COTTLE'S DARK CHAPTER
[Coleridge had now become a recognized public lecturer on Poetry, and it
was his last resource to keep out of political writing, which he saw was
a rather barren business on which to waste his powers. Two courses of
lectures were given between the spring of 1812 and that of 1813. His
third course was delivered at Willis's Rooms from 12th May to 5th June.
Henry Crabb Robinson attended the second, third and fourth of the course
on 23rd, 26th, and 29th May, and has left some short accounts. His
fourth course began on 3rd November 1812 and closed on 29th January
1813. H. C. R. attended the closing lecture. "He was received," says H.
C. R., "with three rounds of applause on entering the lecture room, and
very loudly applauded during the lecture and at its close." (H. C. R.
_Diary_.)
The letter to Poole of 13th February 1813 quoted in the last chapter is
only a fragment; the full text is given by Mr. E. H. Coleridge in
_Letters_, 609-612. It ends as follows: "You perhaps may likewise have
heard (in the Whispering Gallery of the World) of the year-long
difference between me and Wordsworth (compared with the sufferings of
which all the former afflictions of my life were less than flea-bites),
occasioned (in great part) by the wicked folly of the arch-fool Montagu.
"A reconciliation has taken place, but the _feeling_, which I had
previous to that moment, when the (three-fourth) calamity burst, like a
thunderstorm from a blue sky, on my soul, after fifteen years of such
religious, almost superstitious idolatry and self-sacrifice. Oh no!
that, I fear, can never return. All outward actions, all inward wishes,
all thoughts and admirations will be the same--_are_ the same, but--aye,
there remains an immedicable _But_."
Not much is known regarding Coleridge's whereabouts in the summer of
1813. In September Southey came to London and took him to see Madame De
Staël (_Letters of Southey_, ii, 332), who as we know was drowned by his
monologue. In the end of October Coleridge left for Bristol, and reached
the then second city of England to deliver a fifth course of lectures on
poetry which had been arranged for by his friends there (Cottle's
_Rem._, 353). The course lasted from 28th October to 16th November (Bohn
Library, _Shakespeare Lectures_, p. 456). Cottle says the first lecture
was on _Hamlet_; but the report from the Bristol papers (Ashe, Bohn
Library, 458) contradicts this, the lecture on _Hamlet_ being the third.
A sixth course of lectures was arranged for, which Cottle says were well
attended (_Rem._, 354). Another course of four lectures on Milton,
between 5th and 14th April (Ashe, Bohn Library, 457), was indifferently
attended. His eighth course of lectures, this time on Homer, scarcely
paid expenses (_Cottle_, 355). Although Coleridge must have repeated
himself frequently in these lectures, they were new to Bristol. C. R.
Leslie, a painter of some note in his day, speaks favourably of them
(Leslie's _Autobiography, etc._, vol. 1, chap. 3). The following letters
belong to the visit to Bristol.
LETTER 153. TO WADE
8 Dec. 1813.
* * * Since my arrival at the Greyhound, Bath, I have been confined to
my bed-room, almost to my bed. Pray for my recovery, and request Mr.
Roberts's[74] prayers, for my infirm, wicked heart; that Christ may
mediate to the Father, to lead me to Christ, and give me a _living_
instead of a _reasoning_ faith! and for my health, so far only as it may
be the condition of my improvement, and final redemption.
My dear affectionate friend, I am your obliged, and grateful, and
affectionate, friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
LETTER 154. TO COTTLE.
(5-14 April 1814.)
My dear Cottle,
An erysipelatous complaint, of an alarming nature, has rendered me
barely able to attend and go through with my lectures, the receipts of
which, have almost paid the expenses of the room, advertisements,
etc.[75] Whether this be to my discredit, or that of the good citizens
of Bristol, it is not for me to judge. I have been persuaded to make
another trial, by advertising three lectures, on the rise, and progress,
and conclusion of the French Revolution, with a critique on the proposed
constitution, but unless fifty names are procured, not a lecture give I.
Even so the two far, far more important lectures, for which I have long
been preparing myself, and have given more thought to, than to any other
subject, viz.: those on female education, from infancy to womanhood
practically systematized, I shall be (God permitting) ready to give the
latter end of the week after next, but upon condition that I am assured
of sixty names. Why as these are lectures that I must write down, I
could sell them as a _recipe_ for twice the sum at least.
