CCLIV. TO THE REV. H. F. CARY.
Grove, Highgate, April 22, 1832.
My dear Friend,—For I am sure by my love for you that you love me too well to have suffered my very rude and uncourteous vehemence of contradiction and reclamation respecting your advocacy of the Catilinarian Reform Bill, when we were last together, to have cooled, much less alienated your kindness; even though the interim had not been a weary, weary time of groaning and life-loathing for me. But I hope that this fearful night-storm is subsiding, as you will have heard from Mr. Green or dear Charles Lamb. I write now to say, that if God, who in His Fatherly compassion and through His love wherewith He hath beheld and loved me in Christ, in whom alone He can love the world, hath worked almost a miracle of grace in and for me by a sudden emancipation from a thirty-three years’ fearful slavery,[212] if God’s goodness should in time and so far perfect my convalescence as that I should be capable of resuming my literary labours, I have a thought by way of a light prelude, a sort of unstiffening of my long dormant joints and muscles, to give a reprint as nearly as possible, except in quality of the paper, a facsimile of John Asgill’s tracts with a life and copious notes,[213] to which I would affix Pastilla et Marginalia. See my MSS. notes, blank leaf and marginal, on Southey’s “Life of Wesley,” and sundry other works. Now can you direct me to any source of information respecting John Asgill, a prince darling of mine, the most honest of all Whigs, whom at the close of Queen Anne’s reign the scoundrelly Jacobite Tories twice expelled from Parliament, under the pretext of his incomparable, or only-with-Rabelais-to-be-compared argument against the base and cowardly custom of ever dying? And this tract is a very treasure, and never more usable as a medicine for our clergy, at least all such as the Bishop of London, Archbishops of Canterbury and of Dublin, the Paleyans and Mageeites,[214] any one or all of whom I would defy to answer a single paragraph of Asgill’s tract, or unloose a single link from the chain of logic. I have no biographical dictionary, and never saw one but in a little sort of one-volume thing. If you can help me in this, do. I give my kindest love to Mrs. Cary.
Yours, with unutterable and unuttered love and regard, in all (but as to the accursed Reform Bill! that mendacium ingens to its own preamble (to which no human being can be more friendly than I am), that huge tapeworm lie of some threescore and ten yards) entire sympathy of heart and soul,
Your affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
CCLV. TO JOHN PEIRSE KENNARD.[215]
Grove, Highgate, August 13, 1832.
My dear Sir,—Your letter has announced to me a loss too great, too awful, for common grief, or any of its ordinary forms and outlets. For more than an hour after, I remained in a state which I can only describe as a state of deepest mental silence, neither prayer nor thanksgiving, but a prostration of absolute faith, as if the Omnipresent were present to me by a more special intuition, passing all sense and all understanding. Whether Death be but the cloudy Bridge to the Life beyond, and Adam Steinmetz has been wafted over it without suspension, or with an immediate resumption of self-conscious existence, or whether his Life be hidden in God, in the eternal only-begotten, the Pleroma of all Beings and the Habitation both of the Retained and the Retrieved, therein in a blessed and most divine Slumber to grow and evolve into the perfected Spirit,—for sleep is the appointed season of all growth here below, and God’s ordinances in the earthly may shadow out his ways in the Heavenly,—in either case our friend is in God and with God. Were it possible for me even to think otherwise,[216] the very grass in the fields would turn black before my eyes, and nature appear as a skeleton fantastically mossed over beneath the weeping vault of a charnel house!
Deeply am I persuaded that for every man born on earth there is an appointed task, some remedial process in the soul known only to the Omniscient; and, this through divine grace fulfilled, the sole question is whether it be needful or expedient for the church that he should still remain: for the individual himself “to depart and to be with Christ” must needs be GREAT gain. And of my dear, my filial friend, we may with a strong and most consoling assurance affirm that he was eminently one
Who, being innocent, did even for that cause
Bestir him in good deeds!
