New York in the memorable summer when he met his idol of genius face to face and consorted with him in so mundane a fashion. “The Lost Pleiad,” his last volume of verse, was now safely published. Poe noticed it in the “Broadway Journal,”’ August 2, 1845; he describes the volume as the honest and fervent utterance of an exquisitely sensitive heart which has suffered much and long. “The poems,” he goes on, “are numerous, but the thesis is one — death — the death of beloved friends. The poet seems to have dwelt among the shadows of tombs, until his very soul has become a shadow. . . . In a word, the volume before us is the work of that rara avis, an educated, passionate, yet unaffectedly simple-minded and single-minded man, writing from his own vigorous impulses — from the necessity of giving utterance to poetic passion — and thus writing not to mankind, but solely to himself. The whole volume has, in fact, the air of a rapt soliloquy.” He then gives a long extract from the poem on Shelley, and ends by complimenting the volume as “possessing merit of a very lofty — if not of the very loftiest order.”

The correspondence was resumed in August by a missing letter of Chivers from Philadelphia to which the following is an answer.

POE TO CHIVERS

New York: Aug. 29.

MY DEAR FRIEND, I sit down, in the midst of all the hurry of getting out the paper, to [column 2:] reply to your letter, dated 25th. What can you be thinking about? You complain of me foy not doing things which I had no idea that he wanted done. Do you not see that my short letter to you was written on the very day on which yours was addressed to me? How, then, could you expect mine to be a reply to yours? You must have been making a voyage to “Dreamland.”

What you say about the $50, too, puzzles me. You write — ”Well I suppose you must have it” — but it does not come. Is it possible that you mailed it in the letter? I presume not; but that you merely refer to your intention of sending it. For Heaven's sake do — as soon as you get this — for almost everything (as concerns the paper) depends upon it. It would be a thousand pities to give up just as everything flourishes. As soon as, by hook or by crook, I can get Wiley & Putnam's book done, I shall have plenty of money — $500 at least — & will punctually repay you.

I have been making all kinds of inquiries about the “broken” money [referring to a commission from Chivers to obtain some paper money of the Bank of Florida] — but as yet have not found it. Today I am on a new scent and may possibly succeed. The “Southern Patriot” is published at Charleston. I have no copy — but you can see it anywhere on file I presume, at Washington. The “Morning News” of this city had, also, a handsome notice, digested from mine in the B. J. Colton's Magazine will also have a favorable one. You may depend upon it that I will take good care of your interest & fame, but let me do it in my own way.

Thank you for the play — poems — and Luciferian Revelation — as soon as I get a chance I will use them. The L. R.(1) is great — & your last poem is a noble one. I send on to day the books you mention. [page 546:]

Virginia and Mrs. Clemm send their warmest love to you & your wife & children. We all feel as if we knew your family.

God bless you, my friend.

Truly yours,

Poe.

I have not touched a drop of the “ashes”(2) since you left N. Y. — & I am resolved not to touch a drop as long as I live. I will be with you as soon as it is in any manner possible. I depend on you for the $50.

Chivers replied from Georgia, September 9 and October 30 (and apparently at intervening dates), in a cordial, offhand manner as of boon-companionship, congratulating on his “good resolutions and warning him that he must not “flatter” him or “practise lip-service,” as his friendship is sincere and disinterested; and he explains why he does not send the money, though promising forty-five dollars soon. Poe, meanwhile, was writing for money to every one he dared — to Kennedy, Griswold, and George Poe, for example — to complete his purchase of the “Broadway Journal,” and he made a last attempt upon Chivers.

POE TO CHIVERS

New York: Nov. 15, 45.

MY DEAR FRIEND — Beyond doubt you must think that I treat you ill in not answering your letters — but it is utterly impossible to conceive how busy I have been. The Broadway [column 2:] Journals I now send, will give you some idea of the reason. I have been buying out the paper, and of course you must be aware that I have had a tough time of it — making all kind of maneuvres — and editing the paper, without aid from anyone, all the time. I have succeeded, however, as you see — bought it out entirely, and paid for it all, with the exception of 140$ which will fall due on the 1st of January next. I will make a fortune of it yet. You see yourself what a host of advertising I have. For Heaven's sake, my dear friend, help me now if you can — at once — for now is my time of peril. If I live until next month I shall be beyond the need of aid. If you can send me the $45, Heaven's sake do it, by return of mail — or if not all, a part. Time with me now is money & money more than time. I wish you were here that I might explain to you my hopes and prospects — but in a letter it is impossible — for remember that I have to do everything myself — edit the paper — get it to press — and attend to the multitudinous business besides.

Believe me — will you not — my dear friend — that it is through no want of disposition to write you that I have failed to do so: — the moments I now spend in penning these words are gold themselves — & more. By & bye I shall have time to breathe — and then I will write you fully.

You are wrong (as usual) about Archytas & Oriof — both are as I accent them. Look in any phonographic Dictionary — say Bolles. Besides, wherever the words occur in ancient poetry, they are as I give them. What is the use of disputing an obvious point? You are wrong too, throughout, in what you say about the poem “Orion “ — there is not the shadow of an error, in its rhythm, from A to W.

I never dreamed that you did not get the paper regularly until Bisco told me it was not sent. You must have thought it very strange.

So help me Heaven, I have sent and gone [page 547:] personally in all the nooks & corners of Broken Land & such a thing as the money you speak of — is not to be obtained. Write me soon — soon — & help me if you can. I send you my Poems.

God bless you.

E. A. P.

We all send our warmest love to yourself, your wife & family.

