[D] De Quincey more than insinuates that, instead of Gillman persuading
Coleridge to relinquish opium, Coleridge seduced Gillman into taking it.
[E] Gillman published but one volume of a Life of Coleridge. The volume
he gave me contains his corrections for another edition. De Quincey says
of it that "it is a thing deader than a door-nail,--which is waiting
vainly, and for thousands of years is doomed to wait, for its sister
volume, namely, Volume Second." It must be ever regretted, that of the
poet's later life, of which he knew so much, he wrote nothing; but the
world was justified in expecting in the details of his earlier
pilgrimage something which it did not get.
[F] Mrs. Gillman gave me also the following sonnet. I believe it never
to have been published; but although she requested I "would not have
copies of it made to give away," I presume the prohibition cannot now be
binding, after a lapse of thirty years since I received it. The poet, he
who wrote the sonnet, and the admirable woman to whom it was addressed,
have long since met.
"SONNET ON THE LATE SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
"And thou art gone, most loved, most honored friend!
No, never more thy gentle voice shall blend
With air of Earth its pure, ideal tones,--
Binding in one, as with harmonious zones,
The heart and intellect. And I no more
Shall with thee gaze on that unfathomed deep,
The Human Soul: as when, pushed off the shore,
Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep,
Itself the while so bright! For oft we seemed
As on some starless sea,--all dark above,
All dark below,--yet, onward as we drove,
To plough up light that ever round us streamed
But he who mourns is not as one bereft
Of all he loved: thy living Truths are left.
"WASHINGTON ALLSTON.
"_Cambridge Port, Massachusetts, America._
"For my _still_ dear friend, Mrs. Gillman, of the Grove, Highgate."
[G] Madame de Staël is reported to have said that Coleridge was "rich in
a monologue, but poor in a dialogue."
[H] It may not be forgotten that the Rev. Edward Irving, in dedicating
to Coleridge one of his books, acknowledges obligations to the venerable
sage for many valuable teachings, "as a spiritual man and as a Christian
pastor": lessons derived from his "_conversations_" concerning the
revelations of the Christian faith,--"helps in the way of truth,"--"from
listening to his discourses." Coleridge has said, "he never found the
smallest hitch or impediment in the fullest utterance of his most
subtile fancies by word of mouth."
[I] Their friendship lasted for years, and was full of kindness on the
part of the philosopher, and of reverential respect on that of Irving,
who, following the natural instinct of his own ingenuous nature, changed
in an instant in such a presence from the orator, who, speaking in God's
name, assumed a certain austere pomp of position,--more like an
authoritative priest than a simple presbyter,--into the simple and
candid listener, more ready to learn than he was to teach.
[J] "Barry Cornwall" is the husband of her daughter by a prior marriage;
and Adelaide Procter, during her brief life, made a name that will live
with the best poets of our day.
[K] De Quincey elsewhere states his height to be five feet ten,--exactly
the height of Wordsworth: both having been measured in the studio of
Haydon.
[L] Very early in his life, Lord Egmont said of him, "he talks very much
like an angel, and does nothing at all." De Quincey speaks of his
indolence as "inconceivable;" and Joseph Cottle relates some amusing
instances of his forgetfulness, even of the hour at which he had
arranged to deliver a lecture to an assembled audience.