WCP550

[1]

[in the author’s hand] Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace.

[in ARW’s hand] Answd

Sent my “Moral Progress”¹

92 Waters Avenue²

West New Brighton, N.Y.

April 6, 1913.

Dear Dr Wallace:

I am one of the millions who have watched your career and who admire your great service to humanity. Not only have you served greatly by your scientific discoveries, but you have served even more greatly perhaps by making known to the world that our material science is not the all in all of life—by giving us solid reasons indeed for believing that there is a spiritual ground behind all this moving spectacle of existence.

And this leads me to say that I have been working for seven years upon the many volumes and manuscripts of that remarkable seer Thomas Lake Harris.³ I have been entrusted with these literary remains in order that I might select material for a series of volumes, a series that will give a clear understanding of this man’s remarkable teachings. I am now at work upon the first volume, having already done much upon the other volumes. The first volume will be my exposition and commentary, a syllabus of this new doctrine of the here and hereafter. I hope to have the book done by the end of the year, and I have already promised myself the pleasure of sending you a copy.

I have read well nigh all the importance books claiming to to give us the calculus of the Spiritual World, and the only ones that appeal to me are the volumes of Emanuel Swedenborg and Thomas Lake Harris. These men see clearly that the reign of law is universal, that its dominion extends on into the heavens and the hells, holding all things in the large grasp of a divine purpose that cannot fail. So in all heavens and hells there is nothing capricious, nothing arbitrary: they all grow out of the nature of things, out of the logic of the universe.

[2] 2

There is another matter that comes to mind. You may remember that two or three years ago you wrote⁴ some very gracious words about my poems, especially about those that were inspired by the anxious social problems that confront the race. And now I am getting ready to bring out a collected edition of my poems both in America and in England; and I am wondering whether I could prevail on you to write an introduction⁵ to the volume. I should not want you to do this unless you felt sure that you had the time and strength to spare. Let me add that the introduction might be a single page or twenty pages—any number that would suit your convenience. Of course my publishers would expect to make proper payment.

[in the author’s hand] Wishing you all good in the world and in the world to come. | Respectfully, Edwin Markham⁶ [signed]