Whether Chivers sent the money remains doubtful, as the six letters he wrote Poe in the ensuing nine months are missing. Meanwhile Poe had been obliged to give up the “Broadway Journal,” had fallen ill, and was now at Fordham cottage in a wretched state of health and poverty. The following letter is one of the most courageous he ever wrote and shows him in his best mood.

POE TO CHIVERS

New-York, July 22/46.

MY DEAR FRIEND, I had long given you up (thinking that, after the fashion of numerous other friends, you had made up your mind to desert me at the first breath of what seemed to be trouble) when this morning I received no less than 6 letters from you, all of them addressed 195 East Broadway. Did you not know that I merely boarded at this house? It is a very long while since I left it, and as I did not leave it on very good terms with the landlady, she has given herself no concern about my letters — not one of which I should ever have received but for the circumstance of new tenants coming in to the house. I am living out of town about 13 miles, at a village called Fordham, on the railroad leading north. We are in a snug little cottage, keeping house, and would be very comfortable, but that I have been for a long time dreadfully ill. I am getting better, however, although slowly, and shall get well. In the meantime the flocks of little birds of prey that always take the opportunity of illness to peck at a sick fowl of larger dimensions, have been endeavoring with all their power to effect my ruin. My dreadful poverty, also, has given them every advantage. In fact, my dear friend, I have been driven to the very gates of death and a despair more dreadful than death, and I had not even one friend, out of my family, with whom to advise. What would I not have given for the kind pressure of your hand! It is only a few days since that I requested my mother in law, Mrs. Clemm, to write to you — but she put it off from day to day.

I send you, as you request, the last sheet of the “Luciferian Revelation.” There are several other requests in your letters which I know you would pardon me for not attending [column 2:] to if you only were aware of my illness, and how impossible it is for me to put my foot out of the house or indeed to help myself in any way. It is with the greatest difficulty that I write you this letter — as you may perceive, indeed, by the M.S. I have not been able to write one line for the Magazines for more than 5 months — you can then form some idea of the dreadful extremity to which I have been reduced. The articles lately published in “Godey's Book” were written and paid for a long while ago.

Your professions of friendship I reciprocate from the inmost depths of my heart. Except yourself I have never met the man for whom I felt that intimate sympathy (of intellect as well as soul) which is the sole basis of friendship. Believe me that never, for one moment, have I doubted the sincerity of your wish to assist me. There is not one word you say that I do not see coming up from the depths of your heart.

There is one thing you will be glad to learn: — It has been a long while since any artificial stimulus has passed my lips. When I see you — should that day ever come — this is a topic on which I desire to have along talk with you. I am done forever with drink — depend upon that — but there is much more in this matter than meets the eye.

Do not let anything in this letter impress you with the belief that I despair even of worldly prosperity. On the contrary although I feel ill, and am ground into the very dust with poverty, there is a sweet hope in the bottom of my soul.

I need not say to you that I rejoice in your success with the silk. I have always conceived it to be a speculation full of promise if prudently conducted. The revulsion consequent upon the silk mania has, of course, induced the great majority of mankind to look unfavorably upon the business — but such feelings should have no influence with the philosophic. Be cautious and industrious — that is all.

I enclose you a slip from the “Reveillée.” You will be pleased to see how they appreciate me in England.

When you write, address simply “New York City.” There is no Post office at Fordham.

God bless you.

Ever your friend,

Edgar A. Poe.

P.S. I have been looking over your “Luciferian Revelation” again. There are some points at which I might dissent with you — but there [are] a 1000 glorious thoughts in it.

Chivers replied to this February 21 and April 4, 1847, and possibly at other dates, but Poe seems to have felt less interest in the correspondence. Chivers invites Poe [page 549:] to come to the South to live. “I will take care of you as long as you live — although, if ever there was a perfect mystery on earth you are one — and one of the most mysterious.” With the expression of a hope to see him in May, in New York, Chivers's part of the correspondence ends. Poe, on his part, wrote one more letter at least, a year later, on which Chivers notes: “The following is the last letter that I ever received from him.”

POE TO CHIVERS

Fordham — Westchester Co.

July 13, 48.

MY DEAR FRIEND, I have just returned from an excursion to Lowell: — this is the reason why I have not been to see you. My mother will leave this note at your hotel in the event of your not being in when she calls. I am very anxious to see you — as I propose going on to Richmond on Monday. Can you not come out to Fordham and spend tomorrow and Sunday with me? We can talk over matters, then, at leisure. The cars for Fordham leave the depot at the City Hall almost every hour — distance 14 miles.

Truly yours

Poe.

Poe's last reference to his friend occurs in a letter to Mrs. Clemm, September, 1849: “T got a sneaking letter today from Chivers.”

It is apparent from the foregoing papers, as well as from the letters of Chivers which are published in full by Professor Harrison, that he was filled with an enthusiastic admiration for Poe and worshiped his genius. It is the more striking a tribute because he was of a religious cast of mind and not a sharer in Poe's weaknesses. He was not one of those who went spreeing with Poe; and in spite of what he knew and had seen, he maintained a high respect for his genius and a warm interest in his welfare. Chivers was a hero-worshiper, and he adored the spirit of poetry after that fashion that sees in the poet, whatever he may be humanly, only a great glory. When Poe died, and the trouble arose over Griswold's memoir of him, Chivers, like several others who had known Poe, was desirous to write a life of him and defend his memory. He made some collections for this purpose, and the reminiscences and letters already given are a part of his material. He offered this life to Ticknor, [column 2:] October 27, 1852, as if it were completed; but as he continued to work on it after that date, it was probably never advanced beyond its present fragmentary condition. Its (manuscript) title-page reads as follows:

Its opening pages are a chaotic flow of eulogy in which Poe's mortal weaknesses are fully acknowledged, for Chivers entertained no illusions on that score, but Poe is worshiped as an incarnation of genius. Chivers's point of view is contained in his “Golden Letters,” as follows:

GOLDEN LETTERS

It is not by the objective relationships of a man that we are to judge of his peculiar idiosyncrasies — his essential quality, psychological as even as physiological — but by his subjective experiences — these constituting the true esse of the existere of his life — the plenary Revelations of his inmost soul. As the tree is known by its fruits; so is a man by his works — these constituting the truly Hesperian Apples of the Paradise of his being in time. This is eminently true of the nature of the Poet whose soul is the crystalline Fountain from which flow all the living, singing rivulets of his life — watering the Vales of Immortality with their pellucid selves, while revealing to the enraptured imaginations of men the virgin gold which lies Sparkling through its amber.

