A better will soon occur to me. Poor Poland! They go on sadly there. Warmth of particular friendship does not imply absorption. The nearer you approach the sun, the more intense are his rays. Yet what distant corner of the system do they not cheer and vivify? The ardour of private attachments makes philanthropy a necessary habit of the soul. I love my friend. Such as he is, all mankind are or might be. The deduction is evident. Philanthropy (and indeed every other virtue) is a thing of concretion. Some home-born feeling is the centre of the ball, that rolling on through life collects and assimilates every congenial affection. What did you mean by H. has “my understanding”? I have puzzled myself in vain to discover the import of the sentence. The only sense it seemed to bear was so like mock-humility, that I scolded myself for the momentary supposition.[53] My heart is so heavy at present, that I will defer the finishing of this letter till to-morrow.

I saw a face in Wrexham Church this morning, which recalled “Thoughts full of bitterness and images” too dearly loved! now past and but “Remembered like sweet sounds of yesterday!” At Ross (sixteen miles from Gloucester) we took up our quarters at the King’s Arms, once the house of Kyrle, the Man of Ross. I gave the window-shutter the following effusion:[54]—

I will resume the pen to-morrow.

Monday, 11 o’clock. Well, praised be God! here I am. Videlicet, Ruthin, sixteen miles from Wrexham. At Wrexham Church I glanced upon the face of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with [whom] I had been in habits of fraternal correspondence. She turned excessively pale; she thought it my ghost, I suppose. I retreated with all possible speed to our inn. There, as I was standing at the window, passed by Eliza Evans, and with her to my utter surprise her sister, Mary Evans, quam efflictim et perdite amabam. I apprehend she is come from London on a visit to her grandmother, with whom Eliza lives. I turned sick, and all but fainted away! The two sisters, as H. informs me, passed by the window anxiously several times afterwards; but I had retired.

My fortitude would not have supported me, had I recognized her—I mean appeared to do it! I neither ate nor slept yesterday. But love is a local anguish; I am sixteen miles distant, and am not half so miserable. I must endeavour to forget it amid the terrible graces of the wild wood scenery that surround me. I never durst even in a whisper avow my passion, though I knew she loved me. Where were my fortunes? and why should I make her miserable! Almighty God bless her! Her image is in the sanctuary of my heart, and never can it be torn away but with the strings that grapple it to life. Southey! there are few men of whose delicacy I think so highly as to have written all this. I am glad I have so deemed of you. We are soothed by communications.

Denbigh (eight miles from Ruthin).

And now to give you some little account of our journey. From Oxford to Gloucester, to Ross, to Hereford, to Leominster, to Bishop’s Castle, to Welsh Pool, to Llanfyllin, nothing occurred worthy notice except that at the last place I preached pantisocracy and aspheterism with so much success that two great huge fellows of butcher-like appearance danced about the room in enthusiastic agitation. And one of them of his own accord called for a large glass of brandy, and drank it off to this his own toast, “God save the King! And may he be the last.” Southey! Such men may be of use. They would kill the golden calf secundum artem. From Llanfyllin we penetrated into the interior of the country to Llangunnog, a village most romantically situated. We dined there on hashed mutton, cucumber, bread and cheese, and beer, and had two pots of ale—the sum total of the expense being sixteen pence for both of us! From Llangunnog we walked over the mountains to Bala—most sublimely terrible! It was scorchingly hot. I applied my mouth ever and anon to the side of the rocks and sucked in draughts of water cold as ice, and clear as infant diamonds in their embryo dew! The rugged and stony clefts are stupendous, and in winter must form cataracts most astonishing. At this time of the year there is just water enough dashed down over them to “soothe, not disturb the pensive traveller’s ear.” I slept by the side of one an hour or more. As we descended the mountain, the sun was reflected in the river, that winded through the valley with insufferable brightness; it rivalled the sky. At Bala is nothing remarkable except a lake of eleven miles in circumference. At the inn I was sore afraid that I had caught the itch from a Welsh democrat, who was charmed with my sentiments: he grasped my hand with flesh-bruising ardor, and I trembled lest some disappointed citizens of the animalcular republic should have emigrated.