If I can walk out, I will be with you on Sunday. Has Mr. Wade called on
you? Mr. Le Breton, a near neighbour of yours, in Portland Square,
would, if you sent a note to him, converse with you on any subject
relative to my interest, with congenial sympathy; but indeed I think
your idea one of those Chimeras, which kindness begets upon an
unacquaintance with mankind.[76]
Harry! thy wish was father to that thought.
God bless you,
S. T. C.
LETTER 155. TO COTTLE.
(-- 1814).
* * * Mr. ----[77] I find is raising the city against me, as far as he
and his friends can, for having stated a mere matter of fact; viz. that
Milton had represented Satan as a sceptical Socinian; which is the case;
and I could not have explained the excellence of the sublimest single
passage in all his writings, had I not previously informed the audience,
that Milton had represented Satan, as knowing the Prophetic and
Messianic character of Christ, but was sceptical as to any higher
claims. And what other definition could Mr. ---- himself give of a
sceptical Socinian? (with this difference indeed, that Satan's faith
somewhat exceeded that of Socinians.) Now that Satan has done so, will
you consult _Paradise Regained_, Book IV, from line 196, and the same
Book, from line 500.
LETTER 156. TO COTTLE.
(-- 1814.)
My dear Cottle,
I have been engaged three days past, to dine with the sheriff, at
Merchant's Hall to-morrow. As they will not wield knife and fork till
near six, I cannot of course attend the meeting (for the establishment
of an Infant School) but should it be put off, and you will give me a
little longer notice, I will do my best to make my humble talents
serviceable in their proportion to a cause in which I take no common
interest, which has always my best wishes, and not seldom my prayers.
God bless you, and your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. To you who know I prefer a roast potatoe and salt to the most
splendid public dinner, the very sight of which always offends my infant
appetite, I need not say that I am actuated solely by my pre-engagement,
and by the impropriety of disappointing the friend whom I am to
accompany, and to whom probably I owe the unexpected compliment of the
sheriff's invitation.
I have read two-thirds of Dr. Pole's[78] pamphlet on Infant Schools,
with great interest. Thoughts on thoughts, feelings on feelings, crowded
upon my mind and heart during the perusal, and which I would fain, God
willing, give vent to! I truly honor and love the orthodox dissenters,
and appreciate with heart-esteem their works of love. I have read, with
much pleasure, the second preface to the second edition of your
_Alfred_. It is well written.
LETTER 157. TO COTTLE.
1814.
My dear Cottle,
On my return home yesterday, I continued unwell, so as to be obliged to
lie down for the greater part of the evening, and my indisposition
keeping me awake during the whole night, I found it necessary to take
some magnesia and calomel, and I am at present very sick. I have little
chance of being able to stir out this morning, but if I am better I will
see you in the evening. God bless you,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Mr. Wade's, Queen Square.
* * * * *
While Coleridge was in Bristol in 1814 Cottle for the first time learnt
of Coleridge's addiction to opium, which is rather surprising in one who
had known him so intimately during 1795-98 and in 1807. It is
remarkable, too, that in the early years of opium taking Coleridge never
hid the fact from his friends, but freely corresponded with Tom Wedgwood
and others about the effects of opium and kindred drugs, as if it were
no secret that he was in the habit of resorting to them. But Cottle now
saw that opium had been, in his estimation, the cause of all Coleridge's
failures to apply his great powers to do something of the first order,
and deemed it his duty to rate Coleridge for his folly, and wrote him
the following letter:
COTTLE TO COLERIDGE.[79]
Bristol, April 25, 1814.
Dear Coleridge,
I am conscious of being influenced by the purest motives in addressing
to you the following letter. Permit me to remind you that I am the
oldest friend you have in Bristol, that I was such when my friendship
was of more consequence to you than it is at present, and that at that
time you were neither insensible of my kindnesses, nor backward to
acknowledge them. I bring these things to your remembrance, to impress
on your mind, that it is still a _friend_ who is writing to you; one who
ever has been such, and who is now going to give you the most decisive
evidence of his sincerity.
When I think of Coleridge, I wish to recall the image of him, such as he
appeared in past years; now, how has the baneful use of opium thrown a
dark cloud over you and your prospects. I would not say anything
needlessly harsh or unkind, but I must be _faithful_. It is the
irresistible voice of conscience. Others may still flatter you, and hang
upon your words, but I have another, though a less gracious duty to
perform. I see a brother sinning a sin unto death, and shall I not warn
him? I see him perhaps on the borders of eternity, in effect, despising
his Maker's law, and yet indifferent to his perilous state!
