Text: Richard Beale Davis, “Golden Letters,” Chivers' Life of Poe 1952, pp. 38-39

[page 38:]

It is not by the objective relationships of a man that we judge of his peculiar idiosyncrasies — his essential qualities, [page 39:] psychological as well 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 silver, while revealing to the enraptured immagination [[imagination]] of men the virgin gold which lies sparkling through the amber.

This is true not only in [reference?](40) 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.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 39:]

40 Probably a shorter word than “reference.” The page is torn here.