Shortly after, into the same room, came a well-dressed clergyman and four others, among whom (the landlady whispers me) was a justice of the peace and the doctor of the parish. I was asked for a gentleman. I gave General Washington. The parson said in a low voice, “Republicans!” After which, the medical man said, “Damn toasts! I gives a sentiment: May all republicans be guillotined!” Up starts the Welsh democrat. “May all fools be gulloteen’d—and then you will be the first.” Thereon rogue, villain, traitor flew thick in each other’s faces as a hailstorm. This is nothing in Wales. They make calling one another liars, etc., necessary vent-holes to the superfluous fumes of the temper. At last I endeavoured to articulate by observing that, whatever might be our opinions in politics, the appearance of a clergyman in the company assured me we were all Christians; “though,” continued I, “it is rather difficult to reconcile the last sentiment with the spirit of Christianity.” “Pho!” quoth the parson, “Christianity! Why, we are not at church now, are we? The gemman’s sentiment was a very good one; it showed he was sincere in his principles.” Welsh politics could not prevail over Welsh hospitality. They all, except the parson, shook me by the hand, and said I was an open-hearted, honest-speaking fellow, though I was a bit of a democrat.

From Bala we travelled onward to Llangollen, a most beautiful village in a most beautiful situation. On the road we met two Cantabs of my college, Brookes and Berdmore. These rival pedestrians—perfect Powells—were vigorously pursuing their tour in a post-chaise! We laughed famously. Their only excuse was that Berdmore had been ill. From Llangollen to Wrexham, from Wrexham to Ruthin, to Denbigh. At Denbigh is a ruined castle; it surpasses everything I could have conceived. I wandered there an hour and a half last evening (this is Tuesday morning). Two well-dressed young men were walking there. “Come,” says one, “I’ll play my flute; ’twill be romantic.” “Bless thee for the thought, man of genius and sensibility!” I exclaimed, and preattuned my heartstring to tremulous emotion. He sat adown (the moon just peering) amid the awful part of the ruins, and the romantic youth struck up the affecting tune of “Mrs. Carey.”[55] ’Tis fact, upon my honour.

God bless you, Southey! We shall be at Aberystwith[56] this day week. When will you come out to meet us? There you must direct your letter. Hucks’ compliments. I anticipate much accession of republicanism from Lovell. I have positively done nothing but dream of the system of no property every step of the way since I left you, till last Sunday. Heigho!

Robert Southey, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Bath.

XXXIV. TO THE SAME.

10 o’clock, Thursday morning, September 18, 1794.

Well, my dear Southey! I am at last arrived at Jesus. My God! how tumultuous are the movements of my heart. Since I quitted this room what and how important events have been evolved! America! Southey! Miss Fricker! Yes, Southey, you are right. Even Love is the creature of strong motive. I certainly love her. I think of her incessantly and with unspeakable tenderness,—with that inward melting away of soul that symptomatizes it.

Pantisocracy! Oh, I shall have such a scheme of it! My head, my heart, are all alive. I have drawn up my arguments in battle array; they shall have the tactician excellence of the mathematician with the enthusiasm of the poet. The head shall be the mass; the heart the fiery spirit that fills, informs, and agitates the whole. Harwood—pish! I say nothing of him.

SHAD GOES WITH US. HE IS MY BROTHER! I am longing to be with you. Make Edith my sister. Surely, Southey, we shall be frendotatoi meta frendous—most friendly where all are friends. She must, therefore, be more emphatically my sister.

Brookes and Berdmore, as I suspected, have spread my opinions in mangled forms at Cambridge. Caldwell, the most pantisocratic of aristocrats, has been laughing at me. Up I arose, terrible in reasoning. He fled from me, because “he could not answer for his own sanity, sitting so near a madman of genius.” He told me that the strength of my imagination had intoxicated my reason, and that the acuteness of my reason had given a directing influence to my imagination. Four months ago the remark would not have been more elegant than just. Now it is nothing.