In recalling what the expectations concerning you once were, and the
excellency with which, seven years ago, you wrote and spoke on religious
truth,[80] my heart bleeds to see how you are now fallen; and thus to
notice, how many exhilarating hopes are almost blasted by your present
habits. This is said not to wound, but to arouse you to reflection.
I know full well the evidences of the pernicious drug! You cannot be
unconscious of the effects, though you may wish to forget the cause. All
around you behold the wild eye! the sallow countenance! the tottering
step! the trembling hand! the disordered frame! and yet will you not be
awakened to a sense of your danger, and I must add, your guilt? Is it a
small thing, that one of the finest of human understandings should be
lost! That your talents should be buried! That most of the influences to
be derived from your present example, should be in direct opposition to
right and virtue! It is true you still talk of religion, and profess the
warmest admiration of the church and her doctrines, in which it would
not be lawful to doubt your sincerity; but can you be unaware, that by
your unguarded and inconsistent conduct, you are furnishing arguments to
the infidel; giving occasion for the enemy to blaspheme; and (amongst
those who imperfectly know you) throwing suspicion over your religious
profession! Is not the great test in some measure against you, "By their
fruits ye shall know them?" Are there never any calm moments, when you
impartially judge of your own actions by their consequences?
Not to reflect on you; not to give you a moment's _needless_ pain, but,
in the spirit of friendship, suffer me to bring to your recollection,
some of the sad effects of your undeniable intemperance.
I know you have a correct love of honest independence, without which,
there can be no true nobility of mind; and yet for opium, you will sell
this treasure, and expose yourself to the liability of arrest, by some
"dirty fellow," to whom you choose to be indebted for "ten pounds!" You
had, and still have, an acute sense of moral right and wrong, but is not
the feeling sometimes overpowered by self-indulgence? Permit me to
remind you, that you are not more suffering in your mind than you are in
your body, while you are squandering largely your money in the purchase
of opium, which, in the strictest equity, should receive _a different
direction_.
I will not again refer to the mournful effects produced on your own
health from this indulgence in opium, by which you have undermined your
strong constitution; but I must notice the injurious consequences which
this passion for the narcotic drug has on your literary efforts. What
you have already done, excellent as it is, is considered by your
friends and the world, as the bloom, the mere promise of the harvest.
Will you suffer the fatal draught, which is ever accompanied by sloth,
to rob you of your fame, and, what to you is a higher motive, of your
power of doing good; of giving fragrance to your memory, amongst the
worthies of future years, when you are numbered with the dead?
(And now I would wish in the most delicate manner, to remind you of the
injurious effects which these habits of yours produce on your family.
From the estimation in which you are held by the public, I am clear in
stating, that a small daily exertion on your part, would be sufficient
to obtain for you and them, honour, happiness, and independence. You are
still comparatively, a young man, and in such a cause, labour is sweet.
Can you withhold so small a sacrifice? Let me sincerely advise you to
return home, and live in the circle once more, of your wife and family.
There may have been faults on one, possibly on both sides; but calumny
itself has never charged criminality. Let all be forgotten, a small
effort for the Christian. If I can become a mediator, command me. If you
could be prevailed on to adopt this plan, I will gladly defray your
expenses to Keswick, and I am sure, with better habits, you would be
hailed by your family, I was almost going to say, as an angel from
heaven. It will also look better in the eyes of the world, who are
always prompt with their own constructions, and these constructions are
rarely the most charitable. It would also powerfully promote your own
peace of mind.
There is this additional view, which ought to influence you, as it would
every generous mind. Your wife and children are domesticated with
Southey. He has a family of his own, which by his literary labour, he
supports, to his great honour; and to the extra provision required of
him on your account, he cheerfully submits; still, will you not divide
with him the honour? You have not extinguished in your heart the
Father's feelings. Your daughter is a sweet girl. Your two boys are
promising; and Hartley, concerning whom you once so affectionately
wrote, is eminently clever. These want only a father's assistance to
give them credit and honourable stations in life. Will you withhold so
equitable and small a boon. Your eldest son will soon be qualified for
the university, where your name would inevitably secure him patronage,
but without your aid, how is he to arrive there; and afterward, how is
he to be supported? Revolve on these things, I entreat you, calmly, on
your pillow.)[81]
And now let me conjure you, alike by the voice of friendship, and the
duty you owe yourself and family: above all, by the reverence you feel
for the cause of Christianity; by the fear of God, and the awfulness of
eternity, to renounce from this moment opium and spirits, as your bane!
