Poor dear Steinmetz is gone,--his state of sure blessedness accelerated;
or, it may be, he is buried in Christ, and there in that mysterious depth
grows on to the spirit of a just man made perfect! Could I for a moment
doubt this, the grass would become black beneath my feet, and this earthly
frame a charnel-house. I never knew any man so illustrate the difference
between the feminine and the effeminate.
* * * * *
A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr. ---- and myself in a lane
near Highgate.---- knew him, and spoke. It was Keats. He was introduced to
me, and staid a minute or so. After he had left us a little way, he came
back and said: "Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed
your hand!"--"There is death in that hand," I said to ----, when Keats was
gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed itself
distinctly.
_August_ 16. 1832.