Dear Thomas Chatterton

Dear,
Thomas Chatterton

I had just recently become acquainted with you, from reading my Southey work. He had patronized you as a saint. Though, your life didn't seem so saintly, Southey obviously felt you were worthy to gain admittance to the Celestial City in his Vision of Judgment.

Often we authors contrive schemes, to get us published. To make ourselves rich. You had died young, as a teenager, by committing suicide. I can understand the sentiment of wanting to end your own life, when hunger and want are daily a part of it. Need you have waited the month or two to be discovered? I'd say most likely not.

Had you just gained possession of your work, instead of write in a damn pseudonym, you may have obtained all that you want. Or, like is the case with me, you could have been trying to move into a sphere of class which couldn't want you. I am aware that by name America is free, but it is riddled with the same class struggles you yourself felt.
 
Was it that your work was just discovered? Or was it that they knew you were dead, and now could bestow honor upon you without giving you the riches you deserved? Had you not assumed a pseudonym, perhaps none of your work would survive today. As it is, I can read your entire work, and it is collected, and easier to obtain than Robert Southey's.

I don't understand you--- not now when I am wise. Why didn't you just put your real name on your writing? And then you could have prospered immediately, rather than sacrifice them to the alter of a pseudonym? Did you have some grand scheme of design, where they would discover your name, and know you had written masterpieces? Well, they did, and you hadn't earned from them.
 
Yet, it is not your fault. I would never blame you. For, I too am suffering under a different, but equally vexing problem. In my age, Mr. Chatterton, nobody reads poetry anymore. So, even if the greatest poet wrote, or the greatest in two generations, none would know of it. But I will not commit suicide. Because I am stubborn, and I will eat, drink, and be vexed so that my old age proves I was a wise man. For there is yet much to discover in this world, and I am not privy to leaving it until I had exhausted all of its vanity, and satisfied myself that Solomon was right.

However, I do not want the world. Only to understand it. To live among it. To know its great belle lettres, to familiarize myself with all of its hidden compartments. To know every culture, and their peoples. Only so I can save some of them, and therefore have the company I so lack at this current moment.

Truthfully, I want to die, but am not one who wishes to take on the Tradition of Crea, as Montaigne puts it. I don't like suicide. Life is too precious to waste, even though I am poor. And likely I am happier poor, so that way I can say, "LORD, I am among the poor." And receive my blessing. Yet, let me never be so poor that I steal. Nor so rich that I forget the LORD.

Truthfully, your story was one of few poets who I read. As your tragic life is more poetic than Mr. Rowley's forgeries. Why did you have to do that?

Yet, to earn a wage from my poetry, I would not despair. To have a small flock of people by which I could shepherd through these illiberal times, I would not despair. To have my bookshelf, and the occasional portion of flesh, I am satisfied. Really I am because I am not poor. And my office is like a monk's, compiling through wisdom to draw out Christ. As the monks would be in the same office I myself am in. And I am in a little monastery, isolated from everyone. Surrounded by a few family members. I am not unhappy.

Would my society come and burn my books? Likely not, so I am satisfied with them, and the compendium of knowledge on this internet. Do I want success? Only for many people to read my work. I do enjoy solitude. But I enjoy a woman's company, too. Which I have yet to obtain. I could be satisfied writing my works and enjoying the company of a woman. Nor am I mad like I once was, as that demon had been exorcised from me.

I am like a sage monk, living in his reclusiveness, compiling odes. Yet, let me be famous only for the sake of having not wasted my time writing things nobody would read or enjoy. To have a steady salary from my writing, I would enjoy it. To eat from this labor. Yet now I am satisfied, for this one moment. Yet, why did you have to use a pseudonym?

Perhaps it is like me, where my class prevents me from being disposed to write high poetry. Perhaps the publishers are waiting for me to commit suicide, so they can pounce on my craft and pick at it like vultures. That way my rotten name isn't among it. They are like that, you know? I don't think you died in vain, as you would have waited many years before you were famous. They knew you had died, and wanted to create a narrative with your life.

Mine won't be that way. I shall live stubbornly, and they shall suffer. I will make them suffer. For they aren't prying this from me. And when I die, they will be forgotten.