I like your sonnets exceedingly—the best of any I have yet seen.[57] “Though to the eye fair is the extended vale” should be “to the eye though fair the extended vale.” I by no means disapprove of discord introduced to produce effect, nor is my ear so fastidious as to be angry with it where it could not have been avoided without weakening the sense. But discord for discord’s sake is rather too licentious.

“Wild wind” has no other but alliterative beauty; it applies to a storm, not to the autumnal breeze that makes the trees rustle mournfully. Alter it to “That rustle to the sad wind moaningly.”

“’Twas a long way and tedious,” and the three last lines are marked beauties—unlaboured strains poured soothingly along from the feeling simplicity of heart. The next sonnet is altogether exquisite,—the circumstance common yet new to poetry, the moral accurate and full of soul.[58] “I never saw,” etc., is most exquisite. I am almost ashamed to write the following, it is so inferior. Ashamed? No, Southey! God knows my heart! I am delighted to feel you superior to me in genius as in virtue.

I have heard from Allen, and write the third letter to him. Yours is the second. Perhaps you would like two sonnets I have written to my Sally. When I have received an answer from Allen I will tell you the contents of his first letter.

My compliments to Heath.

I will write you a huge, big letter next week. At present I have to transact the tragedy business, to wait on the Master, to write to Mrs. Southey, Lovell, etc., etc.

God love you, and

S. T. Coleridge.

XXXV. TO THE SAME.

Friday morning, September 19, 1794.

My fire was blazing cheerfully—the tea-kettle even now boiled over on it. Now sudden sad it looks. But, see, it blazes up again as cheerily as ever. Such, dear Southey, was the effect of your this morning’s letter on my heart. Angry, no! I esteem and confide in you the more; but it did make me sorrowful. I was blameless; it was therefore only a passing cloud empictured on the breast. Surely had I written to you the first letter you directed to me at Cambridge, I would not have believed that you could have received it without answering it. Still less that you could have given a momentary pain to her that loved you. If I could have imagined no rational excuse for you, I would have peopled the vacancy with events of impossibility!

On Wednesday, September 17, I arrived at Cambridge. Perhaps the very hour you were writing in the severity of offended friendship, was I pouring forth the heart to Sarah Fricker. I did not call on Caldwell; I saw no one. On the moment of my arrival I shut my door, and wrote to her. But why not before?

In the first place Miss F. did not authorize me to direct immediately to her. It was settled that through you in our weekly parcels were the letters to be conveyed. The moment I arrived at Cambridge, and all yesterday, was I writing letters to you, to your mother, to Lovell, etc., to complete a parcel.

In London I wrote twice to you, intending daily to go to Cambridge; of course I deferred the parcel till then. I was taken ill, very ill. I exhausted my finances, and ill as I was, I sat down and scrawled a few guineas’ worth of nonsense for the booksellers, which Dyer disposed of for me. Languid, sick at heart, in the back room of an inn! Lofty conjunction of circumstances for me to write to Miss F. Besides, I told her I should write the moment I arrived at Cambridge. I have fulfilled the promise. Recollect, Southey, that when you mean to go to a place to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, the time that intervenes is lost. Had I meant at first to stay in London, a fortnight should not have elapsed without my writing to her. If you are satisfied, tell Miss F. that you are so, but assign no reasons—I ought not to have been suspected.

The tragedy[60] will be printed in less than a week. I shall put my name, because it will sell at least a hundred copies in Cambridge. It would appear ridiculous to put two names to such a work. But, if you choose it, mention it and it shall be done. To every man who praises it, of course I give the true biography of it; to those who laugh at it, I laugh again, and I am too well known at Cambridge to be thought the less of, even though I had published James Jennings’ Satire.

········

Southey! Precipitance is wrong. There may be too high a state of health, perhaps even virtue is liable to a plethora. I have been the slave of impulse, the child of imbecility. But my inconsistencies have given me a tarditude and reluctance to think ill of any one. Having been often suspected of wrong when I was altogether right, from fellow-feeling I judge not too hastily, and from appearances. Your undeviating simplicity of rectitude has made you rapid in decision. Having never erred, you feel more indignation at error than pity for it. There is phlogiston in your heart. Yet am I grateful for it. You would not have written so angrily but for the greatness of your esteem and affection. The more highly we have been wont to think of a character, the more pain and irritation we suffer from the discovery of its imperfections. My heart is very heavy, much more so than when I began to write.