Frustrate not the great end of your existence. Exert the ample abilities
which God has given you, as a faithful steward; so will you secure your
rightful pre-eminence amongst the sons of genius; recover your
cheerfulness; your health; I trust it is not too late! become reconciled
to yourself; and through the merits of that Saviour, in whom you profess
to trust, obtain, at last, the approbation of your Maker! My dear
Coleridge, be wise before it be too late! I do hope to see you a
renovated man! and that you will still burst your inglorious fetters,
and justify the best hopes of your friends.
Excuse the freedom with which I write. If at the first moment it should
offend, on reflection, you will approve at least of the motive, and,
perhaps, in a better state of mind, thank and bless me. If all the good
which I have prayed for, should not be effected by this letter, I have
at least discharged an imperious sense of duty. I wish my manner were
less exceptionable, as I do that the advice through the blessing of the
Almighty, might prove effectual. The tear which bedims my eye, is an
evidence of the sincerity with which I subscribe myself
Your affectionate friend,
JOSEPH COTTLE.
* * * * *
Coleridge replied to this next day:
LETTER 158. COLERIDGE TO COTTLE.
April 26th, 1814.
You have poured oil in the raw and festering wound of an old friend's
conscience, Cottle! but it is _oil of vitriol_! I but barely glanced at
the middle of the first page of your letter, and have seen no more of
it--not from resentment, God forbid! but from the state of my bodily and
mental sufferings, that scarcely permitted human fortitude to let in a
new visitor of affliction.
The object of my present reply, is, to state the case just as it
is--first, that for ten years the anguish of my spirit has been
indescribable, the sense of my danger staring, but the consciousness of
my GUILT worse--far worse than all! I have prayed, with drops of agony
on my brow; trembling, not only before the justice of my Maker, but even
before the mercy of my Redeemer. "I gave thee so many talents, what hast
thou done with them?" Secondly, overwhelmed as I am with a sense of my
direful infirmity, I have never attempted to disguise or conceal the
cause. On the contrary, not only to friends, have I stated the whole
case with tears, and the very bitterness of shame; but in two instances,
I have warned young men, mere acquaintances, who had spoken of having
taken laudanum, of the direful consequences, by an awful exposition of
its tremendous effects on myself.
Thirdly, though before God I cannot lift up my eyelids, and only do not
despair of his mercy, because to despair would be adding crime to
crime, yet to my fellow-men, I may say, that I was seduced into the
ACCURSED habit ignorantly. I had been almost bed-ridden for many months,
with swellings in my knees. In a medical Journal, I unhappily met with
an account of a cure performed in a similar case, or what appeared to me
so, by rubbing in of Laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose
internally. It acted like a charm, like a miracle! I recovered the use
of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits, and this continued for near
a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint
returned,--the supposed remedy was recurred to--but I cannot go through
the dreary history.
Suffice it to say, that effects were produced which acted on me by
terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me God!) by
any temptation of pleasure, or expectation, or desire of exciting
pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister
will bear witness so far, as to say, that the longer I abstained, the
higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments--till the moment, the
direful moment arrived, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to
palpitate, and such falling abroad,[82] as it were, of my whole frame,
such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewilderment, that in the
last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed in
agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, "I am too poor
to hazard this." Had I but a few hundred pounds, but £200--half to send
to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private mad house,
where I could procure nothing but what a physician thought proper, and
where a medical attendant could be constantly with me for two or three
months (in less than that time, life or death would be determined), then
there might be hope. Now there is none!! O God! how willingly would I
place myself under Dr. Fox, in his establishment; for my case is a
species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of
the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse
myself: go bid a man paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly
together, and that will cure him. "Alas!" he would reply, "that I cannot
move my arms, is my complaint and my misery." May God bless you, and
Your affectionate, but most afflicted,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[83]
"On receiving this full and mournful disclosure," Cottle says, "I felt
the deepest compassion for Mr. C.'s state, and sent him the following
letter. (Necessary to be given to understand Mr. Coleridge's reply.)"
COTTLE TO COLERIDGE
Dear Coleridge,
I am afflicted to perceive that Satan is so busy with you, but God is
greater than Satan. Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? That he came into
the world to save sinners? He does not demand, as a condition, any merit
of your own, he only says, "Come and be healed!" Leave your idle
speculations: forget your vain philosophy. Come as you are. Come and be
healed. He only requires you to be sensible of your need of him, to give
him your heart, to abandon with penitence, every evil practice, and he
has promised that whosoever thus comes, he will in no wise cast out. To
such as you Christ ought to be precious, for you see the hopelessness of
every other refuge. He will add strength to your own ineffectual
efforts.
