CHAPTER VIII
HOME AND NO HOME
1806-1807
Monday, (?) September 15, 1806.
My dear Stuart,—I arrived in town safe, but so tired by the next evening, that I went to bed at nine and slept till past twelve on Sunday. I cannot keep off my mind from the last subject we were talking about; though I have brought my notions concerning it to hang so well on the balance that I have in my own judgment few doubts as to the relative weight of the arguments persuasive and dissuasive. But of this “face to face.” I sleep at the “Courier” office, and shall institute and carry on the inquiry into the characters of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, and having carried it to the Treaty of Amiens, or rather to the recommencement of the War, I propose to give a full and severe Critique of the “Enquiry into the State of the Nation,” taking it for granted that this work does, on the whole, contain Mr. Fox’s latest political creed; and this for the purpose of answering the “Morning Chronicle”(!) assertions, that Mr. Fox was the greatest and wisest statesman; that Mr. Pitt was no statesman. I shall endeavour to show that both were undeserving of that high character; but that Mr. Pitt was the better; that the evils which befell him were undoubtedly produced in great measure by blunders and wickedness on the Continent which it was almost impossible to foresee; while the effects of Mr. Fox’s measures must in and of themselves produce calamity and degradation.
To confess the truth, I am by no means pleased with Mr. Street’s character of Mr. Fox as a speaker and man of intellect. As a piece of panegyric, it falls woefully short of the Article in the “Morning Chronicle” in style and selection of thoughts, and runs at least equally far beyond the bounds of truth. Persons who write in a hurry are very liable to contract a sort of snipt, convulsive style, that moves forward by short repeated PUSHES, with iso-chronous asthmatic pants, “He—He—He—He—,” or the like, beginning a dozen short sentences, each making a period. In this way a man can get rid of all that happens at any one time to be in his memory, with very little choice in the arrangement and no expenditure of logic in the connection. However, it is the matter more than the manner that displeased me, for fear that what I shall write for to-morrow’s “Courier” may involve a kind of contradiction. To one outrageous passage I persuaded him to add a note of amendment, as it was too late to alter the Article itself. It was impossible for me, seeing him satisfied with the Article himself, to say more than that he appeared to me to have exceeded in eulogy. But beyond doubt in the political position occupied by the “Courier,” with so little danger of being anticipated by the other papers in anything which it ought to say, except some obvious points which being common to all the papers can give credit to none, it would have been better to have announced his death, and simply led the way for an after disquisition by a sort of shy disclosure with an appearance of suppression of the spirit with which it could be conducted.
There are letters at the Post Office, Margate, for me. Be so good as to send them to me, directed to the “Courier” office. I think of going to Mr. Smith’s[35] to-morrow, or not at all. Whether Mr. Fox’s death[36] will keep Mr. S. in town, or call him there, I do not know. At all events I shall return by the time of your arrival.
May God bless you! I am ever, my dear sir, as your obliged, so your affectionately grateful friend,
S. T. Coleridge.
September 16, [1806.]
My dear Sara,—I had determined on my arrival in town to write to you at full, the moment I could settle my affairs and speak decisively of myself. Unfortunately Mr. Stuart was at Margate, and what with my journey to and fro, day has passed on after day, Heaven knows, counted by me in sickness of heart. I am now obliged to return to Parndon to Mr. W. Smith’s, at whose house Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson are, and where I spent three or four days a fortnight ago. The reason at present is that Lord Howick has sent a very polite message to me through Mr. Smith, expressing his desire to make my acquaintance. To this I have many objections which I want to discuss with Mr. S., and at all events I had rather go with him to his Lordship’s than by myself. Likewise I have had application from the R. Institution for a course of lectures, which I am much disposed to accept, both for money and reputation. In short, I must stay in town till Friday sen’night; for Mr. Stuart returns to town on Monday next, and he relies on my being there for a very interesting private concern of his own, in which he needs both my counsel and assistance. But on Friday sen’night, please God, I shall quit town, and trust to be at Keswick on Monday, Sept. 29th. If I finally accept the lectures, I must return by the middle of November, but propose to take you and Hartley with me, as we may be sure of rooms either in Mr. Stuart’s house at Knightsbridge, or in the Strand. My purpose is to divide my time steadily between my reflections moral and political, grounded on information obtained during two years’ residence in Italy and the Mediterranean, and the lectures on the “Principles common to all the Fine Arts.” It is a terrible misfortune that so many important papers are not in my power, and that I must wait for Stoddart’s care and alertness, which, I am sorry to say, is not to be relied on. However, it is well that they are not in Paris.
My heart aches so cruelly that I do not dare trust myself to the writing of any tenderness either to you, my dear, or to our dear children. Be assured, I feel with deep though sad affection toward you, and hold your character in general in more than mere esteem—in reverence.... I do not gather strength so fast as I had expected; but this I attribute to my very great anxiety. I am indeed very feeble, but after fifty-five days of such horrors, following the dreary heart-wasting of a year and more, it is a wonder that I am as I am. I sent you from Malta £110, and a duplicate in a second letter. If you have not received it, the triplicate is either at Malta or on its way from thence. I had sent another £100, but by Elliot’s villainous treatment of me[37] was obliged to recall it. But these are trifles.
Mr. Clarkson is come, and is about to take me down to Parndon (Mr. S.’s country seat in Essex, about twenty miles from town). I shall return by Sunday or Monday, and my address, “S. T. Coleridge, Esqre, No. 348 Strand, London.”
My grateful love to Southey, and blessing on his little one. And may God Almighty preserve you, my dear! and your faithful, though long absent husband,
S. T. Coleridge.
[Farmhouse near Coleorton,]
December 25, 1806.