Yours most fraternally.
S. T. Coleridge.

XXXVI. TO THE SAME.

Friday night, September 26, 1794.

My dear, dear Southey,—I am beyond measure distressed and agitated by your letter to Favell. On the evening of the Wednesday before last, I arrived in Cambridge; that night and the next day I dedicated to writing to you, to Miss F., etc. On the Friday I received your letter of phlogistic rebuke. I answered it immediately, wrote a second letter to Miss F., inclosed them in the aforesaid parcel, and sent them off by the mail directed to Mrs. Southey, No. 8 Westcott Buildings, Bath. They should have arrived on Sunday morning. Perhaps you have not heard from Bath; perhaps—damn perhapses! My God, my God! what a deal of pain you must have suffered before you wrote that letter to Favell. It is an Ipswich Fair time, and the Norwich company are theatricalizing. They are the first provincial actors in the kingdom. Much against my will, I am engaged to drink tea and go to the play with Miss Brunton[61] (Mrs. Merry’s sister). The young lady, and indeed the whole family, have taken it into their heads to be very much attached to me, though I have known them only six days. The father (who is the manager and proprietor of the theatre) inclosed in a very polite note a free ticket for the season. The young lady is said to be the most literary of the beautiful, and the most beautiful of the literatæ. It may be so; my faculties and discernments are so completely jaundiced by vexation that the Virgin Mary and Mary Flanders, alias Moll, would appear in the same hues.

All last night, I was obliged to listen to the damned chatter of our mayor, a fellow that would certainly be a pantisocrat, were his head and heart as highly illuminated as his face. At present he is a High Churchman, and a Pittite, and is guilty (with a very large fortune) of so many rascalities in his public character, that he is obliged to drink three bottles of claret a day in order to acquire a stationary rubor, and prevent him from the trouble of running backwards and forwards for a blush once every five minutes. In the tropical latitudes of this fellow’s nose was I obliged to fry. I wish you would write a lampoon upon him—in me it would be unchristian revenge.

Our tragedy is printed, all but the title-page. It will be complete by Saturday night.

God love you. I am in the queerest humour in the world, and am out of love with everybody.

S. T. Coleridge.

XXXVII. TO THE SAME.

October 21, 1794.

To you alone, Southey, I write the first part of this letter. To yourself confine it.

“Is this handwriting altogether erased from your memory? To whom am I addressing myself? For whom am I now violating the rules of female delicacy? Is it for the same Coleridge, whom I once regarded as a sister her best-beloved Brother? Or for one who will ridicule that advice from me, which he has rejected as offered by his family? I will hazard the attempt. I have no right, nor do I feel myself inclined to reproach you for the Past. God forbid! You have already suffered too much from self-accusation. But I conjure you, Coleridge, earnestly and solemnly conjure you to consider long and deeply, before you enter into any rash schemes. There is an Eagerness in your Nature, which is ever hurrying you in the sad Extreme. I have heard that you mean to leave England, and on a Plan so absurd and extravagant that were I for a moment to imagine it true, I should be obliged to listen with a more patient Ear to suggestions, which I have rejected a thousand times with scorn and anger. Yes! whatever Pain I might suffer, I should be forced to exclaim, ‘O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown, Blasted with ecstacy.’ You have a country, does it demand nothing of you? You have doting Friends! Will you break their Hearts! There is a God—Coleridge! Though I have been told (indeed I do not believe it) that you doubt of his existence and disbelieve a hereafter. No! you have too much sensibility to be an Infidel. You know I never was rigid in my opinions concerning Religion—and have always thought Faith to be only Reason applied to a particular subject. In short, I am the same Being as when you used to say, ‘We thought in all things alike.’ I often reflect on the happy hours we spent together and regret the Loss of your Society. I cannot easily forget those whom I once loved—nor can I easily form new Friendships. I find women in general vain—all of the same Trifle, and therefore little and envious, and (I am afraid) without sincerity; and of the other sex those who are offered and held up to my esteem are very prudent, and very worldly. If you value my peace of mind, you must on no account answer this letter, or take the least notice of it. I would not for the world any part of my Family should suspect that I have written to you. My mind is sadly tempered by being perpetually obliged to resist the solicitations of those whom I love. I need not explain myself. Farewell, Coleridge! I shall always feel that I have been your Sister.”