This is true not only in regard to his Prose, and Poetical writings, but more especially to his letters — the most unsophisticated — most natural — truer revealers of the heart — than any or all others, for what he there writes is unpremeditated, intuitive heart histories.

This section of the biography is followed by a summary of the facts of his career given by Griswold. The only value of the [page 550:] remainder lies in the few original papers which Chivers secured and thereby preserved. Among them is one more letter of Poe's, which is self-explanatory, and illustrates again the care Poe took to have the good opinion of the press if he could obtain it. It is addressed to the editor of the “National Archives,” Ithaca, New York.

POE TO J. HUNT, JR.

New York March 17, 45.

DEAR SIR, There is something in the tone of your article on “The Broadway Journal” (contained in the “Archives” of the 13th.) which induces me to trouble you with this letter.

I recognize in you an educated, an honest, a chivalrous, but, I fear, a somewhat overhasty man. I feel that you can appreciate what I do — and that you will not fail to give me credit for what I do well: — at the same time I am not quite sure that, through sheer hurry, you might not do me an injustice which you yourself would regret even more sincerely than I. I am anxious to secure you as a friend if you can be so with a clear conscience — and it is to enable you to be so with a clear conscience that I write what I am now writing.

Let me put it to you as to a frank man of honor — Can you suppose it possible that any human being could pursue a strictly impartial course of criticism for 10 years (as I have done in the S. L. Messenger and in Graham's Magazine) without offending irreparably a host of authors and their connexions? — but because these were offended, and gave vent at every opportunity to their spleen, would you consider my course an iota the less honorable on that account? Would you consider it just to measure my deserts by the yelpings of my foes, independently of your own judgment in the premises, based upon an actual knowledge of what I have done?

You reply — “Certainly not”; and, because I feel that this must be your reply, I acknowledge that I am grieved to see anything (however slight) in your paper that has the appearance of joining in with the outcry so very sure to be raised by the less honorable portion of the press under circumstances such as are my own.

I thank you sincerely for your expressions of good will — and I thank you for the reason that I value your opinion — when that opinion is fairly attained. But there are points at which you do me injustice.

For example, you say that I am sensitive (peculiarly so) to the strictures of others. There is no instance on record in which I have ever replied, directly or indirectly, to any strictures, personal or literary, with the single exception of my answer to Outis. You say, too, [column 2:] that I use a quarter of the paper in smoothing over his charges — but four-fifths of the whole space occupied is by the letter of Outis itself, to which I wish to give all the publicity in my power, with a view of giving it the more thorough refutation. The charges of which you speak — the charge of plagiarism &c — are not made at all. These are mistakes into which you have fallen, through want of time to peruse the whole of what I said, and by happening upon unlucky passages. It is, of course, improper to decide upon my reply until you have heard it, and as yet I have only commenced it by giving Outis’ letter with a few comments at random. There will be four chapters in all. My excuse for treating it at length is that it demanded an answer and no proper answer could be given in less compass — that the subject of imitation, plagiarism, &c is one in which the public has lately taken much interest & is admirably adapted to the character of a literary journal — and that I have some important developments to make, which the commonest principles of self-defence demand imperatively at my hands.

I know that you will now do me justice — that you will read what I have said & may say — and that you will absolve me, at once, of the charge of squirmishness or ill nature. If ever man had cause to be in good humor with Outis and all the world, it is precisely myself, at this moment — as hereafter you shall see.

At some future day we shall be friends, or I am much mistaken, and I will then put into your hands ample means of judging me upon my own merits.

In the meantime I ask of you, justice.

Very truly yours,

Edgar A. Poe.

To J. Hunt Jr.

P.S. I perceive that you have permitted some of our papers and the Boston journals to give you a wrong impression of my Lecture & its reception. It was better attended than any Lecture of Mr. Hudson's — by the most intellectual & refined portion of the city — and was complimented in terms which I should be ashamed to repeat, by the leading journalists of the City. See Mirror, Morning News, Inquirer, New World, &c. The only respectable N. Y. paper which did zo¢ praise it throughout, was the Tribune whose transcendental editors, or their doctrines, I attacked. My objection to the burlesque philosophy which the Bostonians have adopted, supposing it to be Transcendentalism, is the key to the abuse of the Atlas & Transcript. So well was the Lecture received that I am about to repeat it.

[Note on the outside.] Be kind enough to answer this immediately in order that I may know it has been rec’d. [page 551:]

Chivers applied to Mrs. Whitman of Providence, but he obtained no letters from her or other papers in respect to her relations with Poe except a copy of Pabodie's letter to Griswold, which has been often published. With Mrs. Clemm he was more successful. She replied to his request as follows:

MRS. CLEMM TO CHIVERS

Milford, Dec. 8th ‘52.

