"I shall endeavor to avail myself of the offer of your columns, and if,
as you propose, your periodical shall be issued monthly, I may probably
contribute my full quota to every number. In doing so, I shall try to
remember that I am writing for a _literary_ work, and one which leans
much on the support of light readers. I shall therefore endeavor to
treat grave topics with as little gravity as the nature of the case may
admit of; drawing my reasons less from authority than from common sense
and the nature of things, and addressing them to the untaught feelings
of the heart, rather than to what is falsely contradistinguished as
reason and judgment. I say _falsely_, because when the mind is once
broken in by the discipline of a spurious philosophy, it is too apt to
throw out its view all considerations incapable of being established by
any regular chain of reasoning. Yet these are often entitled to be
regarded as first principles; and their proof is found in nature, and
in the universal acquiescence of mankind, the more conclusive, because
it does not rest on reason, but on a sort of moral instinct. If men
wrote less for fame and more for effect, I am persuaded they would find
it rarely necessary to conduct the reader through a long process of
ratiocination, and that the important end (conviction) would be often
best accomplished by those striking exhibitions of truth which make it
manifest at a glance. Such is the case with most of those great truths
on which the rights, and duties, and happiness of men depend. On such
subjects truth vindicates her title to respect by her very presence.
'She walks a queen,' and the heart gives its homage, and compels the
acquiescence of the understanding, without stopping to look into her
patent of royalty. Does any man doubt such truths? No. Can they be
proved? No; and _therefore_ they are the more certainly true. The fact
that they are universally accepted, is a _fact_ to reason from; and it
is the philosophy that teaches to overlook such facts that I call
false.
"How often, when a man takes up his pen to elaborate a long course of
reasoning, does he find himself attempting to lead his reader along a
track that his own mind did not travel. Can he wonder that his reader
will not consent to be so led? Does he think that he alone has the
privilege of travelling the high road of common sense, which levels
mountains and lifts up vallies, and that others will permit themselves
to be led a roundabout way, picking their steps with painful accuracy
along the dividing ridge between 'right hand extremes and left hand
defections?' And why does he attempt this? Merely to show that he is
too profound, and too philosophical to take any thing for granted."
"Accept my thanks for the Southern Literary Messenger. Its contents I
have perused with pleasure. Its execution is not to be surpassed in
accuracy and neatness. Can a discerning public withhold encouragement,
especially when the benefits will be mutual? Indeed I consider the
advantages more likely to be on the side of the public provided a
liberal spirit prevail, and the well stored minds of the South
contribute to establish, through the Messenger, that high literary
reputation which is within their power to erect. The pride of the Old
Dominion should respond to your appeal by a generous contribution of
subscriptions and mental effusions. Please consider me a subscriber."
"The reception of your Literary Messenger gave me much pleasure, and I
thank you for your polite attention in sending it. The cause you have
in hand is one very dear to my heart, and I sincerely wish you success;
I must not omit, however, to testify my zeal in a more substantial way,
and accordingly send you five dollars, and desire to be considered a
subscriber, and promise to use every exertion to procure you others."