For your encouragement, I express the conviction, that such exercises as
yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not
cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will
still be as "a brand plucked from the burning," and that you (with all
your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen
instrument, to spread a Saviour's name. Many a "chief of sinners," has
been brought, since the days of "Saul of Tarsus," to sit as a little
child at the Redeemer's feet. To this state you, I am assured, will
come. Pray! Pray earnestly, and you will be heard by your Father, which
is in Heaven. I could say many things of duty and virtue, but I wish to
direct your views at once to Christ, in whom is the alone balm for
afflicted souls.
May God ever bless you,
JOSEPH COTTLE.
P.S. If my former letter appeared unkind, pardon me! It was not
intended. Shall I breathe in your ear?--I know one, who is a stranger to
these throes and conflicts, and who finds "Wisdom's ways to be ways of
pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace."
To this letter Cottle received the following reply:
LETTER 159. TO COTTLE
O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in
forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have
only to _thank_! You have no conception of the dreadful hell of my mind,
and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be
able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a
blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of
God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor
a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my
own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of
a Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian.
S. T. C.
April 26, 1814.
*/
Cottle informs us that Coleridge had now resolved to put himself under
constraint in the asylum of Dr. Fox, in the neighbourhood of Bristol.
LETTER 160. TO COTTLE
(-- Apl., 1814.)
Dear Cottle,
I have resolved to place myself in any situation, in which I can remain
for a month or two, as a child, wholly in the power of others. But,
alas! I have no money! Will you invite Mr. Hood, a most dear and
affectionate friend to worthless me; and Mr. Le Breton, my old
school-fellow, and, likewise, a most affectionate friend: and Mr. Wade,
who will return in a few days: desire them to call on you, any evening
after seven o'clock, that they can make convenient, and consult with
them whether anything of this kind can be done. Do you know Dr. Fox?
Affectionately,
S. T. C.
I have to prepare my lecture. Oh! with how blank a spirit![84]
Cottle did not give his sanction to this proposal; but, on the contrary,
wrote to Southey detailing what he had discovered about Coleridge, and
requesting Southey's opinion. Southey wrote without delay advising other
measures. Southey had been fully cognizant of the consumption of opium
and laudanum, and says the Morgans had at one time broken him of the
habit when his consumption was from two quarts a week to a pint a day
(_Rem._, 373). It is difficult to credit that any one, even habituated
to the drug, could consume this quantity; but Southey evidently believed
it. An ordinary dose of laudanum is 30 drops. 480 drops form an ounce,
and there are 20 ounces in a pint. This makes 320 doses in a pint; and
this, taken within twenty-four hours, would not give a patient time to
wake up out of his stupor, even though administered by other hands, to
take the successive draughts. Southey recommended that Coleridge should
go and visit Poole at Stowey for a few weeks; then come on to Keswick by
way of Birmingham and Liverpool, and deliver lectures at these places to
raise funds. In answer to a second letter by Cottle to Southey proposing
to get up an annuity among Coleridge's friends to enable him to
prosecute some of his projects, Southey threw cold water on the scheme;
and Cottle says that Coleridge's repugnance to visit Greta Hall and
apply his talents in the way suggested by Southey was invincible;
neither would he visit Poole, nor lecture at Birmingham nor Liverpool.
To this Mr. Hall Caine says: "My strong conviction is that the chief
bugbear for Coleridge at Greta Hall was none other than Southey
himself." (_Life of Coleridge_, 126.)
Cottle, having been taken ill after his correspondence with Southey, was
prohibited intercourse with friends. "During my illness," says Cottle,
"Mr. Coleridge sent my sister the following letter and the succeeding
one to myself."
LETTER 161. TO MISS COTTLE
13th May, 1814.
Dear Madam,
I am uneasy to know how my friend, J. Cottle, goes on. The walk I took
last Monday to enquire, in person, proved too much for my strength, and
shortly after my return, I was in such a swooning way, that I was
directed to go to bed, and orders were given that no one should
interrupt me. Indeed I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the skill
with which _the surgeon treats me_. But it must be a slow, and
occasionally, an interrupted progress, after a sad retrogress of nearly
twelve years. To God all things are possible. I intreat your prayers,
your brother has a share in mine.
