CHARLES LAMB
[Charles Lamb, Coleridge's associate of the "Cat and Salutation" days,
remained a close friend to the last, and he plays an important part in
the Highgate period. Among Lamb's letters, edited by Canon Ainger, are
sixty-two to Coleridge; and there are a few to Allsop and James Gillman
from 1821 onward. The next fourteen letters to Allsop reflect the
relationship of the little circle of the Lambs and Gillman and
Coleridge.
LETTER 188. TO ALLSOP
Blandford-place, March 1st, 1821.
My dearest Friend,
God bless you, and all who are dear and near to you! but as to your
pens, they seem to have been plucked from the _devil's_ pinions, and
slit and shaped by the blunt edge of the broad sprays of his antlers. Of
the ink (_i.e._ your inkstand), it would be base to complain. I hate
abusing folks in their _absence_. Do you know, my dear friend, that
having sundry little snug superstitions of my own, I shrewdly suspect
that whimsical ware of that sort is connected with the state and
garniture of your paper-staining machinery.--Is it so? Well, I have seen
Murray, and he has been civil, I may say kind, in his manners. Is this
your knock?--Is it you on the stairs?--No. I explained my full purpose
to him, namely,--that he should take me and my concerns, past and
future, for print and reprint, under his umbrageous foliage, though the
original name of his great predecessor in the patronage of genius, who
gave the name of Augustan to all happy epochs--Octavius would be more
appropriate--and he promises,--_cætera desunt_.
LETTER 189. TO ALLSOP
May 4th, 1821.
My dear Friend,
Mr. and Mrs. Gillman's kind love, and we beg that the good lady's late
remembering that (as often the very fullness and vividness of the
purpose and intention to do a thing imposes on the mind a sort of
counterfeit feeling of quiet, similar to the satisfaction which the
having done it would produce) you had not been written to, will not
prejudice the present attempt at "better late than never." We have a
party _to-morrow_, in which, because we believed it would interest you,
you stood included. In addition to a neighbour Robert Sutton, and
ourselves, and Mrs. Gillman's most un-Mrs. Gillmanly sister (but _n. b._
this is a secret to all who are both blind and deaf), there will be the
Mathews (Mr. and Mrs.) _at home_, Mathews I mean, and Charles and Mary
Lamb.
Of myself the best thing that I can say is that, in the belief of those
well qualified to judge, I am not so ill as I fancy myself. Be this as
it may,
I am always, my dearest friend,
With highest esteem and regard,
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
* * * * *
"Of this day and the one following," Allsop says, "I have a few notes,
which appear to me of interest. It must be borne constantly in mind,
that much of what is preserved has relation to positions enforced by
others, which Coleridge held to be untenable on the particular grounds
urged, not as being untrue in themselves."
* * * * *
Had Lord Byron possessed perseverance enough to undergo the drudgery of
research, and had his theological studies and attainments been at all
like mine, he would have been able to unsettle all the evidences of
Christianity, upheld as it is at present by simple confutation. Is it
possible to assent to the doctrine of redemption as at present
promulgated, that the moral death of an _unoffending_ being should be a
consequence of the transgression of humanity[119] _and its atonement_?
* * * * *
Walter Scott's novels are chargeable with the same faults as Bertram,
_et id omne genus_, viz., that of ministering to the depraved appetite
for excitement, and, though in a far less degree, creating sympathy for
the vicious and infamous, solely because the fiend is _daring_. Not
twenty lines of Scott's poetry will ever reach posterity; it has
relation to nothing.
* * * * *
When I wrote a letter upon the scarcity, it was generally said that it
was the production of an immense cornfactor, and a letter was addressed
to me under that persuasion, beginning "Crafty Monopolist."
* * * * *
It is very singular that no _true poet_ should have arisen from the
lower classes, when it is considered that every peasant who can read
knows more of books now than did Æschylus, Sophocles, or Homer; yet if
we except Burns, none[120] such have been.
* * * * *
Crashaw seems in his poems to have given the first ebullience of his
imagination, unshapen into form, or much of, what we now term,
sweetness. In the poem, _Hope_, by way of question and answer, his
superiority to Cowley is self-evident. In that on the name of Jesus
equally so; but his lines on St. Theresa are the finest.
Where he does combine richness of thought and diction nothing can excel,
as in the lines you so much admire--
Since 'tis not to be had at home,
She'l travel to a martyrdome.
No home for her confesses she,
But where she may a martyr be.
She'l to the Moores, and trade with them
For this invalued diadem,
She offers them her dearest breath
With Christ's name in't, in change for death.
She'l bargain with them, and will give
Them God, and teach them how to live
In Him, or if they this deny,
For Him she'l teach them how to die.
So shall she leave amongst them sown,
The Lord's blood, or, at least, her own.
Farewell then, all the world--adieu,
Teresa is no more for you:
Farewell all pleasures, sports and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys--
Farewell whatever dear'st may be,
Mother's arms or father's knee;
Farewell house, and farewell home,
She's for the Moores and martyrdom.
These verses were ever present to my mind whilst writing the second
part of _Christabel_; if, indeed, by some subtle process of the mind
they did not suggest the first thought of the whole poem.--Poetry, as
regards small poets, may be said to be, in a certain sense, conventional
in its accidents and in its illustrations; thus Crashaw uses an image:--
As sugar melts in tea away,
which, although _proper then_, and _true now_, was in bad taste at that
time equally with the present. In Shakspeare, in Chaucer there was
nothing of this.
The wonderful faculty which Shakspeare above all other men possessed, or
rather the power which possessed him in the highest degree, of
anticipating everything, evidently is the result--at least partakes--of
meditation, or that mental process which consists in the submitting to
the operation of thought every object of feeling, or impulse, or passion
observed _out_ of it. I would be willing to live only as long as
Shakspeare were the mirror to nature.