DEAR SIR, I received yours on monday, but owing to a violent head ache could not reply to you sooner. I had heard from Mrs. Whitman of Providence, of your intention concerning the work you mention. How much pleasure it would give me to aid you, with any thing relative to my dear Eddie. But I (most unfortunately) have nothing but his own precious letters to myself during his last absence from home. I wish you could see those letters, — they alone would convince you, how falsely Griswold has spoken of him. Oh! that I could see you for an hour, and could tell you of his many beautiful traits of character — of his devotion to my “darling Virginia,” and of his love and kindness to myself. When that hateful and untrue Biography first appeared, I nearly sunk under it, I was confined to bed for a long time with a nervous fever. But God spared my life to endure farther trials. As to Griswold's statement that my poor Eddie ever spoke of you unkindly, [it] is entirely untrue. You were one of the few he admired and loved. How often has he recited to me some of your beautiful poetry, and said “I would have been proud to have been the author of this article.” How often has he repeated, with tears in his dear eyes, that sublime poem of yours, “She came from heaven to tell me she was blest.” You know, dear Sir, my darling Eddie was not entirely perfect, and when he had indulged in a glass or two of wine, he was not responsible for either his words, or actions. If I had the means I would see you in Boston; but I have not. I have been staying in Lowell some time since my sad affliction, but owing to the severe climate, have been obliged to leave it. How many times I have wished to learn your address. . . . Will you have the kindness to send me your address whem you are at home? . . . When I heard of my Eddies death, I was at Fordham, and I then acted as I wed/ knew he would have wished me to do. I destroyed all the letters he had ever received from his female friends, and many others of a private nature. Griswold told me he mzs¢ see some of his correspondence, and I gave them to him with the understanding that he was to return them to me. Yours were among them. I have never been able to get them from him. Do you not think, dear sir, that God will punish [column 2:] him, for all the falsehoods he has told of my beloved Eddie?

With many wishes for your happiness I remain, dear Sir, your sincere friend,

Maria Clemm.

Chivers introduces the next letter with this note:

The following letter was sent to me for publication by Mrs. Mary [Maria] Clemm the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe. It is from Mrs. Elmira Shelton, the lady, in Baltimore [Richmond], to whom he was finally engaged to be married, and is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful, if not the very beautifulest letter that was ever written by any woman living or dead — being all heart — all soul — the truest, most perfect revelation of her boundless love. The man who could have inspired such love as this in the heart of a woman of such superior talents, possessed qualities far above any thing for which the world has ever given him credit — proving, most positively, that he kept unshewn within his soul a tenderness akin to that of the Angels in Heaven.

There is no Art in this letter, but it is all nature — fortuitous intuition — as spontaneous in its unsophisticated purity as the perfect love which inspired it — infinite love chastened now by as infinite a grief. I have never yet been able to read it without shedding tears. The truth is, it is an Epistolary Elegy — a funeral Oration — a pathetic Requiem — or the triumphant victory of his affection over the female heart. A more beautiful Elegy was never written on the death of any man — a Eulogy which not only preaches the truest gospel of the qualities of its subject, but makes immortal its author. It is the most perfect triumph of love over death — making the victory of the grave eternal loss.

MRS. SHELTON TO MRS. CLEMM

Richmond, Oct. 11th, 1849 —

Oh! how shall I address you, my dear, and deeply afflicted friend under such heart-rending circumstances? I have no doubt, ere this, you have heard of the death of our dear Edgar! yes, he was the dearest object on earth to me; and, well assured am I, that he was the pride of your heart. I have not been able to get any of the particulars of his sickness & death, except an extract from the Baltimore Sun, which said that he died on Sunday, the 7th of this month, with congestion of the brain, after an illness of 7 days. He came up to my house on the evening of the 26th Sept. to take leave of me. He was very sad, and complained of being quite sick. I felt his pulse, and found he had considerable fever, and did not think it probable he would be able to start the next morning, (Thursday) as he anticipated. I felt so [page 552:] wretched about him all of that night, that I went up early the next morning to enquire after him, when, much to my regret, he had left in the boat for Baltimore. He expected, certainly, to have been with his “dear Muddy” on the Sunday following, when he promised to write to me; and after the expiration of a week, and no letter, I became very uneasy, and continued in an agonizing state of mind, fearing he was ill, but never dreamed of his death, untill it met my eye, in glancing casually over a Richmond paper of last Tuesday. Oh! my dearest friend! I cannot begin to tell you what my feelings were, as the horrible truth forced itself upon me! It was the most severe trial I have ever had; and God alone knows, how I can bear it! My heart is overwhelmed — yes, ready to burst! How can I, “dear Muddy!” speak comfort to your bleeding heart? I cannot say to you, weep not — mourn not — but I do say, do both, for he is worthy to be lamented. Oh! my dear Edgar! ‘shall I never behold your dear face and hear your sweet voice, saying, “Dearest Muddy!” and “Dearest Elmira? “ — How can I bear the separation? The pleasure I anticipated on his return with you, dear friend! to Richmond, was too great, ever to have been realized, and should teach me the folly of expecting bliss on earth. If it will be any consolation to you, my dear friend! to know that there is one who feels for you, all that human can feel, then, be assured that person is Elmira. Willingly would I fly to you, if I could add to your comfort, or take from your sorrows. I wrote to you a few weeks ago; I hope you received the letter. It was through the request of my dearest Eddy that I did so; and when I told him I had written to you, his joy & delight were inexpressible. I hope you will write to me as soon as possible, and let me hear from you, as I shall be anxious about you incessantly untill I do; Farewell, my stricken friend! and may an All-Wise & Merciful God sustain and comfort us under this heart-breaking dispensation, is the fervent & hourly prayer of your Afflicted and sympathizing friend. — Elmira Shelton —

Do let me hear from you as quickly as possible —

Direct to Mrs. Elmira Shelton —

Care of A. L. Royster,

Richmond, Va.