What an astonishing privilege, that a sinner should be permitted to cry,
"Our Father!" Oh, still more stupendous mercy, that this poor ungrateful
sinner should be exhorted, invited, nay, commanded, to pray--to pray
importunately. That which great men most detest, namely, importunacy; to
_this_ the GIVER and the FORGIVER ENCOURAGES _his_ sick petitioners!
I will not trouble you except for one verbal answer to this note. How is
your brother?
With affectionate respects to yourself and your sister,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
To Miss Cottle, Brunswick Square.
LETTER 162. TO COTTLE
Friday, 27th May, 1814.
My dear Cottle,
Gladness be with you, for your convalescence, and equally so, at the
hope, which has sustained and tranquillized you through your imminent
peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state; yet I too am grateful;
yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity, unfathomable by words,
my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I
have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such
as is the soul of man.
I have had more than a glimpse of what is meant by death and outer
darkness, and the worm that dieth not--and that all the _hell_ of the
reprobate, is no more inconsistent with the love of God, than the
blindness of one who has occasioned loathsome and guilty diseases
to eat out his eyes, is inconsistent with the light of the sun. But
the consolations, at least, the sensible sweetness of hope, I do not
possess. On the contrary, the temptation which I have constantly
to fight up against, is a fear, that if _annihilation_ and the
_possibility_ of _heaven_, were offered to my choice, I should choose
the former.
That is, perhaps, in part, a constitutional idiosyncracy, for when a
mere boy, I wrote these lines:
Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Babes, children, youths and men,
Night following night, for three-score years and ten.[85]
And in my early manhood, in lines descriptive of a gloomy solitude, I
disguised my own sensations in the following words:
Here wisdom might abide, and here remorse!
Here too, the woe-worn man, who weak in soul,
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of _unconscious life_,
In tree, or wild-flower. Gentle lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to BE,
He would far rather not be that he is;
But would be something that he knows not of,
In woods, or waters, or among the rocks.[86]
My main comfort, therefore, consists in what the divines call the faith
of adherence, and no spiritual effort appears to benefit me so much as
the one earnest, importunate, and often, for hours, momently repeated
prayer: "I believe, Lord help my unbelief! Give me faith, but as a
mustard seed, and I shall remove this mountain! Faith, faith, faith! I
believe, O give me faith! O, for my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my
Redeemer."
In all this I justify God, for I was accustomed to oppose the preaching
of the terrors of the gospel, and to represent it as debasing virtue, by
the admixture of slaving selfishness.
I now see that what is spiritual, can only be spiritually apprehended.
Comprehended it cannot.
Mr. Eden gave you a too flattering account of me. It is true, I am
restored, as much beyond my expectations almost, as my deserts; but I am
exceedingly weak. I need for myself, solace and refocillation of animal
spirits, instead of being in a condition of offering it to others. Yet,
as soon as I may see you, I will call on you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. It is no small gratification to me, that I have seen and conversed
with Mrs. Hannah More. She is, indisputably, the first literary female
I ever met with. In part, no doubt, because she is a Christian. Make my
best respects when you write.[87]
* * * * *
"Mr. Josiah Wade," says Cottle, "presented to me the following mournful
and touching letter, addressed to him by Mr. Coleridge in the year
1814, which, whilst it relieved my mind from so onerous a burden, fully
corroborated all that I had presumed, and all that I had affirmed. Mr.
W. handed this letter to me that it might be made public, in conformity
with his departed friend's injunction."
LETTER 163. TO WADE
Bristol, June 26th, 1814.
Dear sir,
For I am unworthy to call any good man friend--much less you, whose
hospitality and love I have abused; accept, however, my intreaties for
your forgiveness, and for your prayers.
Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been attempting
to beat off pain, by a constant recurrence to the vice that reproduces
it. Conceive a spirit in hell, employed in tracing out for others the
road to that heaven, from which his crimes exclude him! In short,
conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and you will
form as tolerable a notion of my state, as it is possible for a good man
to have.
I used to think the text in St. James that "he who offended in
one point, offends in all," very harsh: but I now feel the awful,
the tremendous truth of it. In the one crime of OPIUM, what crime
have I not made myself guilty of!--Ingratitude to my Maker! and
to my benefactors--injustice! _and unnatural cruelty to my poor
children!_--self-contempt for my repeated promise--breach, nay, too
often, actual falsehood!
After my death, I earnestly entreat, that a full and unqualified
narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made
public, that at least, some little good may be effected by the direful
example.
