"Friday night, Jan. 14, 1803.
Dear Friend,
I was glad at heart to receive your letter, and still more gladdened by
the reading of it. The exceeding kindness which it breathed was literally
medicinal to me, and I firmly believe, cured me of a nervous rheumatic
affection, the acid and the oil, very completely at Patterdale; but by
the time it came to Keswick, the oil was all atop.
You ask me, 'Why, in the name of goodness, I did not return when I saw
the state of the weather?' The true reason is simple, though it may be
somewhat strange. The thought never once entered my head. The cause of
this I suppose to be, that (I do not remember it at least) I never once
in my whole life turned back in fear of the weather. Prudence is a plant,
of which I no doubt, possess some valuable specimens, but they are always
in my hothouse, never out of the glasses, and least of all things would
endure the climate of the mountains. In simple earnestness, I never find
myself alone, within the embracement of rocks and hills, a traveller up
an alpine road, but my spirit careers, drives, and eddies, like a leaf in
autumn; a wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses
of motion rises up from within me; a sort of bottom wind, that blows to
no point of the compass, comes from I know not whence, but agitates the
whole of me; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and stumble,
one this way, and one that way, like things that have no common master. I
think that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser.
The simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but the
feelings, and impulsive habits, and incipient actions, are in me, and the
old scenery awakens them.
The further I ascend from animated nature, from men, and cattle, and the
common birds of the woods and fields, the greater becomes in me the
intensity of the feeling of life. Life seems to me then an universal
spirit, that neither has, nor can have an opposite. 'God is everywhere' I
have exclaimed, and works everywhere, and where is there room for death?
In these moments it has been my creed, that death exists only because
ideas exist; that life is limitless sensation; that death is a child of
the organic senses, chiefly of the sight; that feelings die by flowing
into the mould of the intellect becoming ideas, and that ideas passing
forth into action, reinstate themselves again in the world of life. And I
do believe that truth lies in these loose generalizations. I do not think
it possible that any bodily pains could eat out the love of joy, that is
so substantially part of me, towards hills, and rocks, and steep waters;
and I have had some trial.
On Monday night I had an attack in my stomach and right side, which in
pain, and the length of its continuance, appeared to me by far the
severest I ever had. About one o'clock the pain passed out of my stomach,
like lightning from a cloud, into the extremities of my right foot. My
toe swelled and throbbed, and I was in a state of delicious ease, which
the pain in my toe did not seem at all to interfere with. On Tuesday I
was uncommonly well all the morning, and ate an excellent dinner; but
playing too long and, too rompingly with Hartley and Derwent, I was very
unwell that evening. On Wednesday I was well, and after dinner wrapped
myself up warm, and walked with Sarah Hutchinson, to Lodore. I never
beheld anything more impressive than the wild outline of the black masses
of mountain over Lodore, and so on to the gorge of Borrowdale. Even
through the bare twigs of a grove of birch trees, through which the road
passes; and on emerging from the grove a red planet, so very red that I
never saw a star so red, being clear and bright at the same time. It
seemed to have sky behind it. It started, as it were from the heavens,
like an eye-ball of fire. I wished aloud at that moment that you had been
with me.
The walk appears to have done me good, but I had a wretched night;
shocking pains in my head, occiput, and teeth, and found in the morning
that I had two blood-shot eyes. But almost immediately after the receipt
and perusal of your letter the pains left me, and I am bettered to this
hour; and am now indeed as well as usual saving that my left eye is very
much blood-shot. It is a sort of duty with me, to be particular
respecting parts that relate to my health. I have retained a good sound
appetite through the whole of it, without any craving after exhilarants
or narcotics, and I have got well as in a moment. Rapid recovery is
constitutional with me; but the former circumstances, I can with
certainty refer to the system of diet, abstinence from vegetables, wine,
spirits, and beer, which I have adopted by your advice.
I have no dread or anxiety respecting any fatigue which either of us is
likely to undergo, even in continental travelling. Many a healthy man
would have been laid up with such a bout of thorough wet, and intense
cold at the same time, as I had at Kirkstone. Would to God that also for
your sake I were a stronger man, but I have strong wishes to be with you.
I love your society, and receiving much comfort from you, and believing
likewise that I receive much improvement, I find a delight very great, my
dear friend! indeed it is, when I have reason to imagine that I am in
return an alleviation to your destinies, and a comfort to you. I have no
fears and am ready to leave home at a two days' warning. For myself I
should say two hours, but bustle and hurry might disorder Mrs. Coleridge.
She and the three children are quite well.
I grieve that there is a lowering in politics. The 'Moniteur' contains
almost daily some bitter abuse of our minister and parliament, and in
London there is great anxiety and omening. I have dreaded war from the
time that the disastrous fortunes of the expedition to Saint Domingo,
under Le Clerc, was known in France. Write me one or two lines, as few as
you like.
I remain, my dear Wedgewood, with most affectionate esteem, and grateful
attachment,
Your sincere friend,
S. T. Coleridge.