This is the last of the papers directly bearing upon Poe's life; but some further light on his relations with Chivers as a poet is given by the correspondence of the latter with Simms, in which Chivers plainly states his own view of Poe's obligations to himself in the matter of “The Raven.” The volume which Simms acknowledges and criticizes is the famous “Eonchs of Ruby,” [column 2:] published in New York, with the date 1851. It appeared at the end of 1850.

SIMMS TO CHIVERS

Woodlands, S. C. April 5, 1852

THO. H. CHIVERS, M.D.

DEAR SIR. I was absent from the city when your letter was received, & many cares, some indisposition & other passing causes, have prevented me from answering till now. I have received & read your last volume, with pleasure & regret. Pleasure, because you have a rare faculty at versification. Regret because you do not do it justice — because you show too greatly how much Poe is in your mind — because you allow your fancies to run away with your muse- — because you do not suffer thought to coöperate sufficiently with your faculty for rhyme — and because your rhymes are too frequently iterated, so as to become monotonous. You forget that rhyme is the mere decoration of thought, and not to be suffered to occupy its place. I shall have to say all these things in my notice of your book, and while doing justice to your real endowments, I propose to say these things with some severity. You have too much real ability to be suffered to trifle with yourself and reader; and I shall be severe, simply because I desire to be kind. I have sent you the drama & will send you some other trifles. I am also happy to enclose you the verses you desire. I shall be curious to see your play of C. Stuart & your volume of criticism. You are right to address yourself to labours of length, which may take you out of your mannerisms. Mannerism is a fatal weakness. Give up fugitive verses, which lead only to one form of egotism or another, as Poe, who wrote in jerks & spasms only, & in intervals of passion or drink, contended for fugitive performances. This was his excuse and apology only, for his own short-comings. Do not allow his errors to wreck you as they did himself. Give him up as a model and as a guide. He was a man of curious genius, wild & erratic, but his genius was rather curious than valuable — bizarre, rather than great or healthful. You see that I deal with you frankly. Do not misconceive what I say, or mistake the feeling which prompts me. I would wish to serve you to promote the exercise of your just faculties. In particular, I would keep you from sinking into this sin of mere imitation. Strike out an independent path and publish anonymously. Your previous writings would surely prejudice your new, if they could be identified, in the estimation of readers & critics. Make your book unique — seek for simplicity & wholeness — avoid yourself in your topics — write no more elegies, and discard all pet words, all phrases — discard all attempts at mysticism. Be manly, direct, [page 553:] simple, natural, — full, unaffected & elaborate. Pardon me this freedom, but a genuine desire to see you successful prompts me to counsel you. I am not well — have been overtasked, — and write with a dizzy brain. very respectfully

Yr ob. Sert

W. Gilmore Simms.

CHIVERS TO SIMMS

Tontine Hotel, New Haven, Conn.,

April 10th, 1852.

MY DEAR SIMMS, For fear that you may probably mistake the purport of my last letter — as it was written in the greatest hurry — permit me to say here that you must disabuse your mind, at once, of the ideas which you entertain of my late book — as expressed in your recent letter.

In the first place, your regrets, as therein expressed, are a “lost fear” — inasmuch as the ornaments about which you speak are the soul of the Poems. I will not stop to prove this here, but merely say you will see it done in my book of Lectures entitled Hortus Deliciarum, or, the Garden of Delights, in which I have given an analysis of Poetry from its Gothic up to its Greek manifestations. You will therein see a “New Thing under the Sun.”

Now permit me to say, once for all, that the Poems in that Volume are all original — my own — not only in conception but in execution. There is not a Poem in that book modeled, as you suppose, upon anything that Poe ever wrote. You, no doubt, think that you will have something to harp upon when you come to speak of The Vigil in Aiden; but, my dear friend, you will miss it. I am not able at present, to say what your talents are in the field of analysis; but I know, very well, that I am able to answer any man on this or the other side of the water, in regard to the originality of Art — and particularly of that Poem. Why, my dear Sir, I do not, like other Americans, steal the old English forms and then send my imitations forth in the world as something achieved. I have too much mother-wit to use this insulting presumption. There is not a Poem in that book that is not, per se, a work of Art — a work of Art not only as an Artwork, but fortuitously so — the Existere of it being coeternal with its Esse. This the glorious Poe saw in my first book, but he was too full of envy to express it fully — but he saw it — and I have now letters in my possession from the first American Literati, which inform me of this fact. Would to God that he were now living here on earth that he could tell it as no one else can.

The Critic must be an Artist — he must understand Art. Poetry cannot be criticized by a mere ipse dixit (Verbum sapienti). [column 2:]

I wrote you in my last that The Vigil in Aiden was founded upon Poe himself. But why do you think it is an “imitation” of The Raven? Because it contains the word Lenore? But is not Lenore common property? Mrs. Osgood, as well as the German Poet Korner, made use of it. Is it because I make use of the word Nevermore? Is it because it is written in the same rhythm? But all these things are mine. I am the Southern man who taught Mr. Poe all these things. All these things were published long before The Raven, from which The Raven was taken. All these things I will make plain to you in my answer; but do not let this deter you from speaking out — only my answer will go hard with you as a Critic.

But this is what I want to know: Do you conscientiously believe The Raven is to be named in the same century with The Vigil? Look at the Refrains — the every thing — of the two — and answer me. The “monotony” about which you talk is not in the Poem — but in you — as it is always varying to the denouement. Read it, as you ought, and you will see this.

When I show you how that truly great man, Poe, failed in The Raven, in attempting to do what I had already done in the Poem from which he stole, you will then admit that | really “have a happy faculty at rhyming.”