* * * * *
What can be finer in any poet than that beautiful passage in Milton--
----Onward he moved
And thousands of his saints around.
This is grandeur, but it is grandeur without completeness: but he adds--
Far off their coming shone;
which is the highest sublime. There is _total_ completeness.
So I would say that the Saviour praying on the Mountain, the Desert on
one hand, the Sea on the other, the city at an immense distance below,
was sublime. But I should say of the Saviour looking towards the City,
his countenance full of pity, that he was majestic, and of the situation
that it was grand.
When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as mutually producing
and explaining each other, as unity in multiety, there results
shapeliness--_forma formosa_. Where the perfection of _form_ is combined
with pleasurableness in the sensations, excited by the matters or
substances so formed, there results the Beautiful.
_Corollary._--Hence colour is eminently subservient to beauty, because
it is susceptible of forms, _i.e._ outline, and yet is a sensation. But
a rich mass of scarlet clouds, seen without any attention to the _form_
of the mass or of the parts, may be a _delightful_ but not a beautiful
object or colour.
When there is a deficiency of unity in the line forming the whole (as
angularity, for instance), and of number in the plurality or the parts,
there arises the Formal.
When the parts are numerous, and impressive, and predominate, so as to
prevent or greatly lessen the attention to the whole, there results the
Grand.
Where the impression of the whole, _i.e._ the sense of unity
predominates, so as to abstract the mind from the parts--the Majestic.
Where the parts by their harmony produce an effect of a whole, but there
is no seen form of a whole producing or explaining the parts, _i.e._
when the parts only are seen and distinguished, but the whole is
felt--the Picturesque.
Where neither whole nor parts, but unity, as boundless or endless
_allness_--the Sublime.
* * * * *
It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate,
luck, or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to
their own sagacity, cleverness, or penetration. It never occurs to such
minds that light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from, and
being part of, the same nature.
* * * * *
The word Nature, from its extreme familiarity, and in some instances,
fitness, as well as from the want of a term, or _other_ name for God,
has caused very much confusion in the thoughts and language of men.
Hence a Nature-God, or God-Nature, not God in Nature; just as others,
with as little reason, have constructed a natural and sole religion.
* * * * *
Is it then true, that Reason to man is the ultimate faculty, and that,
to convince a _reasonable_ man, it is sufficient to adduce adequate
reasons or arguments? How, if this be so, does it happen that we reject
as insufficient the _reasoning_ of a friend in our affliction for this
or that _cause or reason_, yet are comforted, soothed, and reassured, by
similar or far less sufficient _reasons_, when urged by a friendly and
affectionate woman? It is no answer to say that women were made
_comforters_; that it is the tone, and, in the instance of man's chief,
best comforter, the wife of his youth, the mother of his children, the
oneness with himself, which gives value to the consolation; the
_reasons_ are the same, whether urged by man, woman, or child. It must
be, therefore, that there is something in the will itself, above and
beyond, if not higher than, reason. Besides, is Reason or the reasoning
always the same, even when free from passion, film, or fever? I speak of
the same person. Does he hold the doctrine of temperance in equal
reverence when hungry as after he is sated? Does he at forty retain the
same _reason_, only extended and developed, as he possessed at four and
twenty? Does he not love the meat in his youth which he cannot endure in
his old age? But these are appetites, and therefore no part of him. Is
not a man one to-day and another to-morrow? Do not the very ablest and
wisest of men attach greater weight at one moment to an argument or a
_reason_ than they do at another? Is this a want of sound and stable
judgment? If so, what then is this perfect reason? for we have shown
what it is not.
* * * * *
It is prettily feigned, that when Plutus is sent from Jupiter, he limps
and gets on very slowly at first; but when he comes from Pluto, he runs
and is swift of foot. This, rightly taken, is a great sweetener of slow
gains. Bacon (alas! the day) seems to have had this in mind when he
says, "seek not proud gains, but such as thou mayst get justly, use
soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly." He that is
covetous makes too much haste; and the wise man saith of him, "he cannot
be innocent."
* * * * *
I have often been pained by observing in others, and was fully conscious
in myself, of a _sympathy_ with those of rank and condition in
preference to their inferiors, and never discovered the source of this
sympathy until one day at Keswick I heard a thatcher's wife crying her
heart out for the death of her little child. It was given me all at once
to feel, that I sympathized equally with the poor and the rich in all
that related to the best part of humanity--the affections; but that, in
what relates to fortune, to _mental_ misery, struggles, and conflicts,
we reserve consolation and sympathy for those who can appreciate its
force and value.
* * * * *
There are many men, especially at the outset of life, who, in their too
eager desire for the end, overlook the difficulties in the way; there is
another class, who see nothing else. The first class _may_ sometimes
fail; the latter rarely succeed.
LETTER 190. TO ALLSOP
June 23, 1821.
My dearest Friend,
Be assured that nothing bearing a nearer resemblance to offence, whether
felt or perceived, than a syllogism bears to the colour of the man in
the moon's whiskers, ever crossed my brain: not even with that brisk
diagonal traverse which Ghosts and apparitions always choose to surprise
us in. I have _indeed_ observed _or_ fancied, that, for some time past,
you have been anxious about something, have had something pressing upon
your mind, which I wished _out of you_, though not particularly _to
have_ it out of you. I must explain myself. Say that X. were my dearest
Friend, to whom I would be as it were transparent, and have him so to me
in all respects that concerned our permanent Being, and likewise in all
circumstantial accidents in which we could be of service to each other.