May God Almighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate,
and in his heart, grateful--
S. T. COLERIDGE.[88]
Meantime, during all this strange transaction with Cottle and Wade,
Coleridge during the year 1814, was never more brilliant in his
intellectual output, whether as lecturer, letter-writer, or political
writer. His letters at this date to Charles Mathews (_Letters_, 621),
to Sir George Beaumont (_Col. Mem._) of 9th June; to John Murray
(_Letters_, 624), about a projected translation of Faust; to Daniel
Stuart, of 12th September and 30th October; and to John Kenyon, of
3rd November 1814 (_Letters_, 627-64), his _Essays on the Fine Arts_
to Felix Fairley's _Bristol Journal_ (August, 1814, see _Bohn Lib.
Misc. Works_, 4-52), and his six political letters to the Editor of
_The Courier_ from 20th September to 10th December 1814, show no
diminution of intellectual power, but rather sustained mental vigour.
C. R. Leslie's account of Coleridge at this date, too, leaves us
to imagine a very different Coleridge from the one depicted in the
_Reminiscences_ of this period. Leslie was accompanying the Allstons
from London to Bristol. Mr. Allston fell ill at Salt Hill, and Coleridge
was sent for from town. Coleridge came to Salt Hill the same afternoon,
accompanied by his friend, Dr. Tathill. He stayed and nursed Allston.
"We were kept up late," says Leslie, "in consequence of the critical
condition of Allston, and when he retired, Coleridge, seeing a copy of
_Knickerbocker's History of New York_ lying on the table, took it up
and began reading. I went to bed, and I think he must have been up the
greater part of the night, for the next day I found he had nearly got
through _Knickerbocker_. He was delighted with it." Leslie adds: "At
Salt Hill, and on some other occasions, I witnessed his performance of
the duties of friendship in a manner which few men of his constitutional
indolence could have roused themselves to equal" (_Autobiography_, i,
pp. 33-35).
Coleridge was a chameleon[89] character; and altered his tone to suit
every kind of individual with whom he came into contact. We have
seen how he changed his attitude to Godwin between his letter in _The
Watchman_ in 1796, and his letters to the author of _Political Justice_
in 1811. It was the same in many cases, and Southey reproved him for it.
Hence it was that, in the presence of Cottle and Wade, of an evangelical
tone of mind, Coleridge humiliated himself and wrote penitential
letters, while at the same time towards Sir George Beaumont, Stuart, and
others, he was the Coleridge of vast intellectual pretensions to whom no
task was impossible.
Whether Cottle was justified in publishing the "opium letters" of
Coleridge has always been a moot point. The fact is Cottle had
determined on "pointing a moral and adorning a tale," as was the custom
of writers of his day, and he enlisted the sympathy and support of
Southey and John Foster to endorse his project of making moral capital
out of the story of Coleridge's life. The long correspondence at the
end of the _Reminiscences_ with these two friends regarding how much
he should divulge and how much he should keep back, is a study in the
art of compromise; but the "moralist's duty," as it was then called,
prevailed in the end. They had determined, as is mentioned in the last
letter of the correspondence (p. 482) by John Foster, that "an emphatic
moral lesson" should be wrung out of the life of Coleridge; and Southey
and Foster warned Cottle to be on his guard against collaborating
with Gillman--as was his original intention--to write the _Life of
Coleridge_, lest the "solemn warning and example should be lost"
(Cottle's _Rem._, p. 482).
The real cause of Coleridge's many and harassing ailments has now
been made known. Writing to the _Times_ newspaper in reply to a
criticism which had appeared in its columns on Coleridge's _Letters_,
just published (in 1895), and which had asserted that the perpetual
cry of ill health which echoes through the volume from end to end,
meant little less than "opium and indolence," Mrs. Lucy E. Watson,
granddaughter of James Gillman, quotes a letter by the latter narrating
the circumstances attending the post mortem examination of Coleridge's
body. The disease from which he had suffered was enlargement of the
heart, by which the sides of that organ were so attenuated as not to
be able to sustain it when raised. An article appeared in the _Lancet_
on 15th June 1895 on the matter, which closes by saying: "The record
suffices to prove that this intellectual giant must have suffered
more than the world was aware of, and it can be understood that his
_indolence_ as well as his opium habit had a physical basis. It can only
add to the marvel with which his achievements are justly regarded that
one so physically disabled should have made such extensive and profound
contributions to philosophy and literature. It is one more instance of
the triumph of mind over body" (_The Gillmans of Highgate_, p. 35).
