aving been the means of giving further publicity to an unfounded
report--at all events to the report of a wretchedness which I had thought
it prudent (since the world regards wretchedness as a crime) so publicly
to disavow. In a word, venturing to judge your noble nature by my own, I
felt grieved lest my published denial might cause you to regret what you
had done; and my first impulse was to write you, and assure you, even at
the risk of doing so too warmly, of the sweet emotion, made up of respect
and gratitude alone, with which my heart was filled to overflowing. While
I was hesitating, however, in regard to the propriety of this step, I was
overwhelmed by a sorrow so poignant as to deprive me for several weeks of
all power of thought or action. Your letter, now lying before me, tells
me that I had not been mistaken in your nature, and that I should not
have hesitated to address you; but believe me, my dear Mrs. L----, that I
am already ceasing to regard those difficulties or misfortunes which have
led me to even this partial correspondence with yourself."

For nearly a year Mr. Poe was not often before the public, but he was as
industrious, perhaps, as he had been at any time, and early in 1848
advertisement was made of his intention to deliver several lectures, with
a view to obtain an amount of money sufficient to establish his
so-long-contemplated monthly magazine. His first lecture--and only one at
this period--was given at the Society Library, in New York, on the ninth
of February, and was upon the cosmogony of the Universe: it was attended
by an eminently intellectual auditory, and the reading of it occupied
about two hours and a half; it was what he afterward published under the
title of "Eureka, a Prose Poem."

To the composition of this work he brought his subtlest and highest
capacities, in their most perfect development. Denying that the arcana of
the universe can be explored by induction, but informing his imagination
with the various results of science, he entered with unhesitating
boldness, though with no guide but the divinest instinct,--that sense of
beauty, in which our great Edwards recognizes the flowering of all
truth--into the sea of speculation, and there built up of according laws
and their phenomena, as under the influence of a scientific inspiration,
his theory of Nature. I will not attempt the difficult task of condensing
his propositions; to be apprehended they must be studied in his own te