“Mysticism.” Well, this is necessary in Poetry too — as I will show you in my Lecture on Art. Now if you were as well acquainted with the Jackasses of America as I am, you would know, just as well as I do, what a hold all these new inventions of mine have taken upon them — so that they now stand committed as plagiarists of the blackest dye. I have fifty by me now. Yet, I kept locked up for seven years, and gave only a few friends my Lost Pleiad. Well, this is some consolation — nay, a very great joy to me — proving that Magnus est veritas, et prevalebit.

Never talk any more about “fugitive pieces.” I have an Epic which you will like — I think. I hope so, at least — for there is no man living whose good opinion I value more than I do yours. God bless you. Esto perpetua.

Thos H. Chivers.

P.S. I have received and read your Drama, and find it the best thing that I have ever seen of yours — in fact, I am now puzzled to know why you should ever have worn out your faculties in writing Novels. I will give you a just and a true review in my book — not an ipse dixit affair with no soul in it but envy — but one founded on a close insight into Art. You have shown in this Play that you are not unacquainted with the true Dramatic Style — but the next Play you write, meditate a Theme — have it a worthy one, which this is not — then either write a Poem proper, or one entirely [page 554:] after the Elizabethan Gods. This you must do, or it will not live. Then, again, it is not necessary to the Dramatic colloquy, as you seem to suppose, that you should continually double your syllables at the end of your lines. This, it appears to me, you have studied to do, all along through your Play. It also appears to me — (judging from your work — ) that you suppose — just as Byron and many others — the Dramatic composition is incompatible with the development of the highest Art. But this is not so — but diametrically opposite to the fact. The truth is, you seem to have a perfect contempt for what may be called the Art of Composition; but let me tell you that this is the glory of all Poetry. You spoke of my Lost Pleiad as being but a feeble exposition of my conception of Art; but you did not know, at that time, that that book was the fulfillment of that wise saying of the Latins — Ars est celare Artem — but Poe knew it. Lodovico Carracci could not see all the beauties of his brother Annabale's Paintings, because he was a rival. But it has always been my misfortune in life not to have had time to feel this passion — having had so much to think about and suffer.

It would give me great pleasure to receive any thing of yours that you may be pleased to send me. Do not permit your mind to be abused in regard to me by some of my sapheaded enemies, who bray nonsense to the citizens of Charleston — for they do not know me.

Yours as above, T. H. C.

An earlier letter of the same tenor was addressed to Augustine Duganne. It refers to the same book as the preceding.

CHIVERS TO DUGANNE

No. 118, Leonard Street, N. Y.,

Dec. 17th 1850.

MY DEAR SIR, I called with a friend yesterday to see you, but you were notin. I thank you. for the good opinion which you entertain of my Poems. But I admire you a good deal more for the fearless manner in which you have expressed it — amid this “day of small things “ — or, rather, owls of midnight darkness.

There are, however, some things in which you are mistaken. There is not a single Poem in that whole Volume imitative of either Wordsworth, Tennyson, or Poe. Wordsworth is no Poet — Tennyson is entirely devoid of passion — the primum mobile of the true Poet — and Poe stole every thing that is worth any thing from me. This I thought you Anew perfectly well. If you do not know it, I can very easily make it appear.

The line to which you object and italicise in “The Lusiad,” is the best in the verse. The [column 2:] Circassians never “shave” their hair. The word “shaven” is the most poetical that could have been used.

The next verse from the same Poem, is also of the same stamp. I make use of the word “so” to express how I kissed her. Its being used in “Jim Crow” has nothing at all to do with its utility.

You are also wrong about “Threnody.” The verse to which you object is one of the finest in the Poem. The use of the word “Tommy” is not bathos. This has nothing to do with bathos. It is pathos. It is not the familiarity of a word which constitutes its bathos; but its unpoetical applicability per se. This is per se a poetical word, and so used.

The verse which you quote from “Evening” is not a “gorgeous platitude,” but one of the finest in the book, precisely because no man ever wrote any thing like it. I defy you to point me out a finer verse. The due do “give God thanks by playing on the hills their pranks.”

Any man who would “slur over” any thing in my book because he supposed it was imitative of the writers named, without knowing it is so, is a jackass of the “first water” and as far beneath your contempt as mine. I never read any thing of Wordsworth that pleased me. Tennyson is an Epicurian Philologist. Poe stole all his “Raven” from me; but was the greatest Poetical Critic that ever existed. This I will prove to you, if you will call and see me.

I have the “Epic” of which you speak. I have also a Play, in Five Acts, which I wish to show you — besides many other precious gems.

Wishing you all happiness,

I remain yours, most truly,

Thos H. Chivers.

Augustine Duganne, Esq.

P.S. Excuse this haste — but do not fail to come and see me. You are a man after my own heart. T. H. C.

The claim which Chivers here sets up is to an originality in metrical effects independent of Poe's example; he asserts that he practised these effects before Poe and that Poe borrowed from him, notably in “The Raven.” It is only too obvious that what was styled at the beginning of these articles the “Orphic egotism” was now fully developed in Chivers. He had, in 1849, corresponded with W. E. Channing and proclaimed himself an associationist. “I am an associationist and glory in the prosperity of the cause,” he wrote; “I believe that association is the only Ithuriel spear that can strike dead the mailed tyrants of the land.” [page 555:] He was also in correspondence with Professor George Bush on the candelabrum of the Tabernacle and cognate matters, and devoted somewhat to Hebrew learning. He became, as has been said, a Swedenborgian. His poetic self-sufficiency and illusions were a part of this seething mental state. But if it be thought that his mind had lost its balance in some degree, it is only just to observe that his claim to have developed originality in metrical effects was nothing novel. The character of his reflections on meter may be illustrated by a passage from his prose.