Yet there are many things that will press upon us which are our
_individualities_, which one man does not feel any tendency in himself
to speak of to a man, however dear or valued. X. does not think or wish
to think of it when with Y., nor Y. in his turn when with X., and yet
still the great law holds good--whatever vexes or depresses ought if
possible to be _out_ of us. Now I say that I should rejoice if you had a
female Friend--a Sister, an Aunt, or a Beloved to whom you could lay
yourself open. I should further exult if your _confidante_ were _my_
Friend too, my Sister or my Wife.
God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 191. TO ALLSOP
My dear Friend,
We are quite sure that you would not allow yourself to fancy any
rightful ground, cause, or occasion for not coming here, but the wish,
the duty, or the propriety of going elsewhere or staying at home. When
the Needle of your Thoughts begins to be magnetic, you may be certain
that my _Pole_ is at that moment attracting you by the spiritual magic
of strong wishing for your arrival. N.B. My _Pole_ includes in this
instance _both the Poles_ of Mr. and eke of Mrs. Gillman, _i.e._, the
head and the heart.
But seriously--I am a little anxious--so give my blest sisterly Friend a
few lines by return of post--just to let us know that you are and have
been well, and that nothing of a painful nature has deprived us of the
expected pleasure; a pleasure which, believe me, stands a good many
degrees above _moderate_ in the cordi or hedonometer of,
Yours most _cordi_ally,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 192. TO ALLSOP
Sept. 15th, 1821.
My dear Friend,
I cannot rest until I have answered your last letter. I have
contemplated your character, affectionately indeed, but through a clear
medium. No film of passion, no glittering mist of outward advantages,
has arisen between the sight and the object: I had no other
prepossession than the esteem which my knowledge of your sentiments and
conduct could not but secure for you. I soon learnt to esteem you; and
in esteeming, became attached to you. I began by loving the man on
account of his conduct, but I ended in valuing the actions chiefly as so
many looks and attitudes of the same person. "_Hast_ thou any thing?
Share it with me, and I will pay thee an equivalent. _Art_ thou any
thing? O then we will exchange souls."
We can none of us, not the wisest of us, brood over any source of
affliction inwardly, keeping it back, and as it were pressing it in on
ourselves; but we must MAGNIFY it. We cannot see it clearly, much less
distinctly; and as the object enlarges beyond its real proportions, so
it becomes vivid; and the feelings that blend with it assume a
proportionate undue intensity. So the one acts on the other, and what at
first was effect, in its turn becomes a cause; and when at length we
have taken heart, and given the whole thing, with all its several parts,
the proper distance from our mind's eye, by confiding it to a true
friend, we are ourselves surprised to find what a dwarf the giant
shrinks into, as soon as it steps out of the mist into clear sunlight.
I am aware that these are truths of which you do not need to be
informed; but they will not be the less impressive on this account in
your judgment, knowing, as you must know, that nothing short of my deep
and anxious convictions of their importance in all cases of hidden
distress, and of their _unspeakable_ importance in yours, could impel me
to _seek_ and _entreat_ your _entire_ confidence, to beg you, so
fervently as I here am doing, to open out to me the cause of your
anxiety, that I may offer you the best advice in my power,--advice that
will not be the less dispassionate from its being dictated by zealous
friendship, and blended with the truest love.
I fear that in any decision to which you may come in any matter
affecting yourself alone, you may, from a culpable delicacy of honour,
which, forbidden by wisdom and the universal experience of others,
cannot but be in contradiction to the genuine dictates of duty, want
fortitude to choose, the lesser evil, at whatever cost to your
immediate feelings, and to put that choice into immediate and peremptory
act. But I must finish. I trust that the warmth and earnestness of my
language are not warranted by the occasion; but they are barely
proportionate to the present solicitude of,
Your faithful and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 193. TO ALLSOP
Sept. 24th, 1821.
My dearest Friend,
I will begin with the beginning of your (to me most affecting) letter.
Not exactly _obligation_, my entirely beloved and relied-on friend! The
soiling hand of the world has dyed and sunk into the sense and import of
the term too inseparably, for it to convey the kind and degree of what I
feel towards you, on the one scale. I love you so truly, that in the
first glance, as it were, and _welcome_ of your anxious affection, it
delights me for the very act's sake. I think only of it and you, or
rather both are one and the same, and I live in you. Nor does the
complacency suffer any abatement, but becomes more intense and lively.
As a mother would talk of the soothing attentions, the sacrifices and
devotion of a son, eager to supply every want and anticipate every wish,
so I talk to myself concerning you; and I am proud of you, and proud to
be the object of what cannot but appear lovely to my judgment, and which
the hard contrast in so many heart-withering instances forced on me by
the experience of my last twenty years, compels me to feel and value
with an additional glow. Lastly, it is a source of strength and comfort
to know that the labours and aspirations and sympathies of the genuine
and invisible Humanity exist in a social world of their own; that its
attractions and assimilations are no Platonic fable, no dancing flames
or luminous bubbles on the magic cauldron of my wishes; but that there
are, even in this unkind life, spiritual parentages and filiations of
the soul. Can there be a counterpoise to these? Not a counterpoise--but
as weights in the counter-scale there will come the self-reproach, that
spite of all inauspicious obstacles, not in my power to remove without
loss of self-respect, I have not done all I could and might have done to
prevent my present state of dependence. I am now able to hope that I
shall be capable of setting apart such a portion of my _useable_ time to
my greater work (in assertion of the ideal truths and _à priori_
probability, and _à posteriori_ internal and external evidence of the
historic truth of the Christian religion), as to leave a sufficient
portion for a not unprofitable series of articles for pecuniary supply.