My dear Sara,—By my letter from Derby you will have been satisfied of our safety so far. We had, however, been grossly deceived as to the equi-distance of Derby and Loughborough. The expense was nearly double. Still, however, I was in such torture and my boils bled, throbbed, and stabbed so con furia, that perhaps I have no reason for regret. At Coleorton we found them dining, Sunday, ½ past one o’clock. To-day is Xmas day. Of course we were welcomed with an uproar of sincere joy: and Hartley hung suspended between the ladies for a long minute. The children, too, jubilated at Hartley’s arrival. He has behaved very well indeed—only that when he could get out of the coach at dinner, I was obliged to be in incessant watch to prevent him from rambling off into the fields. He twice ran into a field, and to the further end of it, and once after the dinner was on table, I was out five minutes seeking him in great alarm, and found him at the further end of a wet meadow, on the marge of a river. After dinner, fearful of losing our places by the window (of the long coach), I ordered him to go into the coach and sit in the place where he was before, and I would follow. In about five minutes I followed. No Hartley! Halloing—in vain! At length, where should I discover him! In the same meadow, only at a greater distance, and close down on the very edge of the water. I was angry from downright fright! And what, think you, was Cataphract’s excuse! “It was a misunderstanding, Father! I thought, you see, that you bid me go to the very same place, in the meadow where I was.” I told him that he had interpreted the text by the suggestions of the flesh, not the inspiration of the spirit; and his Wish the naughty father of the baseborn Thought. However, saving and excepting his passion for field truantry, and his hatred of confinement [in which his fancy at least—
Doth sing a doleful song about green fields;
How sweet it were in woods and wild savannas;
To hunt for food and be a naked man
And wander up and down at liberty!],[38]
he is a very good and sweet child, of strict honour and truth, from which he never deviates except in the form of sophism when he sports his logical false dice in the game of excuses. This, however, is the mere effect of his activity of thought, and his aiming at being clever and ingenious. He is exceedingly amiable toward children. All here love him most dearly: and your namesake takes upon her all the duties of his mother and darling friend, with all the mother’s love and fondness. He is very fond of her; but it is very pretty to hear how, without any one set declaration of his attachment to Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson, his love for them continually breaks out—so many things remind him of them, and in the coach he talked to the strangers of them just as if everybody must know Mr. J. and Mrs. W. His letter is only half written; so cannot go to-day. We all wish you a merry Christmas and many following ones. Concerning the London Lectures, we are to discuss it, William and I, this evening, and I shall write you at full the day after to-morrow. To-morrow there is no post, but this letter I mean merely as bearer of the tidings of our safe arrival. I am better than usual. Hartley has coughed a little every morning since he left Greta Hall; but only such a little cough as you heard from him at the door. He is in high health. All the children have the hooping cough; but in an exceedingly mild degree. Neither Sarah Hutchinson nor I ever remember to have had it. Hartley is made to keep at a distance from them, and only to play with Johnny in the open air. I found my spice-megs; but many papers I miss.
The post boy waits.
My love to Mrs. Lovell, to Southey and Edith, and believe me anxiously and for ever,
Your sincere friend
S. T. Coleridge.
April 3, 1807.
My dear Boy,—In all human beings good and bad qualities are not only found together, side by side, as it were, but they actually tend to produce each other; at least they must be considered as twins of a common parent, and the amiable propensities too often sustain and foster their unhandsome sisters. (For the old Romans personified virtues and vices both as women.) This is a sufficient proof that mere natural qualities, however pleasing and delightful, must not be deemed virtues until they are broken in and yoked to the plough of Reason. Now to apply this to your own case—I could equally apply it to myself—but you know yourself more accurately than you can know me, and will therefore understand my argument better when the facts on which it is built exist in your own consciousness. You are by nature very kind and forgiving, and wholly free from revenge and sullenness; you are likewise gifted with a very active and self-gratifying fancy, and such a high tide and flood of pleasurable feelings, that all unpleasant and painful thoughts and events are hurried away upon it, and neither remain in the surface of your memory nor sink to the bottom of your heart. So far all seems right and matter of thanksgiving to your Maker; and so all really is so, and will be so, if you exert your reason and free will. But on the other hand the very same disposition makes you less impressible both to the censure of your anxious friends and to the whispers of your conscience. Nothing that gives you pain dwells long enough upon your mind to do you any good, just as in some diseases the medicines pass so quickly through the stomach and bowels as to be able to exert none of their healing qualities. In like manner, this power which you possess of shoving aside all disagreeable reflections, or losing them in a labyrinth of day-dreams, which saves you from some present pain, has, on the other hand, interwoven with your nature habits of procrastination, which, unless you correct them in time (and it will require all your best exertions to do it effectually), must lead you into lasting unhappiness.
You are now going with me (if God have not ordered it otherwise) into Devonshire to visit your Uncle G. Coleridge. He is a very good man and very kind; but his notions of right and of propriety are very strict, and he is, therefore, exceedingly shocked by any gross deviations from what is right and proper. I take, therefore, this means of warning you against those bad habits, which I and all your friends here have noticed in you; and, be assured, I am not writing in anger, but on the contrary with great love, and a comfortable hope that your behaviour at Ottery will be such as to do yourself and me and your dear mother credit.
First, then, I conjure you never to do anything of any kind when out of sight which you would not do in my presence. What is a frail and faulty father on earth compared with God, your heavenly Father? But God is always present. Specially, never pick at or snatch up anything, eatable or not. I know it is only an idle, foolish trick; but your Ottery relations would consider you as a little thief; and in the Church Catechism picking and stealing are both put together as two sorts of the same vice, “And keep my hands from picking and stealing.” And besides, it is a dirty trick; and people of weak stomachs would turn sick at a dish which a young filth-paw had been fingering.
Next, when you have done wrong acknowledge it at once, like a man. Excuses may show your ingenuity, but they make your honesty suspected. And a grain of honesty is better than a pound of wit. We may admire a man for his cleverness; but we love and esteem him only for his goodness; and a strict attachment to truth, and to the whole truth, with openness and frankness and simplicity is at once the foundation stone of all goodness, and no small part of the superstructure. Lastly, do what you have to do at once, and put it out of hand. No procrastination; no self-delusion; no “I am sure I can say it, I need not learn it again,” etc., which sures are such very unsure folks that nine times out of ten their sureships break their word and disappoint you.