It is the belief of many — fortunately [not] of Poets — that the School books enumerate all the rhythms in which any Poem can be written. But the truth is, by an ingenious combination, infinite numbers can be produced. The old English Poets of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nearly all wrote in the same rhythm and metre. There is no attempt made by any of the very best Poets of that, and the subsequent Age, to produce any novel effect by combination. They disliked innovation on the old established forms — supposing, or presuming that what was done by their forefathers, was the most perfect and therefore followed directly in their footsteps. What is true of the Lyrical Poets of that day may also be said of the Dramatic writers. Nearly all the Lyric Poets wrote in the obsolescent style of the Iambic pentameter and Dimeter verses. I have long thought that I would write a paper on the various rhythms of the Æthiopians compared with those now in use of the Caucasian race — descriptive of the different idiosyncrasies of the two races — their peculiar modes of passionate expression are as essentially different in every respect, as their complexions — showing that the internal, or subjective, consciousness gives denomination to the outward, or objective expression.

The Homeric expression was spondaic — like the ponderous tread of a mighty army of Elephants — compared with that of the Æthiopian, which is generally Satyric, or lively. The English people write Hymns and funeral elegies; the Æthiopians — trochaic, Drinking-Songs giving a better knowledge of the physiology as well as psychology of the two nations than can be found either in tradition or History — in proof of which I will now proceed to give a few of the Ethiopian native Melodies. The following is what may be called a Jig which must be accompanied by a measured clapping of the thighs and alternately on each other:

There is no such rhythm as this in the Greek Poetry — nor, in fact, in any other Nation under the sun. There is no dance in the world like that of Juba — the name of that [illegible] provoking jig which accompanies this recitative — the very climax of jocularity — being as far above the Pyrric as the Tarantula in provoking laughter accompanied by irresistible shouts of uproarious hilarity.

He maintained his originality in meter from the first; it was not an afterthought. The following letter to an editorial friend in Georgia exhibits this plainly, while it casts some side-lights on his career.

Oaky Grove, Ga., Nov. 1st, 1845

MY DEAR FRIEND, I have just received your kind and good letter, and hasten to reply to it. It gives me infinite pleasure at any time to receive a letter from you. For the friendship manifested to me in it, I will love you as long asl live. I was conscious that your delay, in not answering my letter sooner, was occasioned by some unavoidable circumstance. I am sorry that you have been ill. This you can remedy only by taking physical exercise, and living on a vegetable diet. Most of the diseases in this climate are occasioned by the use of animal food. Although Man is an omniverous animal, in a Southern climate, he ought to make use of more vegetable than animal diet. The kind of exercise which I would recommend to you, is riding out in the evening, and walking about as much as possible. No man, unless he has a very strong constitution, can enjoy uninterrupted health for any length of time, who exercises his brain, as you are compelled to do, without regular exercise. The vocation of an Editor is very trying to the constitution. Very few Editors enjoy uninterrupted health — owing to this fact, that they are too much confined to one place.

I thank you for your good opinion of my book. There is not a man in the State of whose good opinion I am prouder than your own. In 1834 I wrote a Play in Five Acts, which received the commendations of the greatest men in the world, yet it has never been published up to this hour. I always felt an unutterable disgust for the miserable carpings of a certain set of biped Asses, who bray longest and loudest about that of which they know the least. This has caused me to live a [page 556:] retired life for the last ten years. These miserable wretches I never met in any other State except my own — this sunny, precious land which I love better than I do any on the face of the earth. With such as these my heart was broken in the dawn of my manhood, when my aspirations after the Beautiful and the True first began to glimmer in my soul. Some of these have shrunk, in the satiety of their self-conscious ignorance, into the hopeless oblivion which their vindictive and inhuman souls have merited; while others are now preparing for the same harvest. The very thing that has sunk, and will sink, them into eternal oblivion, has inspired me with emulation. I dislike to speak of myself, but I am compelled to do so, that you may know the truth. There are many who have seen me, but very few in this State who know me.

The Play to which I have referred is now in the possession of Mr. Poe, one of the greatest men that ever lived. I have written four others — four Farces — thirteen Essays on different subjects — twelve Lectures on Poetry — and about fifty Tales — every single one of which has been spoken of in the highest terms. I speak of this to you that you may know with what eternal and infinite contempt I look upon those two two-legged serpents who have waylaid the path of my life to poison me with the harmless venom of their polluted lips. No wonder the North looks with such contempt upon the South, when a man cannot write a decent Editorial for a News Paper without being despised by the obstreperous cachinnations of thirty thousand Asses who can neither read nor write. Not only this, but if an individual not only for his own, but the honour of his native State, wishes to redeem her from the curse of being smothered in ignorance, he is absolutely bored to death by ignorant wretches who not only hate every thing good, but seem to think that nothing good can come out of the Nazareth in which they were born. They are so completely lost to all manly feeling and common sense that they do not even know that by so doing they disgrace nobody but themselves. Their wishing to torture others is only a living manifestation of the pangs which their own self-conscious degradation is inflicting upon themselves. There never yet lived a good and wise man who did not wish others to be good and wise. Ignorance is the mother of all the evils that infest mankind.