No name was signed,—it was from Mary Evans. I received it about three weeks ago. I loved her, Southey, almost to madness. Her image was never absent from me for three years, for more than three years. My resolution has not faltered, but I want a comforter. I have done nothing, I have gone into company, I was constantly at the theatre here till they left us, I endeavoured to be perpetually with Miss Brunton, I even hoped that her exquisite beauty and uncommon accomplishments might have cured one passion by another. The latter I could easily have dissipated in her absence, and so have restored my affections to her whom I do not love, but whom by every tie of reason and honour I ought to love. I am resolved, but wretched! But time shall do much. You will easily believe that with such feelings I should have found it no easy task to write to ——. I should have detested myself, if after my first letter I had written coldly—how could I write as warmly? I was vexed too and alarmed by your letter concerning Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, Shad, and little Sally. I was wrong, very wrong, in the affair of Shad, and have given you reason to suppose that I should assent to the innovation. I will most assuredly go with you to America, on this plan, but remember, Southey, this is not our plan, nor can I defend it. “Shad’s children will be educated as ours, and the education we shall give them will be such as to render them incapable of blushing at the want of it in their parents”—Perhaps! With this one word would every Lilliputian reasoner demolish the system. Wherever men can be vicious, some will be. The leading idea of pantisocracy is to make men necessarily virtuous by removing all motives to evil—all possible temptation. “Let them dine with us and be treated with as much equality as they would wish, but perform that part of labour for which their education has fitted them.” Southey should not have written this sentence. My friend, my noble and high-souled friend should have said to his dependents, “Be my slaves, and ye shall be my equals;” to his wife and sister, “Resign the name of Ladyship and ye shall retain the thing.” Again. Is every family to possess one of these unequal equals, these Helot Egalités? Or are the few you have mentioned, “with more toil than the peasantry of England undergo,” to do for all of us “that part of labour which their education has fitted them for”? If your remarks on the other side are just, the inference is that the scheme of pantisocracy is impracticable, but I hope and believe that it is not a necessary inference. Your remark of the physical evil in the long infancy of men would indeed puzzle a Pangloss—puzzle him to account for the wish of a benevolent heart like yours to discover malignancy in its Creator. Surely every eye but an eye jaundiced by habit of peevish scepticism must have seen that the mothers’ cares are repaid even to rapture by the mothers’ endearments, and that the long helplessness of the babe is the means of our superiority in the filial and maternal affection and duties to the same feelings in the brute creation. It is likewise among other causes the means of society, that thing which makes them a little lower than the angels. If Mrs. S. and Mrs. F. go with us, they can at least prepare the food of simplicity for us. Let the married women do only what is absolutely convenient and customary for pregnant women or nurses. Let the husband do all the rest, and what will that all be? Washing with a machine and cleaning the house. One hour’s addition to our daily labor, and pantisocracy in its most perfect sense is practicable. That the greater part of our female companions should have the task of maternal exertion at the same time is very improbable; but, though it were to happen, an infant is almost always sleeping, and during its slumbers the mother may in the same room perform the little offices of ironing clothes or making shirts. But the hearts of the women are not all with us. I do believe that Edith and Sarah are exceptions, but do even they know the bill of fare for the day, every duty that will be incumbent upon them?