Wise Virgin He, and wakeful kept his Lamp
Aye trimm’d and full; and thus thro’ grace he liv’d
In this bad World as in a place of Tombs,
And touch’d not the Pollutions of the Dead.
And yet in Christ only did he build a hope. Yea, he blessed the emptiness that made him capable of his Lord’s fullness, gloried in the blindness that was a receptive of his Master’s light, and in the nakedness that asked to be cloathed with the wedding-garment of his Redeemer’s Righteousness. Therefore say I unto you, my young friend, Rejoice! and again I say, Rejoice!
The effect of the event communicated in your letter has been that of awe and sadness on our whole household. Mrs. Gillman mourns as for a son, but with that grief which is felt for a departed saint. Even the servants felt as if an especially loved and honoured member of the family had been suddenly taken away. When I announced the sad tidings to Harriet, an almost unalphabeted but very sensible woman, the tears swelled in her eyes, and she exclaimed, “Ah sir! how many a Thursday night, after Mr. Steinmetz was gone, and I had opened the door for him, I have said to them below, ‘That dear young man is too amiable to live. God will soon have him back.’” These were her very words. Nor were my own anticipations of his recall less distinct or less frequent. Not once or twice only, after he had shaken hands with me on leaving us, I have turned round with the tear on my cheek, and whispered to Mrs. Gillman, “Alas! there is Death in that dear hand.”[217]
My dear sir! if our society can afford any comfort to you, as that of so dear a friend of Adam Steinmetz cannot but be to us, I beseech you in my own name, and am intreated by Mr. and Mrs. Gillman to invite you, to be his representative for us, and to take his place in our circle. And I must further request that you do not confine yourself to any particular evening of the week (for which there is now no reason), but that you consult your own convenience and opportunities of leisure. At whatever hour he comes, the fraternal friend of Adam Steinmetz will ever be dear and most welcome to
S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
1833-1834
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
1833-1834
CCLVI. TO J. H. GREEN.
Sunday night, April 8, 1833.
It is seldom, my dearest friend, that I find myself differing from you in judgements of any sort. It is more than seldom that I am left in doubt and query on any judgement of yours of a practical nature, for on the good ground of some sixteen or more years’ experience I feel a take-for-granted faith in the dips and pointings of the needle in every decision of your total mind. But in the instance you spoke of this afternoon, viz., your persistent rebuttal of the Temperance Society Man’s Request, though I do not feel sure that you are not in the right, yet I do feel as if I should have been more delighted and more satisfied if you had intimated your compliance with it. I feel that in this case I should have had no doubt; but that my mind would have leapt forwards with content, like a key to a loadstone.
Assuredly you might, at least you would, have a very promising chance of effecting considerable good, and you might have commenced your address with your own remark of the superfluity of any light of information afforded to an habitual dram-drinker respecting the unutterable evil and misery of his thraldom. As wisely give a physiological lecture to convince a man of the pain of burns, while he is lying with his head on the bars of the fire-grate, instead of snatching him off. But in stating this, you might most effectingly and preventively for others describe the misery of that condition in which the impulse waxes as the motive wanes. (Mem. There is a striking passage in my “Friend” on this subject,[218] and a no less striking one in a schoolboy theme of mine[219] now in Gillman’s possession, and in my own hand, written when I was fourteen, with the simile of the treacherous current of the Maelstrom.) But this might give occasion for the suggestion of one new charitable institution, under authority of a legislative act, namely, a Maison de Santé (what do the French call it?) for lunacy and idiocy of the will, in which, with the full consent of, or at the direct instance of the patient himself, and with the concurrence of his friends, such a person under the certificate of a physician might be placed under medical and moral coercion. I am convinced that London would furnish a hundred volunteers in as many days from the gin-shops, who would swallow their glass of poison in order to get courage to present themselves to the hospital in question. And a similar institution might exist for a higher class of will-maniacs or impotents. Had such a house of health been in existence, I know who would have entered himself as a patient some five and twenty years ago.