Among the lesser faults I beg you to endeavour to remember not to stand between the half-opened door, either while you are speaking, or spoken to. But come in or go out, and always speak and listen with the door shut. Likewise, not to speak so loud, or abruptly, and never to interrupt your elders while they are speaking, and not to talk at all during meals. I pray you, keep this letter, and read it over every two or three days.
Take but a little trouble with yourself, and every one will be delighted with you, and try to gratify you in all your reasonable wishes. And, above all, you will be at peace with yourself, and a double blessing to me, who am, my dear, my very dear Hartley, most anxiously, your fond father,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I have not spoken about your mad passions and frantic looks and pout-mouthing; because I trust that is all over.
Hartley Coleridge, Coleorton, Leicestershire.
September 11, 1807.
... Yet how very few are there whom I esteem and (pardon me for this seeming deviation from the language of friendship) admire equally with yourself. It is indeed, and has long been, my settled persuasion, that of all men known to me I could not justly equal any one to you, combining in one view powers of intellect, and the steady moral exertion of them to the production of direct and indirect good; and if I give you pain, my heart bears witness that I inflicted a greater on myself,—nor should I have written such words, if the chief feeling that mixed with and followed them had not been that of shame and self-reproach, for having profited neither by your general example nor your frequent and immediate incentives. Neither would I have oppressed you at all with this melancholy statement, but that for some days past I have found myself so much better in body and mind, as to cheer me at times with the thought that this most morbid and oppressive weight is gradually lifting up, and my will acquiring some degree of strength and power of reaction.
········
I have, however, received such manifest benefit from horse exercise, and gradual abandonment of fermented and total abstinence from spirituous liquors, and by being alone with Poole, and the renewal of old times, by wandering about among my dear old walks of Quantock and Alfoxden, that I have seriously set about composition, with a view to ascertain whether I can conscientiously undertake what I so very much wish, a series of Lectures at the Royal Institution. I trust I need not assure you how much I feel your kindness, and let me add, that I consider the application as an act of great and unmerited condescension on the part of the managers as may have consented to it. After having discussed the subject with Poole, he entirely agrees with me, that the former plan suggested by me is invidious in itself, unless I disguised my real opinions; as far as I should deliver my sentiments respecting the arts, [it] would require references and illustrations not suitable to a public lecture room; and, finally, that I ought not to reckon upon spirits enough to seek about for books of Italian prints, etc. And that, after all, the general and most philosophical principles, I might naturally introduce into lectures on a more confined plan—namely, the principles of poetry, conveyed and illustrated in a series of lectures. 1. On the genius and writings of Shakespeare, relatively to his predecessors and contemporaries, so as to determine not only his merits and defects, and the proportion that each must bear to the whole, but what of his merits and defects belong to his age, as being found in contemporaries of genius, and what belonged to himself. 2. On Spenser, including the metrical romances, and Chaucer, though the character of the latter as a manner-painter I shall have so far anticipated in distinguishing it from, and comparing it with, Shakespeare. 3. Milton. 4. Dryden and Pope, including the origin and after history of poetry of witty logic. 5. On Modern Poetry and its characteristics, with no introduction of any particular names. In the course of these I shall have said all I know, the whole result of many years’ continued reflection on the subjects of taste, imagination, fancy, passion, the source of our pleasures in the fine arts, in the antithetical balance-loving nature of man, and the connexion of such pleasures with moral excellence. The advantage of this plan to myself is, that I have all my materials ready, and can rapidly reduce them into form (for this is my solemn determination, not to give a single lecture till I have in fair writing at least one half of the whole course), for as to trusting anything to immediate effort, I shrink from it as from guilt, and guilt in me it would be. In short, I should have no objection at once to pledge myself to the immediate preparation of these lectures, but that I am so surrounded by embarrassments....
For God’s sake enter into my true motive for this wearing detail; it would torture me if it had any other effect than to impress on you my desire and hope to accord with your plan, and my incapability of making any final promise till the end of this month.
S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER IX
PUBLIC LECTURER
1807-1808
Hatchett’s Hotel, Piccadilly, Monday evening,
[November 23, 1807.]
My dear Friends,—I arrived here in safety this morning between seven and eight, coach-stunned, and with a cold in my head; but I had dozed away the whole night with fewer disturbances than I had reason to expect, in that sort of whether-you-will-or-no slumber brought upon me by the movements of the vehicle, which I attribute to the easiness of the mail. About one o’clock I moaned and started, and then took a wing of the fowl and the rum, and it operated as a preventive for the after time. If very, very affectionate thoughts, wishes, recollections, anticipations, can score instead of grace before and after meat, mine was a very religious meal, for in this sense my inmost heart prayed before, after, and during. After breakfast, on attempting to clean and dress myself from crown to sole, I found myself quite unfit for anything, and my legs were painful, or rather my feet, and nothing but an horizontal position would remove the feeling. So I got into bed, and did not get up again till Mr. Stuart called at my chamber, past three. I have seen no one else, and therefore must defer all intelligence concerning my lectures, etc., to a second letter, which you will receive in a few days, God willing, with the D’Espriella, etc. When I was leaving you, one of the little alleviations which I looked forward to, was that I could write with less embarrassment than I could utter in your presence the many feelings of grateful affection and most affectionate esteem toward you, that pressed upon my heart almost, as at times it seemed, with a bodily weight. But I suppose it is yet too short a time since I left you—you are scarcely out of my eyes yet, dear Mrs. M. and Charlotte! To-morrow I shall go about the portraits. I have not looked at the profile since, nor shall I till it is framed. An absence of four or five days will be a better test how far it is a likeness. For a day or two, farewell, my dear friends! I bless you all three fervently, and shall, I trust, as long as I am
S. T. Coleridge.
I shall take up my lodgings at the “Courier” office, where there is a nice suite of rooms for me and a quiet bedroom without expense. My address therefore, “Squire Coleridge,” or “S. T. Coleridge, Esq: ‘Courier’ Office, Strand,”—unless you are in a sensible mood, and then you will write Mr. Coleridge, if it were only in compassion to that poor, unfortunate exile, from the covers of letters at least, despised MR.