All necessary knowledge in the branch of ethics is comprised in the word justice: that the good of the whole is the good of each individual, that, of course, it is each individual’s duty to be just, because it is his interest. To perceive this and to assent to it as an abstract proposition is easy, but it requires the most wakeful attentions of the most reflective mind in all moments to bring it into practice. It is not enough that we have once swallowed it. The heart should have fed upon the truth, as insects on a leaf, till it be tinged with the colour, and show its food in every the minutest fibre. In the book of pantisocracy I hope to have comprised all that is good in Godwin, of whom and of whose book I will write more fully in my next letter (I think not so highly of him as you do, and I have read him with the greatest attention). This will be an advantage to the minds of our women.

What have been your feelings concerning the War with America, which is now inevitable? To go from Hamburg will not only be a heavy additional expense, but dangerous and uncertain, as nations at war are in the habit of examining neutral vessels to prevent the importation of arms and seize subjects of the hostile governments. It is said that one cause of the ministers having been so cool on the business is that it will prevent emigration, which it seems would be treasonable to a hostile country. Tell me all you think on these subjects. What think you of the difference in the prices of land as stated by Cowper from those given by the American agents? By all means read, ponder on Cowper, and when I hear your thoughts I will give you the result of my own.

When a man is unhappy he writes damned bad poetry, I find. My Imitations too depress my spirits—the task is arduous, and grows upon me. Instead of two octavo volumes, to do all I hoped to do two quartos would hardly be sufficient.

Of your poetry I will send you a minute critique, when I send you my proposed alterations. The sonnets are exquisite.[63] Banquo is not what it deserves to be. Towards the end it grows very flat, wants variety of imagery—you dwell too long on Mary, yet have made less of her than I expected. The other figures are not sufficiently distinct; indeed, the plan of the ode (after the first forty lines which are most truly sublime) is so evident an imitation of Gray’s Descent of Odin, that I would rather adopt Shakespeare’s mode of introducing the figures themselves, and making the description now the Witches’ and now Fleance’s. I detest monodramas, but I never wished to establish my judgment on the throne of critical despotism. Send me up the Elegy on the Exiled Patriots and the Scripture Sonnets. I have promised them to Flower.[64] The first will do good, and more good in a paper than in any other vehicle.

My thoughts are floating about in a most chaotic state. I had almost determined to go down to Bath, and stay two days, that I might say everything I wished. You mean to acquaint your aunt with the scheme? As she knows it, and knows that you know that she knows it, justice cannot require it, but if your own comfort makes it necessary, by all means do it, with all possible gentleness. She has loved you tenderly; be firm, therefore, as a rock, mild as the lamb. I sent a hundred “Robespierres” to Bath ten days ago and more.

Five hundred copies of “Robespierre” were printed. A hundred [went] to Bath; a hundred to Kearsley, in London; twenty-five to March, at Norwich; thirty I have sold privately (twenty-five of these thirty to Dyer, who found it inconvenient to take fifty). The rest are dispersed among the Cambridge booksellers; the delicacies of academic gentlemanship prevented me from disposing of more than the five propriâ personâ. Of course we only get ninepence for each copy from the booksellers. I expected that Mr. Field would have sent for fifty, but have heard nothing of it. I sent a copy to him, with my respects, and have made presents of six more. How they sell in London, I know not. All that are in Cambridge will sell—a great many are sold. I have been blamed for publishing it, considering the more important work I have offered to the public. N’importe. ’Tis thought a very aristocratic performance; you may suppose how hyper-democratic my character must have been. The expenses of paper, printing, and advertisements are nearly nine pounds. We ought to have charged one shilling and sixpence a copy.

I presented a copy to Miss Brunton with these verses in the blank leaf:[65]—

Jes. Coll., Cambridge.

Till I dated this letter I never recollected that yesterday was my birthday—twenty-two years old.

I have heard from my brothers—from him particularly who has been friend, brother, father. ’Twas all remonstrance and anguish, and suggestions that I am deranged! Let me receive from you a letter of consolation; for, believe me, I am completely wretched.

Yours most affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.

XXXVIII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

November, 1794.