I entertain some hope, too, that my _Logic_, which I could begin
printing immediately if I could find a publisher willing to undertake it
on equitable terms, might prove an exception to the general fate of my
publications. It is a long lane that has no turning, and while my own
heart bears witness to the genial delight you would feel in assisting
me, I know that you would have a more satisfactory gladness in my not
needing it.
And now a few, a very few, words on the latter portion of your letter.
You know, my dearest Friend, how I acted myself, and that my example
cannot be urged in confirmation of my judgment. I certainly strive hard
to divest my mind of every prejudice, to look at the question sternly
through the principle of Right separated from all mere Expedience, nay,
from the question of earthly happiness _for its own sake_. But I cannot
answer to myself that the image of any serious obstacle to your peace of
heart, that the Thought of your full development of soul being put a
stop to, of a secret anxiety blighting your _utility_ by cankering your
happiness, I cannot be sure--I cannot be sure that this may not have
made me _weigh_ with a trembling and unsteady hand, and less than half
the presumption of error, afforded by the shrinking and recoil of your
moral sense or even feeling, would render it my duty and my impulse to
bring my conclusion anew to the ordeal of my Reason and Conscience. But
on your side, my dear Friend! try with me to contemplate the question as
a problem in the _science_ of Morals, in the first instance, and to
recollect that there are false or intrusive weights possible in the
other scale; that our very virtues may become, or be transformed into
temptations to, or occasions of, _partial_ judgment; that we may judge
partially _against_ ourselves from the very fear, perhaps contempt, of
the contrary; that self may be moodily gratified by _self_-sacrifice,
and that the Heart itself, in its perplexity, may acquiesce for a time
in the decision as a more safe way; and, lastly, that the question can
only be fully answered, when Self and Neighbour, as equi-distant
[S^G^N] from the conscience or God, are blended in the common term,
a _Human Being_: that we are _commanded_ to love ourselves as our
Neighbour in the Law that requires a Christian to love his Neighbour as
himself.
But indeed I persuade myself that this dissonance is not real between
us, and that it would not have seemed to exist, had I continued the
subject into the possible particular cases; _e.g._, suppose a case in
which the misery, and so far the moral incapacitation, of both parties
were certainly foreseen as the immediate consequence. A morality of
Consequences I, you well know, reprobate; but to exclude the necessary
_effect_ of an action is to take away all meaning from the word
action--_to strike Duty with blindness_. I repeat it, that I do not,
cannot find it in myself to believe, that _on any one_ case, made out in
all its limbs, features, and circumstances, your heart and mine would
prompt different verdicts.
But the thought of you personally and individually is at present too
strong and stirring to permit me to reason on any points. If the weather
is at all plausible, we propose to set off on Saturday. I do most
earnestly wish that you could accompany us; a steam-vessel would give us
three-fourths of the whole day to _tête-à-tête_ conversation. God bless
you,
And your affectionate and faithful friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
* * * * *
Cottle saw Coleridge for the last time in 1821. He says "It is a
consolation to reflect, that, in the year 1821, being in London, I
called to see Mr. Coleridge, at Mr. Gillman's, when he welcomed me in
his former kind and cordial manner. The depressing thought filled my
mind, that that would be our final interview in this world, as it was.
On my going away, Mr. C. presented me with his _Statesman's Manual_, in
the title-page of which he wrote--'Joseph Cottle, from his old and
affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge.'"--(_Early Recollections_, ii,
177.)
Coleridge, during his Highgate period, was induced by Blackwood to send
a few contributions to his magazine (see _Lamb's Letters_, ii, 32). He
had contributed _Fancy in Nubibus_ in 1819, and he now sent selections
from his _Literary Correspondence_ in the shape of letters, which
appeared in 1821. Two of these letters are printed by Thomas Ashe
(_Miscell. Works_, 238). The following is one of the letters not
published by Ashe:
LETTER 194. TO WILLIAM BLACKWOOD
October, 1821.
Dear Sir,
Here have I been sitting, this whole long-lagging, _muzzy_, mizly
morning, struggling without success against the insuperable disgust I
feel to the task of explaining the abrupt chasm at the outset of our
correspondence, and disposed to let your verdict take its course,
rather than suffer over again by detailing the causes of the stoppage;
though sure by so doing to acquit _my will_ of all share in the result.
Instead of myself, and of _you_, my dear sir, in relation to myself, I
have been thinking, first, of the _Edinburgh Magazine_; then of
magazines generally and comparatively; then of a magazine in the
abstract; and lastly, of the immense importance and yet strange neglect
of that prime dictate of prudence and common sense--Distinct Means to
Distinct Ends. But here I must put in one proviso, not in any relation
though to the aphorism itself, which is of universal validity, but
relatively to my intended application of it. I must assume--I mean, that
the individuals disposed to grant me free access and fair audience for
my remarks, have _a conscience_--such a portion at least, as being eked
out with superstition and sense of character, will suffice to prevent
them from seeking to realise the _ultimate_ end, (_i.e._ the maxim of
profit) by base or disreputable means. This, therefore, may be left out
of the present argument, an extensive sale being the common object of
all publishers, of whatever kind the publications may be, morally
considered. Nor do the means appropriate to this end differ. Be the work
good or evil in its tendency, in both cases alike there is one question
to be predetermined, viz. what class or classes of the reading-world the
work is intended for? I made the proviso, however, because I would not
mislead any man even for an honest cause, and my experience will not
allow me to promise an equal immediate circulation from a work addressed
to the higher interests and blameless predilections of men, as from one
constructed on the plan of flattering the envy and vanity of sciolism,
and gratifying the cravings of vulgar curiosity. Such may be, and in
some instances, I doubt not, has been, the result. But I dare not answer
for it beforehand, even though both works should be equally well suited
to their several purposes, which will not be thought a probable case,
when it is considered how much less talent, and of how much commoner a
kind, is required in the latter.