Mr. Jno. Jas. Morgan,
St. James’s Square, Bristol.
[Postmark, December 14, 1807.]
My dear Southey,—I have been confined to my bedroom, and, with exceptions of a few hours each night, to my bed for near a week past—having once ventured out, and suffered in consequence. My complaint a low bilious fever. Whether contagion or sympathy, I know not, but I had it hanging about me from the time I was with Davy. It went off, however, by a journey which I took with Stuart, to Bristol, in a cold frosty air. Soon after my return Mr. Ridout informed me from Drs. Babbington and Bailly, that Davy was not only ill, but his life precarious, his recovery doubtful. And to this day no distinct symptom of safety has appeared, though to-day he is better. I cannot express what I have suffered. Good heaven! in the very springtide of his honour—his? his country’s! the world’s! after discoveries more intellectual, more ennobling, and impowering human nature than Newton’s! But he must not die! I am so much better that I shall go out to-morrow, if I awake no worse than I go to sleep. Be so good as to tell Mrs. Coleridge that I will write to her either Tuesday or Wednesday, and to Hartley and Derwent, with whose letters I was much both amused and affected. I was with Hartley and Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson in spirit at their meeting. Howel’s bill I have paid, tell Mrs. C. (for this is what she will be most anxious about), and that I had no other debt at all weighing upon me, either prudentially or from sense of propriety or delicacy, till the one I shall mention, after better subjects, in the tail of this letter.
I very thoroughly admired your letter to W. Scott,[40] concerning the “Edinburgh Review.” The feeling and the resolve are what any one knowing you half as well as I must have anticipated, in any case where you had room for ten minutes thinking, and relatively to any person, with regard to whom old affection and belief of injury and unworthy conduct had made none of those mixtures, which people the brains of the best men—none but good men having the component drugs, or at least the drugs in that state of composition—but it is admirably expressed—if I had meant only well expressed, I should have said, “and it is well expressed,”—but, to my feeling, it is an unusual specimen of honourable feeling supporting itself by sound sense and conveyed with simplicity, dignity, and a warmth evidently under the complete control of the understanding. I am a fair judge as to such a sentence, for from morbid wretchedness of mind I have been in a far, far greater excess, indifferent about what is said, or written, or supposed, concerning me or my compositions, than W. can have been ever supposed to be interested respecting his—and the “Edinburgh Review” I have not seen for years, and never more than four or five numbers. As to reviewing W.’s poems, my sole objection would rest on the time of the publication of the “Annual Review.” Davy’s illness has put off the commencement of my Lectures to the middle of January. They are to consist of at least twenty lectures, and the subject of modern poetry occupies at least three or four. Now I do not care in how many forms my sentiments are printed: if only I do not defraud my hirers, by causing my lectures to be anticipated. I would not review them at all, unless I can do it systematically, and with the whole strength of my mind. And, when I do, I shall express my convictions of the faults and defects of the poems and system, as plainly as of the excellencies. It has been my constant reply to those who have charged me with bigotry, etc.,—“While you can perceive no excellencies, it is my duty to appear conscious of no defects, because, even though I should agree with you in the instances, I should only confirm you in what I deem a pernicious error, as our principle of disapprobation must necessarily be different.” In my Lectures I shall speak out, of Rogers, Campbell, yourself (that is “Madoc” and “Thalaba;” for I shall speak only of poems, not of poets), and Wordsworth, as plainly as of Milton, Dryden, Pope, etc.... I did not overhugely admire the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” but saw no likeness whatever to the “Christabel,” much less any improper resemblance.
I heard by accident that Dr. Stoddart had arrived a few days ago, and wrote him a letter expostulating with him for his unkindness in having detained for years my books and MSS., and stating the great loss it had been to me (a loss not easy to be calculated. I have as witnesses T. Poole and Squire Acland[41] (who calls me infallible Prophet), that from the information contained in them, though I could not dare trust my recollection sufficiently for the proofs, I foretold distinctly every event that has happened of importance, with one which has not yet happened, the evacuation of Sicily). This, however, of course, I did not write to Dr. S., but simply requested he would send me my chests. In return I received yesterday an abusive letter confirming what I suspected, that he is writing a book himself. In this he conjures up an indefinite debt, customs, and some old affair before I went to Malta, amounting to more than fifty pounds (the customs twenty-five pounds, all of which I should have had remitted, if he had sent them according to his promise), and informing me that when I send a person properly documented to settle this account, that person may then take away my goods. This I shall do to-morrow, though without the least pledge that I shall receive all that I left.... This will prevent my sending Mrs. C. any money for three weeks, I mean exclusive of the [annuity of] £150 which, assure her, is, and for the future will remain, sacred to her. By Wallis’ attitude to Allston I lost thirty pounds in customs, by my brother’s refusal[42] all the expenses up and down of my family. So it has been a baddish year; but I am not disquieted.
S. T. C.
Poor Godwin is going to the dogs. He has a tragedy[43] to come out on Wednesday. I will write again to you in a few days. After my Lectures I would willingly undertake any Review with you, because I shall then have given my Code. I omit other parts of your letter, not that they interested me less, but because I have no room, and am too much exhausted to take up a second sheet. God bless you. My kisses to your little ones, and love to your wife. The only vindictive idea I have to Dr. S. is the anticipation of showing his letter to Sir Alexander Ball!! The folly of sinning against our first and pure impressions! It is the sin against our own ghost at least!
348, Strand, Friday morning, January 25, 1808.