My feeble and exhausted heart regards with a criminal indifference the introduction of servitude into our society; but my judgment is not asleep, nor can I suffer your reason, Southey, to be entangled in the web which your feelings have woven. Oxen and horses possess not intellectual appetites, nor the powers of acquiring them. We are therefore justified in employing their labour to our own benefit: mind hath a divine right of sovereignty over body. But who shall dare to transfer “from man to brute” to “from man to man”? To be employed in the toil of the field, while we are pursuing philosophical studies—can earldoms or emperorships boast so huge an inequality? Is there a human being of so torpid a nature as that placed in our society he would not feel it? A willing slave is the worst of slaves! His soul is a slave. Besides, I must own myself incapable of perceiving even the temporary convenience of the proposed innovation. The men do not want assistance, at least none that Shad can particularly give; and to the women, what assistance can little Sally, the wife of Shad, give more than any other of our married women? Is she to have no domestic cares of her own? No house? No husband to provide for? No children? Because Mr. and Mrs. Roberts are not likely to have children, I see less objection to their accompanying us. Indeed, indeed, Southey, I am fearful that Lushington’s prophecy may not be altogether vain. “Your system, Coleridge, appears strong to the head and lovely to the heart; but depend upon it, you will never give your women sufficient strength of mind, liberality of heart, or vigilance of attention. They will spoil it.”

I am extremely unwell; have run a nail into my heel, and before me stand “Embrocation for the throbbing of the head,” “To be shaked up well that the ether may mix,” “A wineglass full to be taken when faint.” ’Sdeath! how I hate the labels of apothecary’s bottles. Ill as I am, I must go out to supper. Farewell for a few hours.

’Tis past one o’clock in the morning. I sat down at twelve o’clock to read the “Robbers” of Schiller.[66] I had read, chill and trembling, when I came to the part where the Moor fixes a pistol over the robbers who are asleep. I could read no more. My God, Southey, who is this Schiller, this convulser of the heart? Did he write his tragedy amid the yelling of fiends? I should not like to be able to describe such characters. I tremble like an aspen leaf. Upon my soul, I write to you because I am frightened. I had better go to bed. Why have we ever called Milton sublime? that Count de Moor horrible wielder of heart-withering virtues? Satan is scarcely qualified to attend his execution as gallows chaplain.

Tuesday morning.—I have received your letter. Potter of Emanuel[67] drives me up to town in his phaeton on Saturday morning. I hope to be with you by Wednesday week. Potter is a “Son of Soul”—a poet of liberal sentiments in politics—yet (would you believe it?) possesses six thousand a year independent.

I feel grateful to you for your sympathy. There is a feverish distemperature of brain, during which some horrible phantom threatens our eyes in every corner, until, emboldened by terror, we rush on it, and then—why then we return, the heart indignant at its own palpitation! Even so will the greater part of our mental miseries vanish before an effort. Whatever of mind we will to do, we can do! What, then, palsies the will? The joy of grief. A mysterious pleasure broods with dusky wings over the tumultuous mind, “and the Spirit of God moveth on the darkness of the waters.” She was very lovely, Southey! We formed each other’s minds; our ideas were blended. Heaven bless her! I cannot forget her. Every day her memory sinks deeper into my heart.

I wish, Southey, in the stern severity of judgment, that the two mothers were not to go, and that the children stayed with them. Are you wounded by my want of feeling? No! how highly must I think of your rectitude of soul, that I should dare to say this to so affectionate a son! That Mrs. Fricker! We shall have her teaching the infants Christianity,—I mean, that mongrel whelp that goes under its name,—teaching them by stealth in some ague fit of superstition.

There is little danger of my being confined. Advice offered with respect from a brother; affected coldness, an assumed alienation mixed with involuntary bursts of anguish and disappointed affection; questions concerning the mode in which I would have it mentioned to my aged mother—these are the daggers which are plunged into my peace. Enough! I should rather be offering consolation to your sorrows than be wasting my feelings in egotistic complaints. “Verily my complaint is bitter, yet my stroke is heavier than my groaning.”

God love you, my dear Southey!

S. T. Coleridge.

A friend of mine hath lately departed this life in a frenzy fever induced by anxiety. Poor fellow, a child of frailty like me! Yet he was amiable. I poured forth these incondite lines[68] in a moment of melancholy dissatisfaction:—