On the other hand, however, I am persuaded that a sufficient success,
and less liable to drawbacks from competition, would not fail to attend
a work on the former plan, if the scheme and execution of the contents
were as appropriate to the object which the purchasers must be supposed
to have in view as the means adopted for its outward attraction, and its
general circulation were to the interest of its proprietors.
During a long literary life, I have been no inattentive observer of
periodical publications; and I can remember no failure in any work
deserving success that might not have been anticipated from some error
or deficiency in the means, either in regard to the mode of circulating
the work (as, for instance, by the vain attempt to unite the characters
of author, editor, and publisher), or to the typographical appearance;
or else from its want of suitableness to the class of readers on whom,
it should have been foreseen, the remunerating sale must principally
depend. It would be misanthropy to suppose that the seekers after truth,
information, and innocent amusement, are not sufficiently numerous to
support a work in which these attractions are prominent, without the
dishonest aid of personality, literary faction, or treacherous invasions
of the sacred recesses of private life, without slanders which both
reason and duty command us to _disbelieve_ as well as to abhor; for what
but falsehood, or that half truth, which is falsehood in its most
malignant form, can or ought to be expected from a self-convicted
traitor and ingrate?
If these remarks are well founded, we may narrow the problem to the few
following terms--it being understood that the work now in question is a
monthly publication, not devoted to any _one_ branch of knowledge or
literature, but a magazine of whatever may be supposed to interest
readers in general, not excluding the discoveries or even the
speculations of science, that are generally intelligible or interesting,
so that the portion devoted to any one subject or department shall be
kept proportionate to the number of readers for whom it may be supposed
to have a _particular_ interest. Here, however, we must not forget, that
however few the actual dilettanti, or men of the fancy may be, yet, as
long as the articles remain generally intelligible (in _pugilism_, for
instance) Variety and Novelty communicate an attraction that interests
all. _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum._ If to this we add the
exclusion of theological controversy, which is endless, I shall have
pretty accurately described the present _Edinburgh Magazine_, as to its
characteristic plan and purposes; which may, I think, be comprised in
three terms, as Philosophical. Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany.
The word miscellany, however, must be taken as involving a predicate in
itself, in addition to the three preceding epithets, comprehending,
namely, all the ephemeral births of intellectual life which add to the
gaiety and variety of the work, without interfering with its express and
regular objects.
Having thus a sufficiently definite notion of what your Magazine is, and
is intended to be, I propose to myself, as a problem to find out, _in
detail_, what the _means_ would be to the most perfect attainment of
this end. In other words, what the _scheme_, and of what nature, and in
what order and proportion, the _contents_ should be of a monthly
publication; in order for it to verify the title of a Philosophical,
Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany and Magazine. The result of my
lucubrations I hope to forward in my next, under the title of _The Ideal
of a Magazine_; and to mark those departments, in the filling up of
which, I flatter myself with the prospect of being a fellow labourer.
But since I began this scrawl, a friend reminded me of a letter I wrote
him many years ago, on the improvement of the mind by the habit of
commencing our inquiries with the attempt to construct the most absolute
or perfect form of the object desiderated, leaving its practicability,
in the first instance, undetermined. An essay, in short, _de emendatione
intellectûs per ideas_--the beneficial influence of which on his mind he
spoke of with warmth. The main contents of the letter, the effect of
which my friend appreciated so highly, were derived from conversation
with a great man now no more. And as I have reason to regard that
conversation as an epoch in the history of my own mind, I feel myself
encouraged to hope that its publication may not prove useless to some of
your numerous readers, to whom Nature has given the stream, and nothing
is wanting but to be led into the right channel. There is one other
motive to which I must plead conscious, not only in the following, but
in all these, my preliminary contributions; viz.--That by the reader's
agreement with the principles and sympathy with the general feelings
which they are meant to impress, the interest of my future
contributions, and still more, their permanent effect, will be
heightened; and most so in those in which, as narrative and imaginative
compositions, there is the least show of reflection, on my part, and the
least necessity for it,--though I flatter myself not the least
opportunity on the part of my readers.
It will be better, too, if I mistake not, both for your purposes and
mine, to have it said hereafter that he dragged slow and stiff-kneed up
the first hill, but sprang forward as soon as the road was full before
him, and _got in_ fresh; than that he set off in grand style--broke up
midway, and came in broken-winded. _Finis coronat opus._
Yours, etc.,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. I wish I could find a more familiar word than aesthetic for works
of taste and criticism. It is, however, in all respects better, and of
more reputable origin, than belletristic. To be sure, there is _tasty_;
but that has been long ago emasculated for all unworthy uses by
milliners, tailors, and the androgynous correlatives of both, formerly
called _'its_, and now yclept dandies. As our language, therefore,
contains no other _useable_ adjective, to express that coincidence of
form, feeling, and intellect, that something, which, confirming the
inner and the outward senses, becomes a new sense in itself, to be tried
by laws of its own, and acknowledging the laws of the understanding so
far only as not to contradict them; that faculty which, when possessed
in a high degree, the Greeks termed φῖλοκᾶλία, but when spoken of
generally, or in kind only, το αἰσθητικόν; and for which even our
substantive, Taste, is a--not inappropriate--but very inadequate
metaphor; there is reason to hope, that the term _aesthetic_, will
be brought into common use as soon as distinct thoughts and definite
expressions shall once more become the requisite accomplishment of a
gentleman. So it was in the energetic days, and in the starry court
of our _English_-hearted Eliza; when trade, the nurse of freedom, was
the enlivening counterpoise of agriculture, not its alien and usurping
spirit; when commerce had all the enterprise, and more than the romance
of war; when the precise yet pregnant terminology of the schools gave
bone and muscle to the diction of poetry and eloquence, and received
from them in return passion and harmony; but, above all, when from the
self-evident truth, that what _in kind_ constitutes the superiority of
man to animals, the same _in degree_ must constitute the superiority of
men to each other, the practical inference was drawn that every proof of
these distinctive faculties, being in a _tense_ and _active_ state, that
even the sparks and crackling of mental electricity, in the sportive
approaches and collisions of ordinary intercourse, (such as we have in
the wit-combats of Benedict and Beatrice, of Mercutio, and in the
dialogues assigned to courtiers and gentlemen, by all the dramatic
writers of that reign,) are stronger indications of natural superiority,
and, therefore, more becoming signs and accompaniments of _artificial_
rank, than apathy, studied mediocrity, and the ostentation of wealth.