Second class. To the persons still capable of self-cure; and lastly, to the young who have only begun, and not yet begun—[add to this] the urgency of connecting the Temperance Society with the Christian churches of all denominations,—the classes known to each other, and deriving strength from religion. This is a beautiful part, or might have been made so, of the Wesleyan Church.
These are but raw hints, but unless the mercy of God should remove me from my sufferings earlier than I dare hope or pray for, we will talk the subject over again; as well as the reason why spirits in any form as such are so much more dangerous, morally and in relation to the forming a habit, than beer or wine. Item: if a government were truly fraternal, a healthsome and sound beer would be made universal; aye, and for the lower half of the middle classes wine might be imported, good and generous, from sixpence to eightpence per quart.
God bless you and your ever affectionate
S. T. Coleridge.
CCLVII. TO MRS. ADERS.[220]
[1833.]
My dear Mrs. Aders,—By my illness or oversight I have occasioned a very sweet vignette to have been made in vain—except for its own beauty. Had I sent you the lines that were to be written on the upright tomb, you and our excellent Miss Denman would have, first, seen the dimension requisite for letters of a distinctly visible and legible size; and secondly, that the homely, plain Church-yard Christian verses would not be in keeping with a Muse (though a lovelier I never wooed), nor with a lyre or harp or laurel, or aught else Parnassian and allegorical. A rude old yew-tree, or a mountain ash, with a grave or two, or any other characteristic of a village rude church-yard,—such a hint of a landscape was all I meant; but if any figure, rather that of an elderly man
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.
(Tombless Epitaph. See “Sibylline Leaves.”)
But I send the lines, and you and Miss Denman will form your own opinion.
Is one of Wyville’s proofs of my face worth Mr. Aders’ acceptance? I wrote under the one I sent to Henry Coleridge the line from Ovid, with the translation, thus:
S. T. Coleridge, ætat. suæ 63.
Not / handsome / was / but / was / eloquent /
“Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulysses.”
Translation.
“In truth, he’s no Beauty!” cry’d Moll, Poll, and Tab;
But they all of them own’d He’d the gift of the Gab.
My best love to Mr. Aders, and believe that as I have been, so I ever remain your affectionate and trusty friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I like the tombstone very much.
The lines when printed would probably have on the preceding page the advertisement—
Epitaph on a Poet
little known, yet better known by
the Initials of his Name than by the Name itself.
S. T. C.
Stop, Christian Passer-by! Stop, Child of God!
And read with gentle heart. Beneath this sod
A Poet lies: or that, which once seem’d He.
O lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.
That He, who many a year with toilsome breath
Found Death in Life, may here find Life in Death.
Mercy for Praise—to be forgiven for Fame
He ask’d, and hoped thro’ Christ. DO THOU the Same.
CCLVIII. TO JOHN STERLING.[221]
Grove, Highgate, October 30, 1833.
My dear Sir,—I very much regret that I am not to see you again for so many months. Many a fond dream have I amused myself with, of your residing near me or in the same house, and of preparing, with your and Mr. Green’s assistance, my whole system for the press, as far as it exists in writing in any systematic form; that is, beginning with the Propyleum, On the power and use of Words, comprising Logic, as the canons of Conclusion, as the criterion of Premises, and lastly as the discipline and evolution of Ideas (and then the Methodus et Epochee, or the Disquisition on God, Nature, and Man), the two first grand divisions of which, from the Ens super Ens to the Fall, or from God to Hades, and then from Chaos to the commencement of living organization, containing the whole scheme of the Dynamic Philosophy, and the deduction of the Powers and Forces, are complete; as is likewise a third, composed for the greater part by Mr. Green, on the “Application of the Ideas, as the Transcendents of the Truths, Duties, Affections, etc., in the Human Mind.” If I could once publish these (but, alas! even these could not be compressed in less than three octavo volumes), I should then have no objection to print my MS. papers on “Positive Theology, from Adam to Abraham, to Moses, the Prophets, Christ and Christendom.” But this is a dream! I am, however, very seriously disposed to employ the next two months in preparing for the press a metrical translation (if I find it practicable) of the Apocalypse, with an introduction on the “Use and Interpretation of Scriptures.” I am encouraged to this by finding how much of original remains in my views after I have subtracted all I have in common with Eichhorn and Heinrichs. I write now to remind you, or to beg you to recall to my memory the name of the more recent work (Lobeck?) which you mentioned to me, and whether you can procure it for me, or rather the loan of it. Likewise, whether you know of any German translation and commentary on Daniel, that is thought highly of? I find Gesenius’ version exceedingly interesting, and look forward to the Commentaries with delight. You mentioned some works on the numerical Cabbala, the Gematria (I think) they call it. But I must not scribble away your patience, and after I have heard from you from Cambridge I will try to write to you more to the purpose (for I did not begin this scrawl till the hour had passed that ought to have found me in bed).
