"My literary life opens now. If the world manifest any disposition to hear my 'utterances,' it will be abundantly gratified. I am thirty: until forty literature shall be my calling—avoiding however to rely upon it pecuniarily—then (after forty) politics will be a sequitur.
"It has occurred to me to turn my passion for hunting, and 'my crowding experiences' (gathered in fifteen or sixteen years of life in the merriest Virginia country society) of hunting, fishing, country races, character and want of character, woods, mountains, fields, waters, and the devil knows what, into a rambling book. Years ago I used to devour the 'Spirit of the Times.' Indeed, much of my passion for sports of all kinds grew out of reading the 'Spirit.' Like Albert Pike's poet, in 'Fantasms,' I
'Had not known the bent of my own mind,
Until the mighty spell of 'Porter' woke
Its hidden passions.'
Only Albert Pike, says 'Coleridge' and 'Powers' for 'Porter' and 'passions.' Then, I have a half-written novel in my MS. piles, with poems, tales, sketches, histories, commenced, or arranged in my mind ready to be put in writing, to order. In a word, I am cocked and primed for authorship. My life here invites me urgently to literary employments. My house, servants, &c. &c.,—all that a country gentleman, really wants of the goods of life,—are in sure possession to me and mine. I want honors, and some little more money. Be good enough, my dear sir, to let me know how I am to go about acquiring them."
We wrote with frankness what we thought as true, of possible pecuniary advantages from the course he proposed, and were answered:
"What you say about the returns in money for an author's labors is dispiriting enough,—and I at once give over an earnest purpose, which I had formed, of writing books. Thank God, I am not dependent on the booksellers, but have a moderate and sure support for my family, apart from the crowding hopes and fears which dependence on them, would no doubt generate. But I must add (or forego some gratifications) two or three hundred dollars per annum to my ordinary means. I might easily make this by my profession, which I have deserted and neglected, but it would be as bad as the tread-mill to me; I detest the law. On the other hand, I love the fever-fits of composition. The music of rhythm, coming from God knows where, like the airy melody in the Tempest, tingles pleasantly in my veins and fingers; I like to build the verse cautiously, but with the excitement of a rapid writer, which I rein in and check; and then, we both know how glorious it is to make the gallant dash, and round off the stanza with the sonorous couplet, or with some rhyme as natural to its place as a leaf on a tree, but separated from its mate that peeps down to it over the inky ends of many intervening lines.... That unepistolary sentence has considerably fatigued me. I was saying, or about to say, that I would be obliged to you for information as to the profitableness of writing for periodicals."
From this time Mr. Cooke wrote much, but in a desultory way, and seemed, in a growing devotion to a few friends, and in the happiness that was in his home, to forget almost the dreams of ambition. He had commenced an historical novel to be called "Lutzen," in which that great battle was to end the adventures of his hero; this he threw aside, and his love for that age appeared in "The Chevalier Merlin," suggested by the beautiful story of Charles the Twelfth, as given by Voltaire, several chapters of which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger. In the same magazine he printed "John Carpe," "The Two Country Houses," and other tales, parts of a series in which he intended to dramatize the whole life and manners of Virginia. As for any applause that these might win for him, he wrote to his friend John R. Thompson:
"I look upon these matters serenely, and will treat renown as Sir Thomas More advises concerning guests; welcome its coming when it cometh, hinder not with oppressive eagerness its going, when it goeth. Furthermore, I am of the temper to look placidly upon the profile of this same renown, if, instead of stopping, it went by to take up with another; therefore it would not ruffle me to see you win the honors of southern letters away from me."
The chivalric poetry had filled his mind early and long, and he was only banishing it for the more independent and beautiful growth of his nature, when his untimely death destroyed hopes of fruits which the productions of his youth seemed to precede as blossoms. He died suddenly, at his home, on Sunday, the 20th of January, 1850, at the age of thirty-three.
At the time of his death he was writing "The Women of Shakspeare," "The Chariot Race," and a political and literary satire.