When I think of the vigour and felicity of style characteristic of the
age from Edward VI to the restoration of Charles, and observable in the
letters and family memoirs of noble families--take, for instance, the
_Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his widow--I cannot suppress
the wish--O that the _habits_ of those days could return, even though
they should bring pedantry and Euphuism in their train![121]
* * * * *
Coleridge and the Gillmans had gone to Ramsgate for a holiday while
Allsop had gone to Derbyshire. The next letter is from Ramsgate.
LETTER 195. TO ALLSOP
Oct. 20, 1821.
My dear Friend,
Not a day has passed since we left Highgate in which I have not been
tracing you in spirit up and down the Glens and Dells of Derbyshire,
while my feet only have been in commune with the sandy beach here at
Ramsgate. Once when I had stopped and stood stone still for some
minutes, Mrs. Gillman's call snatched me away from a spot opposite to a
house, to the second-floor window of which I had been gazing, as if I
had feared, yet expected, to see you passing to and fro by it. These,
however, were visions to which I had myself given the commencing
act--fabrics of which the "I wonder where Allsop is now" had laid the
foundation stone. But for the last three days your image, alone or
lonely in an unconcerning crowd of human figures, has forced itself on
my sleep in dreams of the rememberable kind, accompanied with the
feeling of being afraid to go up to you--and now of letting you pass by
unnoticed, from want of courage to ask you, what was most on my
mind--respecting the one awful to me because so awfully dear to
you--(for there is a _religion in all deep love_, but the love of a
Mother is, at your age, the veil of softer light between the Heart and
the Heavenly Father!) Mrs. Gillman likewise has been thinking of you
both asleep and awake: and so, though I know not how to direct my
letter, yet a letter I am resolved to write.
I am sure, my dear Friend! that if aught can be a comfort to you in
affliction or an addition to your joy in the hour of Thanksgiving, it
will be to know, and to be reminded of your knowledge, that I feel as
your own heart in all that concerns you. Next to this I have to tell
you, that the Sea Air and the Sea Plunges, and the leisure of mind, with
regular devotion of the Daylight to exercise (for I write only after
tea), have been auspicious, beyond my best hopes, to my health and
spirits. The change in my looks is beyond the present reality, but may
be veracious as _prophecy_, though somewhat exaggerating as _history_.
The same in all essentials holds good of Mrs. Gillman; and I am most
pleased that the improvement in her looks and strength has been gradual
though rapid. First she got rid, in the course of four or five days, of
the _Positives_ of the wrong sort--_e.g._ the blackness under the eyes
and the thinness of the cheeks--and now she is acquiring the Positives
of the right kind, her eyes brightening, her face becoming plump, and a
delicate, yet cool and steady colour, stealing upon her cheeks. Mr.
Gillman too is uncommonly well since his second arrival here. The first
week his arm, the absorbents of which had been perilously poisoned by
opening a body, was a sad drawback, and prevented his bathing. In short,
we are all better than we could have anticipated; and the better we are,
the more I long, and we all wish you to be with us. If you _can_ come,
though but for a few days, I pray you come to us. In grief or gladness,
we shall grieve less, and (I need not say) be more glad, by seeing you,
by having you with _us_. I will not say _write_, for I would a thousand
times rather have you plump in on me, unannounced; but yet write, unless
this be possible. We have an excellent house, with beds enough for half
a dozen Allsops, if so many there were or could be, the situation the
very best in all Ramsgate (Wellington Crescent, East Cliff, Ramsgate);
and we, or rather Mrs. Gillman's voice and manner, procured it _shameful
cheap_ for the size and accommodations.
I am called to dinner; so God bless you, and receive all our loves, my
very dear friend.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
My birth-day, 51; or, as all my collegiates and Mrs. Coleridge swear,
50.
* * * * *
Coleridge was only forty-nine on 21st October 1821, not fifty-one as he
supposes. He could never remember his birthday, nor the year in which he
was born.
LETTER 196. TO ALLSOP
Ramsgate, Nov. 2nd, 1821.
My dear Friend,
First, let me utter the fervent, God be praised! for the glad tidings
respecting your dear Mother, which would have given an abounding
interest to a far less interesting letter. May she be long preserved
both to enjoy and reward your love and piety! And now I will try to
answer the other contents of your letter, as satisfactorily I _hope_, as
I am sure it will be sincerely and affectionately. Conscious how
heedfully, how watchfully I cross-examined myself whether or no my
anxiety for your earthly happiness and free exercise of head and heart
had not _warped_ the attention which it was my purpose to give whole and
undivided to the one Question--What is the Right, I can repeat (with as
much confidence as the slippery and Protean nature of all
self-inquisition and the great _à priori_ likelihood of my reason being
tampered with by my affections, will sanction me in expressing) what I
have already more than once said, viz., that I hold it incredible, at
least improbable to the utmost extent, that you and I should decide
differently in any one definite instance. Let a case be stated with all
its _particulars_, personal and circumstantial, with its antecedents and
_involved_ (_n.b._--not its contingent or apprehended) consequents--and
my faith in the voice within, whenever the heart desiringly listens
thereto, will not allow me to fear that our verdict should be diverse.