Dear and honoured Mary,—Having had you continually, I may almost say, present to me in my dreams, and always appearing as a compassionate comforter therein, appearing in shape as your own dear self, most innocent and full of love, I feel a strong impulse to address a letter to you by name, though it equally respects all my three friends. If it had been told me on that evening when dear Morgan was asleep in the parlour, and you and beloved Caroletta asleep at opposite corners of the sopha in the drawing-room, of which I occupied the centre in a state of blessed half-unconsciousness as a drowsy guardian of your slumbers; if it had been then told me that in less than a fortnight the time should come when I should not wish to be with you, or wish you to be with me, I should have out with one of Caroletta’s harmless “condemn its” (commonly pronounced “damn it”), “that’s no truth!” And yet since on Friday evening, my lecture having made an impression far beyond its worth or my expectation, I have been in such a state of wretchedness, confined to my bed, in such almost continued pain ... that I have been content to see no one but the unlovable old woman, as feeling that I should only receive a momently succession of pangs from the presence of those who, giving no pleasure, would make my wretchedness appear almost unnatural, even as if the fire should cease to be warm. Who would not rather shiver on an ice mount than freeze before the fire which had used to spread comfort through his fibres and thoughts of social joy through his imagination? Yet even this, yet even from this feeling that your society would be an agony, oh I know, I feel how I love you, my dear sisters and friends.
I have been obliged, of course, to put off my lecture of to-day; a most painful necessity, for I disappoint some hundreds! I have sent for Abernethy, who has restored Mr. De Quincey to health! Could I have foreseen my present state I would have stayed at Bristol and taken lodgings at Clifton in order to be within the power of being seen by you, without being a domestic nuisance, for still, still I feel the comfortlessness of seeing no face, hearing no voice, feeling no hand that is dear, though conscious that the pang would outweigh the solace.
When finished, let the two dresses, etc., be sent to me; but if my illness should have a completed conclusion, of me as well as of itself, and there seems to be a distinct inflammation of the mesentery,—then let them be sent to Grasmere for Mrs. Wordsworth and Miss Hutchinson,—gay dresses, indeed, for a mourning.
I write in great pain, but yet I deem, whatever become of me, that it will hereafter be a soothing thought to you that in sickness or in health, in hope or in despondency, I have thought of you with love and esteem and gratitude.
My dear Mary! dear Charlotte! May Heaven bless you! With such a wife and such a sister, my friend is already blest! May Heaven give him health and elastic spirits to enjoy these and all other blessings! Once more bless you, bless you. Ah! who is there to bless
S. T. Coleridge?
P. S. Sunday Night. I do not know when this letter was written—probably Thursday morning, not Wednesday, as I have said in my letter to John. I have opened this by means of the steam of a tea-kettle, merely to say that I have, I know not how or where, lost the pretty shirt-pin Charlotte gave me. I promise her solemnly never to accept one from any other, and never to wear one hereafter as long as I live, so that the sense of its real absence shall make a sort of imaginary presence to me. I am more vexed at the accident than I ought to be; but had it been either of your locks of hair or her profile (which must be by force and association your profile too, and a far more efficacious one than that done for you, which had no other merit than that of having no likeness at all, and this certainly is a sort of negative advantage) I should have fretted myself into superstition and been haunted with it as by an omen. Of the lady and her poetical daughter I had never before heard even the name. Oh these are shadows! and all my literary admirers and flatterers, as well as despisers and calumniators, pass over my heart as the images of clouds over dull sea. So far from being retained, they are scarcely made visible there. But I love you, dear ladies! substantially, and pray do write at least a line in Morgan’s letter, if neither will write me a whole one, to comfort me by the assurance that you remember me with esteem and some affection. Most affectionately have you and Charlotte treated me, and most gratefully do I remember it. Good-night, good-night!
To be read after the other.
Mrs. Morgan,
St. James’s Square, Bristol.
348 Strand, May 23, 1808.
Dear Sir,—Without knowing me you have been, perhaps rather unwarrantably, severe on my morals and understanding, inasmuch as you have, I understand,—for I have not seen the Reviews,—frequently introduced my name when I had never brought any publication within your court. With one slight exception, a shilling pamphlet[44] that never obtained the least notice, I have not published anything with my name, or known to be mine, for thirteen years. Surely I might quote against you the complaint of Job as to those who brought against him “the iniquities of his youth.” What harm have I ever done you, dear sir, by act or word? If you knew me, you would yourself smile at some of the charges, which, I am told, you have fastened on me. Most assuredly, you have mistaken my sentiments, alike in morality, politics, and—what is called—metaphysics, and, I would fain hope, that if you knew me, you would not have ascribed self-opinion and arrogance to me. But, be this as it may, I write to you now merely to intreat—for the sake of mankind—an honourable review of Mr. Clarkson’s “History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade.”[45] I know the man, and if you knew him you, I am sure, would revere him, and your reverence of him, as an agent, would almost supersede all judgment of him as a mere literary man. It would be presumptuous in me to offer to write the review of his work. Yet I should be glad were I permitted to submit to you the many thoughts which occurred to me during its perusal. Be assured, that with the greatest respect for your talents—as far as I can judge of them from the few numbers of the “Edinburgh Review” which I have had the opportunity of reading—and every kind thought respecting your motives,
I am, dear sir, your ob. humb. ser’t,
S. T. Coleridge.
—— Jeffray (sic), Esq.,
to the care of Mr. Constable, Bookseller, Edingburgh (sic).
[Postmark] Bury St. Edmunds,
July 20, 1808.
