In the midst of all this activity one of his old and most cherished dreams took more definite shape than ever before—­the dream of becoming himself the founder of a magazine in which he could write as his genius and his fancy should dictate without having to be constantly making compromises with editors and proprietors—­a periodical which would fulfil his ideal of magazine literature, which he predicted would be the leading literature of the future.  With his prophetic eye he foresaw the high pressure under which the American of coming years would live, and he never lost an opportunity to express the opinion that the reader of the future would give preference to the essay, or story, or poem which could be read at a sitting—­which would waste no time in preamble or conclusion, but in which every word would be chosen by the literary artist with the nicety with which the painter selects the exact tint he needs, and in which every word would tell.  And such works he conceived it would be especially the province of the magazine to present.

He went so far as to prepare a prospectus and advertise for subscribers to The Penn Monthly, as he proposed naming this child of his hopes, and his proposition to enter the field of magazine publishing not only as an editor, but as a proprietor, bade fair to be the rock upon which he and his friend “Billy” Burton would split.  They came to an understanding finally, however, for when Mr. Burton, a little later, decided to abandon The Gentleman’s Magazine and devote himself exclusively to the theatre, he said to Mr. George R. Graham, the owner of The Gasket, to whom he sold out,

“By the way, Graham, there’s one thing I want to ask, and that is that you will take care of my young editor.”

Edgar Poe was at the moment lost in the happy dream of his own Penn Monthly which he conceived would not only take care of him and his family, but would give his genius free rein.  He was resolved to put the best of himself into it, and the best of outside contributions he could succeed in procuring.  Its criticisms should be “sternly just, guided only by the purest rules of Art, analyzing and urging these rules as it applied them; holding itself aloof from all personal bias, acknowledging no fear save that of outraging the right.”  It would “endeavor to support the general interests of the republic of letters—­regarding the world at large as the true audience of the author,” he determined, and he declared in his prospectus.

Dear to his heart as was this dream of dreams of his intellectual life, he was soon to realize that its fulfilment was not to be.  At least—­not yet, for he comforted his own heart and Virginia’s and “Muddie’s” with the assurance that it was but a case of hope deferred again.