With sincere regard, your obliged friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
CCLIX. TO MISS ELIZA NIXON.[222]
July 9, 1834.
My dear Eliza,—The three volumes of Miss Edgeworth’s “Helen” ought to have been sent in to you last night, and are marked as having been so sent. And indeed, knowing how much noise this work was making and the great interest it had excited, I should not have been so selfish as to have retained them on my own account. But Mrs. Gillman is very anxious that I should read it, and has made me promise to write my remarks on it, and such reflections as the contents may suggest, which, in awe of the precisians of the Book Society, I shall put down on separate paper. The young people were so eager to read it, that with my slow and interrupted style of reading, it would have been cruel not to give them the priority. Mrs. Gillman flatters me that you and your sisters will think a copy of my remarks some compensation for the delay.
God bless you, my dear young friend. You, I know, will be gratified to learn, and in my own writing, the still timid but still strengthening and brightening dawn of convalescence with the last eight days.
S. T. Coleridge.
July 9, 1834.
The two volumes[223] that I send you are making a rumour, and are highly and I believe justly extolled. They are written by a friend of mine,[224] a remarkably handsome young man whom you may have seen on one of our latest Thursday evening conversazioni. I have not yet read them, but keep them till I send in “Helen,” and longer, if you should not have finished them.
CCLX. TO ADAM STEINMETZ KENNARD.
Grove, Highgate, July 13, 1834.
My dear Godchild,—I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now as I did kneeling before the altar when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as a living member of His spiritual body, the church. Years must pass before you will be able to read with an understanding heart what I now write. But I trust that the all-gracious God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, who by His only-begotten Son (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!) has redeemed you from evil ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but into light; out of death, but into life; out of sin, but into righteousness; even into “the Lord our righteousness,”—I trust that He will graciously hear the prayers of your dear parents, and be with you as the spirit of health and growth, in body and in mind. My dear godchild, you received from Christ’s minister at the baptismal font, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your father’s, and who was to me even as a son,—the late Adam Steinmetz, whose fervent aspirations and paramount aim, even from early youth, was to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed; in will, mind, and affections. I, too, your godfather, have known what the enjoyment and advantages of this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can give; I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you, and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act on the conviction, that health is a great blessing; competence, obtained by honourable industry, a great blessing; and a great blessing it is, to have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise, through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely affected with bodily pains, languor, and manifold infirmities; and for the last three or four years have, with few and brief intervals, been confined to a sick-room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write from a sickbed, hopeless of recovery, yet without prospect of a speedy removal. And I thus, on the brink of the grave, solemnly bear witness to you, that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His promises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He has promised; and has reserved, under all pains and infirmities, the peace that passeth all understanding, with the supporting assurance of a reconciled God, who will not withdraw His spirit from me in the conflict, and in His own time will deliver me from the evil one. Oh, my dear godchild! eminently blessed are they who begin early to seek, fear, and love their God, trusting wholly in the righteousness and mediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus Christ. Oh, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen godfather and friend,
S. T. Coleridge.