If this be true, as true it is, it follows--that we have attached a
different import to the same terms in some general proposition;--and
that, in attempting to generalise my convictions briefly, and yet
comprehensively, I have worded it either incorrectly or obscurely. On
the other hand, your communications likewise, my dear friend! were
indefinite--"taught light to counterfeit a gloom;" and love left in the
dusk of twilight is apt to fear the worst, or rather, to think of worse
than it fears, and the momentary transformations of posts and bushes
into apparitions and foot-pads must not be interpreted as symptoms of
brain fever or depraved vision.
And now, my dearest Allsop! why should it be "a _melancholy_ reflection,
that the three most affectionate, gentle, and estimable women in your
world are the three from whom you have learnt almost to undervalue
their sex?" In other words those who in their reasonings have supposed
as possible, not even improbable, that women can be unworthy and
insincere in their expressions of attachment to men, the frequency of
which it is as impossible, living open-eyed, not to have ascertained, as
it is with a heart awake to what a woman ought to be, and those of whom
you speak substantially[122] are. Why should this be a melancholy
reflection? (Thursday, Nov. 1st. A fatality seems to hang over this
letter; I will not, however, defer the continuation for the purpose of
explaining its suspension.) Why, dearest friend, a melancholy
reflection? Must not those women who have the highest sense of
womanhood, who know what their sex may be, and who feel the rightfulness
of their own claim to be loved with honour, and honoured with love, have
likewise the keenest sense of the contrary? Understand a few foibles as
incident to humanity; take as matters of course that need not be
mentioned, because we know that in the least imperfect a glance of the
womanish will shoot across the womanly, and there are Mirandas and
Imogens, a Una, a Desdemona, out of fairy land; rare, no doubt, yet less
rare than their counterparts among men in real life. Now can such a
woman not be conscious, must she not feel how great the happiness is
that a woman is capable of communicating, say rather _of being_ to a man
of sense and sensibility, pure of heart, and capable of appreciating,
cherishing, and repaying her virtues? Can she feel this, and not shrink
from the contemplation of a contrary lot? Can she know this, and not
know what a sore evil, fearful in its heart-withering affliction in
proportion to the capacity of being blessed, a weak, artful, or
worthless woman is--perhaps in her _own_ experience has been? And if she
happen to know a young Man, know him as the good, and only the good,
know each other--if he were precious to her, as a younger brother to a
matron sister--and so that she could not dwell on his principles,
dispositions, manners, without the thought--"If I had an only daughter,
and she all a mother ever prayed for, one other prayer should I
offer--that, freely chosen and choosing, she should enable me to call
this man my son!" would you not more than pardon even an excess of
anxiety, even an error of judgment, proceeding from a disinterested
dread of his taking a step irrevocable, and, if unhappy, miserable
beyond all other misery, that of guilt alone excepted? Especially if
there were no known particulars to guide her judgment--if that judgment
were given avowedly, on the mere unbelieved possibility, on an
unsupposed supposition of the worst.
In Mrs. Gillman I have always admired, what indeed I have found more or
less an accompaniment of womanly excellence wherever found, a high
opinion of her own sex comparatively, and a partiality for female
society. I know that her strongest prejudices against individual men
have originated in their professed disbelief of such a thing as female
friendship, or in some similar brutish forgetfulness that woman is an
immortal soul; and as to all parts of the female character, so chiefly
and especially to the best, noblest and highest--to the germs and
yearnings of immortality in the man. I have much to say on this, and
shall now say it with comfort, because I can think of it as a pure
Question of Thought. But I will not now keep this letter any longer.
God bless you, and your friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
P.S. The morning after our arrival, a card with our address and _all our
several_ names was delivered in at the post office, and to the
Postmaster; and this morning, Monday, Oct. 29, I received your letter
dated 16th, which ought to have been delivered on Wednesday last--lying
at the Post-office while I was hour by hour fretting or dreaming about
you. And you, too, must have been puzzled with mine, written on my
birthday. A neglect of this kind may be forgivable, but it is utterly
inexcusable; a Blind-worm sting that has sensibly quickened my
circulation, and I have half a mind to write to Mr. Freeling, if my
wrath does not subside with my pulse, and I should have nothing better
to do.
LETTER 197. TO ALLSOP
Saturday Afternoon, Nov. 17th, (1821).
At length, my dear friend! we are safe and (I hope) sound at Highgate.
We would fain have returned, as we went, by the Steam-vessel, but for
two reasons; one that there was none to go by, the other that Mr.
Gillman thought it hazardous from the chance of November fogs on the
river. _Likewise_, my dear Allsop, I have _two_ especial reasons for
wishing that it may be in your power to dine with us tomorrow; first, it
will give you so much real pleasure to see my improved looks, and how
_very well_ Mrs. Gillman has come back. I need not tell you, that your
sister cannot be dearer to _you_--and you are no ordinary brother--than
Mrs. Gillman is to me; and you will therefore readily understand me when
I say, that I look at the manifest and (as it was gradual), I hope
permanent change in her countenance, expression, and motion, with a sort
of _pride_ of comfort; second (and in one respect more urgent), my
anxiety to consult you on the subject of a proposal made to me by
Anster, before I return an answer, which I must do speedily. I cannot
conclude without assuring you how important a part your love and esteem
constitute of the happiness, and through that (I will yet venture to
hope) of the utility, of your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 198. TO ALLSOP
Monday Morning (--1821).