You say, in the conclusion of your letter, that you sympathize with me in every page of the Elegy on the death of my precious little daughter. My Dear Friend! you do not know how I respect you for your good feeling. The Poems of the Volume which I sent you, will be published in a different form in Boston with other Poems, on different subjects, added to them. They have been spoken well of by [column 2:] the greatest men in the world. The Poem entitled “To Isa Singing,” and “The Heavenly Vision,” are both selected by Mr. Poe in his recitations, while lecturing on Poetry in the Stuyvesant Institute, New York. There have been no less than six plagiarisms and imitations of the Poem “To Allegra Florence in Heaven,” which I have seen in different papers myself. Yet, there are Asses in this very County who are fools enough to persuade their pitiful souls that a man born in Wilkes cannot write Poetry. There is not in the whole Geography of the earth a more poetical clime than this. There is nothing in which I take so much pride as in never having written a single line in imitation of another. Every line is original. If you will examine my Poems, as they must be examined before they can be understood, you will perceive that they are all artistically my own. Any body of moderate ideality can write a Poem by another rhythm; but it is a task which few ever attempted to originate a style. If you will examine the subject, there is something akin in the rhythmic arrangement of the Poetry from the days of Chaucer down to the present time. In fact, there is not a single Poem, if we except my friend Tennyson's of England, of the present day, that is not modeled after the Poems of the old writers. The very rhythm of my Poems cost me years of study — and are we to believe that any sort of an Ass can understand them? I need not tell you that there is not one man in ten thousand can read a Poem correct. How pitiful then to talk of Criticism. It is shameful !

A poem, “The Lady Alice,” seems to me the fairest example of the rhythm which Chivers evolved; and the patient reader who has read these relics of Chivers thus far may welcome one entire poem from his pen.

THE LADY ALICE

The likeness to Poe is unmistakable; but in the poem as a whole there is to my ear a Celtic quality in the refrain which Poe never naturalized in his own verse. It may be allowed that, though overlaid with Poe's peculiar myth-names and vocal mystery, Chivers's verse had a music of its own. From the start he had sought the melodic effects of the refrain more markedly than Poe himself, and he had been. bred on Coleridge and Shelley, the lyrical masters of sound. He was in parallelism with Poe, so to speak, and was attracted to him till he coalesced. It is no wonder that he himself sincerely regarded his work as the primary one, and Poe's as the derivative, given his egotism. The claim he made in regard to “The Raven” can be defined [column 2:] precisely. He had employed an iambic meter with three feminine rhymes for elegiac verse in the poem “To Allegra Florence in Heaven,” and he had developed the idea of the return of the dead woman's soul to her lover in “Uranothen” — a title certainly pre-Poesque. If one chooses the marvelous lines from the first of these to illustrate the kind of meter, it is easy to give the impression of a reductio ad absurdum. No account of Chivers would be complete without them.

But the absurdity of the substance is not one of the arguments, after all, and the rest of the poem is not like this.

It is not too much to grant that in the many atmospheric influences that surrounded the germination of “The Raven” (and their number was a multitude) these two poems, familiar to Poe, and certainly the last of them, “Uranothen,” had a place. The two poets were extraordinarily sympathetic, but what was intense and firm in Poe was diffused and liquescent in Chivers, who was in truth a kind of double to him in what seems sometimes a spiritualistic, sometimes a grotesque way. He was, indeed, to Poe not unlike what Alcott was to Emerson, and the comparison helps to clarify the confusion of their mutual relations, while it maintains Poe's mastery unimpaired. Chivers continued to publish new volumes, and reissue the old, until he died in Georgia in 1858.

Unfortunately, in attempting to reconstruct the image of Chivers it is impossible to escape that burlesque effect, though with the kindest intention in the world, which has proved the most enduring element in his works. He did not really change and lose his balance of mind in poetic egotism; the lack of balance was always there, and only declared itself more spectacularly as time went on. The tumultuous vacuity of Blake is found in him from the start and at the finish; it took the form of senseless sonority of diction and mindless rhyme-echo at the end, instead of visible chaotic [page 558:] things of line and color. But at the beginning there was the germ. Here is a stanza from one of his early pieces, entitled “To a China Tree.”

This is something that neither Moore, nor Coleridge, nor even Woodworth, would have been capable of; but in it are the imitative catch, the liking for the refrain, the unconscious dips into bathos, that appear also in the later verses. Many poets have felt that Poe escapes these things only by a hair's-breadth, though his material is finer. The difference was that Poe was a genius, while Chivers only thought he was one. Poe, I think, played with Chivers to make something out of him; but there was nothing to be made of him but a friend, and that was not Poe's game. Apart from Poe, Chivers was an interesting illustration of his times: the vast, unfathomable ocean of American crudity was in Chivers, Alcott, Whitman, Mark Twain — these four. He was, without regard to his poetry, a most estimable man in his intellectual sympathy, his ideals and labors, and kindly and honorable in all his relations with his fellows.

[[Footnotes]]

[footnotes for letter from Poe to Chivers, August 29]

1 Alluding to a MS. work on Poetry, entitled Lyres Regalis, then in his possession.” — Chivers's note.

2 “This was written in allusion to my having asked him in one of my letters touching his intemperance: — ‘What would God think of that Angel who should’ condescend to dust his feet in the ashes of Hell?” — Chivers's note.

Captions

EDGAR ALLAN POE

From a daguerreotype owned by the Players, New York, believed to be the last portrait of Poe. Pratt of Richmond, Va., from an original taken by him.

From the original portrait by C. G. Thompson, in the Athenaeum, Providence, R. I., to which it was presented in 1884 by W. F. Channing, M.D. Half-tone plate engraved by H. Davidson

From a daguerreotype. Engraved on wood by T. Cole. Reprinted from “The Century” for May, 1880

EDGAR ALLAN POE

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN, 1838

Mrs. Whitman, who achieved much distinction as a writer of verse and prose, was born in Providence in 1803. Her literary career followed upon the death of her husband, a lawyer of Boston, in 1833. She and Poe maintained. a friendly intercourse, which, after the death of his wife, grew into a conditional engagement of marriage, soon after broken on the insistence of her friends. ‘This occurred in 1848, not long before Poe's death. She wrote a little volume in praise of the poet.