This physical defect was the cause of all Coleridge's inability to
execute his own ambitious schemes. As he states in his letter to Davy
of 25 March 1804, he had Power minus Strength. His enfeeblement of
will is attributable to the physical defect of his enlarged heart;
and while he treated himself for gout and kindred ailments by taking
narcotics he, of course, only increased his own inability to act. He was
continually trying to drive what he felt to be an inward stomach gout
to the extremities. Coleridge enjoyed, however, at rare intervals, some
happy spells of health duly recorded in his letters. He seems to have
been best while climbing hills and bathing in the dry, hard air of the
East Coast. His ascent of the Brocken, his long walk in the Scottish
Highlands in 1803, in which he accomplished 263 miles in 8 days (Letter
_Col. Mem._ i, 7, quoted in Dyke Campbell's Edition of the _Poems_,
631), and other hill walks seemed to inspire him with a new life. He
has given an account of the effects of mountain climbing on him in his
letter to Tom Wedgwood of 14th January 1803, and this is one of his most
surprising letters.
Coleridge made a great mistake, however--labouring under the impression
that his ailment was gout--of choosing warm and slumberous climates
for his health-recruiting spheres. Malta did him no good, for he had
an intellectual affinity for the sunshine, for the land of the Lotus.
In fact, Coleridge's addiction to opium was temperamental as well as
acquired. He contracted the habit to deaden pain, it is true; but his
nature was of an Asiatic cast. He had in his infancy, as he tells
us, been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_, and his mind had been
habituated to the Vast (Letter 4). Joined to a dreaminess of imagination
was the love of warm climatic associations betraying the Asiatic
temperament. _Kubla Khan_, with its slumberous melody and vague music,
embodies the Asiatic sentiment. We feel in reading it on the borders
of the Buddhistic territory. To those endowed with such a temperament
the opium habit is easy to fall into; their dreamy soul is the seed-bed
on which it fastens. Indolence, Procrastination, vast ambitions,
unachieved accomplishments are the results: and we have in Coleridge
and his brother genius, Amiel, two examples in the Western world of the
Asiatic Genius, one terminating his career in opium and the other in the
Malady of the Ideal. Both endeavoured to push beyond the limitations
of Humanity. "Man can destroy the harmony of his being in two ways,"
says Chateaubriand, Coleridge's great French contemporary and brother
Romanticist, "by wishing to love too much and by wishing to know too
much" (_Genius of Christianity_, 1st Part, III, chap. iii). Coleridge
and Amiel have this fault in common; it is one of the defects of their
qualities.]
FOOTNOTES:
[74] A Dissenting minister of Bristol [Cottle].
[75] It is apprehended that this must be a mistake. I sent Mr.
Coleridge five guineas for my Shakspeare ticket, and entertain
no doubt but that some others did the same. But his remark may
refer to some succeeding lectures, of which I have no distinct
recollection [Cottle].
[76] A request of permission from Mr. Coleridge, to call on a few of
his known friends, to see if we could not raise an annuity for
him of one hundred a year, that he might pursue his literary
objects without pecuniary distractions [Cottle].
[77] [Estlin.]
[78] A worthy medical Friend of Bristol, who first in that city,
interested himself in the establishment of infant schools
[Cottle].
[79] [I include the whole of this correspondence with Cottle because
fragments only have been printed in biographies of Coleridge.]
[80] In Letters 132 and 133.
[81] This long sentence, between brackets, was struck out by Mr.
Southey, in perusing the MS., through delicacy, as it referred
to himself; but on the present occasion it is restored
[Cottle]. [Cottle submitted the MS. of his _Early
Recollections_ to Southey before publication.]
[82] ["And such a dreadful falling abroad."--_Early Recollections._]
[83] [Letter CXCVII is our 158.]
[84] Some supplemental lecture [Cottle.]
[85] These four lines in the edition of Mr. C.'s _Poems_, published
after his death, are oddly enough thrown into the _Monody on
Chatterton_, and form the four opening lines. Many readers may
concur with myself in thinking, that the former commencement
was preferable; namely,--
"When faint and sad, o'er sorrow's desert wild,
Slow journeys onward poor misfortune's child;" etc. [Cottle].
[The lines were first included in the _Monody_ in 1829.]
[86] [_The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution_, 1800.]
[87] [Letter CXCVIII is our 162. CXCIX follows.]
[88] [Letter CC is our 163. CCI-CCIV follow.]
[89] [Mr. John Mackinnon Robertson, in _New Essays towards a
Critical Method_, 1897, employs this epithet to describe
Coleridge.]