Dear Sir,—Not having been gratified by a letter from you, I have feared that the freedom with which I opened out my opinions may have given you offence. Be assured, it was most alien from my intention. The purport of what I wrote was simply this—that severe and long-continued bodily disease exacerbated by disappointment in the great hope of my Life had rendered me insensible to blame and praise, even to a faulty degree, unless they proceeded from the one or two who love me. The entrance-passage to my heart is choked up with heavy lumber, and I am thus barricadoed against attacks, which, doubtless, I should otherwise have felt as keenly as most men. Instead of censuring a certain quantum of irritability respecting the reception of published composition, I rather envy it—it becomes ludicrous then only, when it is disavowed, and the opposite temper pretended to. The ass’s skin is almost scourge-proof—while the elephant thrills under the movements of every fly that runs over it. But though notoriously almost a zealot in behalf of my friend’s poetic reputation, yet I can leave it with cheerful confidence to the fair working of his own powers. I have known many, very many instances of contempt changed into admiration of his genius; but I neither know nor have heard of a single person, who having been or having become his admirer had ceased to be so. For it is honourable to us all that our kind affections, the attractions and elective affinities of our nature, are of more permanent agency than those passions which repel and dissever. From this cause we may explain the final growth of honest fame, and its tenacity of life. Whenever the struggle of controversy ceases, we think no more of works which give us no pleasure and apply our satire and scorn to some new object, and thus the field is left entire to friends and partisans.
But the case of Mr. Clarkson appeared to me altogether different. I do not hold his fame dear because he is my friend; but I sought and cultivated his acquaintance, because a long and sober enquiry had assured me, that he had been, in an aweful sense of the word, a benefactor of mankind: and this from the purest motives unalloyed by the fears and hopes of selfish superstition—and not with that feverish power which fanatics acquire by crowding together, but in the native strength of his own moral impulses. He, if ever human being did it, listened exclusively to his conscience, and obeyed its voice at the price of all his youth and manhood, at the price of his health, his private fortune, and the fairest prospects of honourable ambition. Such a man I cannot regard as a mere author. I cannot read or criticise such a work as a mere literary production. The opinions publicly expressed and circulated concerning it must of necessity in the author’s feelings be entwined with the cause itself, and with his own character as a man, to which that of the historian is only an accidental accession. Were it the pride of authorship alone that was in danger of being fretted, I should have remained as passive in this instance as in that of my most particular friend, to whom I am bound by ties more close and of longer standing than those which connect me personally with Mr. Clarkson. But I know that any sarcasms or ridicule would deeply wound his feelings, as a veteran warrior in a noble contest, feelings that claim the reverence of all good men.
The Review was sent, addressed to you, by the post of yester-evening. There is not a sentence, not a word in it, which I should not have written, had I never seen the author.
I am myself about to bring out two works—one a small pamphlet[46]—the second of considerable size—it is a rifacciamento, a very free translation with large additions, etc., etc., of the masterly work for which poor Palm was murdered.
I hope to be in the North, at Keswick, in the course of a week or eight days. I shall be happy to hear from you on this or any other occasion.
Yours, dear sir, sincerely,
S. T. Coleridge.
CHAPTER X
GRASMERE AND THE FRIEND
1808-1810
[December 9, 1808.]
My dear Stuart,—Scarcely when listening to count the hour, have I been more perplexed by the “Inopem me copia fecit” of the London church clocks, than by the press of what I have to say to you. I must do one at a time. Briefly, a very happy change[47] has taken place in my health and spirits and mental activity since I placed myself under the care and inspection of a physician, and I dare say with confident hope, “Judge me from the 1st January, 1809.”
I send you the Prospectus, and intreat you to do me all the good you can; which like the Lord’s Prayer is Thanksgiving in the disguise of petition. If you think that it should be advertized in any way, or if Mr. Street can do anything for me—but I know you will do what you can.
I have received promises of contribution from many tall fellows with big names in the world of Scribes, and count even Pharisees (two or three Bishops) in my list of patrons. But whether I shall have 50, 100, 500, or 1,000 subscribers I am not able even to conjecture. All must depend on the zeal of my friends, on which I fear I have thrown more water than oil—but some like the Greek fire burn beneath the wave!
Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of most masterly Essays[48] on the Affairs of Portugal and Spain, and by my advice he will first send them to you that if they suit the “Courier” they may be inserted.
I have not heard from Savage, but I suppose that he has printed a thousand of these Prospectuses, and you may have any number from him. He lives hard by some of the streets in Covent Garden which I do not remember, but a note to Mr. Savage, R. Institution, Albemarle Street, will find him.
May God Almighty bless you! I feel that I shall yet live, to give proof of what is deep within me towards you.
S. T. Coleridge.
Grasmere, December 14, 1808.
Dear Sir,—The only thing in which I have been able to detect any degree of hypochrondriasis in my feelings is the reading and answering of letters, and in this instance I have been at times so wofully under its domination as to have left every letter received lie unopened for weeks together, all the while thoroughly ashamed of the weakness and yet without power to get rid of it. This, however, has not been the case of late, and I was never yet so careless as knowingly to suffer a letter relating to money to remain unanswered by the next post in my power. I, therefore, on reading your very kind letter of 8 Dec. conclude that one letter from you during my movements from Grasmere, now to Keswick, now to Bratha and Elleray, and now to Kendal, has been mislayed.
As I considered your insertion of the review of Mr. Clarkson’s as an act of personal kindness and attention to the request of one a stranger to you except by name, the thought of any pecuniary remuneration never once occurred to me; and had it been written at your request I should have thought twenty guineas a somewhat extravagant price whether I considered the quantity or quality of the communication. As to the alterations, your character and interest, as the known Editor of the Review, are pledged for a general consistency of principle in the different articles with each other, and you had every possible right to alter or omit ad libitum, unless a special condition had been insisted on of aut totum aut nihil. As the writer, therefore, I neither thought nor cared about the alterations; as a general reader, I differed with you as [to] the scale of merit relatively to Mr. Wilberforce, whose services I deem to have been overrated, not, perhaps, so much absolutely as by comparison. At all events, some following passages should have been omitted, as they are in blank contradiction to the paragraph inserted, and betrayed a co-presence of two writers in one article. As to the longer paragraph, Wordsworth thinks you on the true side; and Clarkson himself that you were not far from the truth. As to my own opinion, I believed what I wrote, and deduced my belief from all the facts pro and con, with which Mr. Clarkson’s conversation have furnished [me]; but such is my detestation of that pernicious Minister,[49] such my contempt of the cowardice and fatuity of his measures, and my horror at the yet unended train of their direful consequences, that, if obedience to truth could ever be painful to me, this would have been. I acted well in writing what on the whole I believed the more probable, and I was pleased that you acted equally well in altering it according to your convictions.
I had hoped to have furnished a letter of more interesting contents to you, but an honest gentleman in London having taken a great fancy to two thirds of the possible profits of my literary labours without a shadow of a claim, and having over-hurried the business through overweening of my simplicity and carelessness, has occasioned me some perplexity and a great deal of trouble and letter-writing. I will write, however, again to you my first leisure evening, whether I hear from you or no in the interim.
I trust you have received my scrawl with the prospectus[50] and feel sincerely thankful to you for your kindness on the arrival of the prospectuses, prior to your receipt of the letter which was meant to have announced them. But our post here is very irregular as well as circuitous—but three times a week—and then, too, we have to walk more than two miles for the chance of finding letters. This you will be so good as to take into account whenever my answers do not arrive at the time they might have been expected from places in general. I remain, dear sir, with kind and respectful feeling, your obliged,
S. T. Coleridge.
I entirely coincide in your dislike of “speculative gloom”—it is illogical as well as barbarous, and almost as bad as “picturesque eye.” I do not know how I came to pass it; for when I first wrote it, I undermarked it, not as the expression, but as a remembrancer of some better that did not immediately occur to me. “Year-long absences” I think doubtful—had any one objected to it, I should have altered it; but it would not much offend me in the writings of another. But to “moral impulses” I see at present no objections, nor does any other phrase suggest itself to me which would have expressed my meaning. That there is a semblance of presumptuousness in the manner I exceedingly regret, if so it be—my heart bears me witness that the feeling had no place there. Yet I need not say to you that it is impossible to succeed in such a work unless at the commencement of it there be a quickening and throb in the pulse of hope; and what if a blush from inward modesty disguise itself on these occasions, and the hectic of unusual self-assertion increase the appearance of that excess which it in reality resists and modifies? It will amuse you to be informed that from two correspondents, both of them men of great literary celebrity, I have received reproof for a supposed affectation of humility in the style of the prospectus. In my own consciousness I was guilty of neither. Yet surely to advance as a teacher, and in the very act to declare yourself inferior to those whom you propose to teach, is incongruous; and must disgust a pure mind by its evident hypocrisy.
Grasmere, December 31, 1808.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for your exertions in my behalf, and—which more deeply interests me—for the openness with which you have communicated your doubts and apprehensions. So much, indeed, am I interested, that I cannot lay down my head on my pillow in perfect tranquillity, without endeavoring to remove them. First, however, I must tell you that ... “The Friend” will not appear at the time conditionally announced. There are, besides, great difficulties at the Stamp Office concerning it. But the particulars I will detail when we meet. Myself, with William Wordsworth and the family, are glad that we are so soon to see you. Now then for what is so near my heart. Only a certain number of prospectuses were printed at Kendal, and sent to acquaintances. The much larger number, which were to have been printed at London, have not been printed. When they are, you will see in the article, noted in this copy, that I neither intend to omit, nor from any fear of offence have scrupled to announce my intention of treating, the subject of religion. I had supposed that the words “speculative gloom” would have conveyed this intention. I had inserted another article, which I was induced to omit, from the fear of exciting doubts and queries. This was: On the transition of natural religion into revelation, or the principle of internal guidance: and the grounds of the possibility of the connection of spiritual revelation with historic events; that is, its manifestation in the world of the senses. This meant as a preliminary—leaving, as already performed by others, the proof of the reality of this connection in the particular fact of Christianity. Herein I wished to prove only that true philosophy rather leads to Christianity, than contained anything preclusive of it, and therefore adopted the phrase used in the definition of philosophy in general: namely, The science which answers the question of things actual, how they are possible? Thus the laws of gravitation illustrate the possibility of the motion of the heavenly bodies, the action of the lever, etc.; the reality of which was already known. I mention this, because the argument assigned which induced me to omit it in a prospectus was, that by making a distinction between revelation in itself (i. e. a principle of internal supernatural guidance), and the same revelation conjoined with the power of external manifestation by supernatural works, would proclaim me to be a Quaker, and “The Friend” as intended to propagate peculiar and sectarian principles. Think then, dear Friend! what my regret was at finding that you had taken it for granted that I denied the existence of an internal monitor! I trust I am neither of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas; but of Christ. Yet I feel reverential gratitude toward those who have conveyed the spirit of Christ to my heart and understanding so as to afford light to the latter and vital warmth to the former. Such gratitude I owe and feel toward W. Penn. Take his Preface to G. Fox’s Journal, and his Letter to his Son,—if they contain a faithful statement of genuine Christianity according to your faith, I am one with you. I subscribe to each and all of the principles therein laid down; and by them I propose to try, and endeavour to justify, the charge made by me (my conscience bears me witness) in the spirit of entire love against some passages of the journals of later Friends. Oh—and it is a groan of earnest aspiration! a strong wish of bitter tears and bitter self-dissatisfaction,—Oh that in all things, in self-subjugation, unwearied beneficence, and unfeigned listening and obedience to the Voice within, I were as like the evangelic John Woolman, as I know myself to be in the belief of the existence and the sovran authority of that Voice! When we meet, I will endeavour to be wholly known to you as I am, in principle at least.
A few words more. Unsuspicious of the possibility of misunderstanding, I had inserted in this prospectus Dress and Dancing among the fine Arts, the principles common to which I was to develope. Now surely anything common to Dress or Dancing with Architecture, Gardening, and Poetry could contain nothing to alarm any man who is not alarmed by Gardening, Poetry, etc., and secondly, principles common to Poetry, Music, etc., etc., could hardly be founded in the ridiculous hopping up and down in a modern ball-room, or the washes, paints, and patches of a fine lady’s toilet. It is well known how much I admired Thomas Clarkson’s Chapter on Dancing. The truth is, that I referred to the drapery and ornamental decoration of Painting, Statuary, and the Greek Spectacles; and to the scientific dancing of the ancient Greeks, the business of a life confined to a small class, and placed under the direction of particular magistrates. My object was to prove the truth of the principles by shewing that even dress and dancing, when the ingenuity and caprice of man had elaborated them into Fine Arts, were bottomed in the same principles. But desirous even to avoid suspicion, the passage will be omitted in the future prospectuses. Farewell! till we meet.
S. T. Coleridge. See P. S.
P. S. Do you not know enough of the world to be convinced that by declaring myself a warm defender of the Established Church against all sectarians, or even by attacking Quakerism in particular as a sect hateful to the bigots of the day from its rejection of priesthood and outward sacraments, I should gain twenty subscribers to one? It shocks me even to think that so mean a motive could be supposed to influence me. I say aloud everywhere, that in the essentials of their faith I believe as the Quakers do, and so I make enemies of the Church, of the Calvinists, and even of the Unitarians. Again, I declare my dissatisfaction with several points both of notion and of practice among the present Quakers—I dare not conceal my convictions—and therefore receive little good opinion even from those, with whom I most accord. But Truth is sacred.
Grasmere, Kendal, February 3, 1809.
My dearest Poole,—For once in my life I shall have been blamed by you for silence, indolence, and procrastination without reason. Even now I write this letter on a speculation, for I am to take it with me to-morrow to Kendal, and if I can bring the proposed printer and publisher to final terms, to put it into the post. It would be a tiresome job were I to detail to you all the vexations, hindrances, scoundrelisms, disappointments, and pros and cons that, without the least fault or remissness on my part, have rendered it impracticable to publish “The Friend” till the first week of March. The whole, however, is now settled, provided that Pennington (a worthy old bookseller and printer of Kendal, but a genius and mightily indifferent about the affairs of this life, both from that cause and from age, and from being as rich as he wishes) will become, as he has almost promised, the printer and publisher.[52]
“The Friend” will be stamped as a newspaper and under the Newspaper Act, which will take 3½d. from each shilling, but enable the essay to pass into all parts and corners of the Empire without expense or trouble. It will be so published as to appear in London every Saturday morning, and be sent off from the Kendal post to every part of the Kingdom by the Thursday morning’s post. I hope that Mr. Stuart will have the prospectuses printed by this time,—at all events, within a day or two after your receipt of this letter you will receive a parcel of them. The money is to be paid to the bookseller, the agent, in the next town, once in twenty weeks, where there are several subscribers in the same vicinity; otherwise, [it] must be remitted to me direct. This is the ugliest part of the business: but there is no getting over it without a most villainous diminution of my profits. You will, I know, exert yourself to procure me as many names as you can, for if it succeeds, it will almost make me.
Among my subscribers I have Mr. Canning and Sturges Bourne, and Mr. W. Rose, of whose moral odour your nose, I believe, has had competent experience. The first prospectus I receive, I shall send with letters to Lord Egmont and Lady E. Percival, and to Mr. Acland.
You will probably have seen two of Wordsworth’s Essays in the “Courier,” signed “G.” The two last columns of the second, excepting the concluding paragraph, were written all but a few sentences by me.[53] An accident in London delayed the publication ten days. The whole, therefore, is now publishing as a pamphlet, and I believe with a more comprehensive title.
I cannot say whether I was—indeed, both I and W. W.—more pleased or affected by the whole of your last letter; it came from a very pure and warm heart through the moulds of a clear and strong brain. But I have not now time to write on these concerns. For my opinions, feelings, hopes, and apprehensions, I can safely refer you to Wordsworth’s pamphlet. The minister’s conduct hitherto is easily defined. A great deal too much because not half enough. Two essays of my own on this most lofty theme,—what we are entitled to hope, what compelled to fear concerning the Spanish nation, by the light of history and psychological knowledge, you will soon see in the “Courier.” Poor Wardle![54] I fear lest his zeal may have made him confound that degree of evidence which is sufficient to convince an unprejudiced private company with that which will satisfy an unwilling numerous assembly of factious and corrupt judges. As to the truth of the charges, I have little doubt, knowing myself similar facts.
O dear Poole! Beddoes’ departure[55] has taken more hope out of my life than any former event except perhaps T. Wedgwood’s. That did indeed pull very hard at me; never a week, seldom two days have passed in which the recollection has not made me sad or thoughtful. Beddoes’ seems to pull yet harder, because it combines with the former, because it is the second, and because I have not been in the habit of connecting such a weight of despondency with my attachment to him as with my love of my revered and dear benefactor. Poor Beddoes! he was good and beneficent to all men, but to me he was, moreover, affectionate and loving, and latterly his sufferings had opened out his being to a delicacy, a tenderness, a moral beauty, and unlocked the source of sensibility as with a key from heaven.
My own health is more regular than formerly, for I am severely temperate and take nothing that has not been pronounced medically unavoidable; yet my sufferings are often great, and I am rarely indeed wholly without pain or sensations more oppressive than definite pain. But my mind, and what is far better, my will is active. I must leave a short space to add at Kendal after all is settled.
My beloved and honoured friend! may God preserve you and your obliged, and affectionately grateful,
S. T. Coleridge.
My dearest Poole,—Old Mr. Pennington has ultimately declined the printing and publishing; indeed, he is about to decline business altogether. There is no other in this country capable of doing the work, and to printing and publishing in London there are gigantic objections. What think you of a press at Grasmere? I will write when I get home. Oh, if you knew what a warmth of unusual feeling, what a genial air of new and living hope breathed upon me as I read that casual sentence in your letter, seeming to imply a chance we have of seeing you at Grasmere! I assure you that the whole family, Mrs. Wordsworth and her all-amiable sister, not with less warmth than W. W. and Dorothy, were made cheerful and wore a more holiday look the whole day after. Oh, do, do come!