My dear Friend,
Ab Hydromania, Hydrophobia: from Water-lust comes Water-dread. But this
is a violent metaphor, and disagreeable to boot. Suppose then, by some
caprice or colic of nature, an Aqueduct split on this side of the slider
or Sluice-gate, the two parts removed some thirty feet from each other,
and the communication kept up only by a hollow reed split lengthways, of
just enough width and depth to lay one's finger in; the likeness would
be fantastic to be sure, but still it would be no inapt likeness or
emblem of the state of mind in which I feel myself as often as I have
just received a letter from you!--and when, after the first flush of
interest and rush of thoughts stirred up by it, I sit down, or am about
to sit down, to write in answer, a poor fraction, or finger-breadth of
the intended reply fills up three-fourths of my paper; so sinking under
the impracticability of saying what seemed of use to say, I substitute
what there is no need to say at all--the expression of my wishes, and
the Love, Regard, and Affection, in which they originate.
For the future, therefore, I am determined, whenever I have any time,
however short, to write whatever is first in mind, and to send it off in
the self-same hour.
I do not know whether I was most affected or delighted with your last
letter. It will endear Flower de Luce Court to me above all other
remembrances of past efforts; and the pain, the restless aching, that
comes instantly with the thought of giving out my soul and spirit where
you cannot be present, where I could not see your beloved countenance
glistening with the genial _spray_ of the outpouring; this, in
conjunction with your anxiety and that of Mr. and Mrs. Gillman
concerning my health, is the most efficient, I may say, imperious of the
_retracting_ influences as to the Dublin scheme.
Basil Montagu called on me yesterday. I could not but be amused to hear
from him, as well as from Mrs. Chisholm and two other visitors, the
instantaneous expression of surprise at the apparent change in my
health, and the certain improvement of my looks. One lady said, "Well!
Mr. Coleridge really _is_ very handsome."
Highgate is in high feud with the factious stir against the governors of
the chapel, one of whom I was advising against a reply addressed to the
inhabitants as an _inconsistency_. "But, sir, we would not carry any
thing to an extreme!" THIS IS THE DARLING WATCH-WORD OF WEAK MEN, _when
they sit down on the edges of two stools. Press them to act on fixed
principles, and they talk of extremes_; as if there were or could be any
way of avoiding them but by keeping close to a fixed principle, _which
is a principle only because it is the one medium between two extremes_.
God bless you, my ever dear friend, and
Your affectionately attached
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
P.S. Our friend Gillman sees the factious nature and origin of the
proceedings in so strong a light, and feels so indignantly, that I am
constantly afraid of his honesty spirting out to his injury. If I had
the craft of a Draughtsman, I would paint Gillman in the character of
Honesty, levelling a pistol (with "Truth" on the barrel) at Sutton, in
the character of Modern Reform, and myself as a _Dutch_ Mercury,[123]
with rod in hand, hovering aloft and----pouring water into the
touchhole. The superscription might be "Pacification," a little finely
pronounced on the first syllable.[124]
The scheme alluded to in the last two letters, was a project to deliver
a course of lectures in Dublin. Anster, the translator of _Faust_, was a
Professor in Trinity College, Dublin.
LETTER 199. TO ALLSOP
January 25th, 1822.
Dearest Friend,
My main reason for wishing that Mrs. Gillman should have made her call
on Mrs. Allsop, or that Mrs. Allsop would waive the ceremony, and taking
the willingness for the act, and the præsens _in rus_ (if Highgate
deserves that name) for the future _in urbe_, would accompany you
hither, on the earliest day convenient to you both, is, that I cannot
help feeling the old inkling to press you to spend the Sunday with me,
and yet feel a something like impropriety in so doing. Speaking
confidentially, _et inter nosmet_, if it were prognosticable that dear
Charles would be half as delightful as when we were last with him, and
as pleasant relatively to the probable impressions on a stranger to him
as Mary always is, I should still ask you to fulfil our first
expectation. As it is, I must be content to wish it; and leave the rest
to your knowledge of the circumstantial pro's and con's. Only remember,
that what is dear to you becomes dear to me, and that whatever can in
the least add to happiness in which you are interested, is a duty which
I cannot neglect without injury to my own. _I am convinced that your
happiness is in your own possession._
One part of your letter gave me exceeding comfort--that in which you
spoke of the peculiar sentiment awakened or inspired _at first sight_.
_This is an article of my philosophic creed._
And now for my pupil schemes. Need I say that the verdict of your
judgment, after a sufficient hearing, would determine me to abandon a
plan of the expediency and probable result of which I was less sceptical
than I am of the present? But first let me learn from you whether you
had before your mind, at the moment that you formed your opinion, the
circumstance of my being already in some sort engaged to _one_ pupil
already: that with Mr. Stutfield and Mr. Watson I have already proceeded
on two successive Thursdays, and completed the introduction and the
first chapter, amounting to somewhat more than a closely-printed octavo
sheet, requiring no such revision as would render transcription
necessary; and that three or four more young men at the table will make
no addition, or rather no change. Mr. Gillman thought my agreeing to
receive Stutfield advisable. Mrs. G. did not indeed influence me by any
express wish, but thought that this was the most likely way in which my
work would proceed with regularity and constancy; in short, it was, or
seemed to be, a _bird in the hand_, that, in conjunction with other
reliable sources, would remove my anxiety with regard to _increasing_
any positive pressure on their finances of former years; so that if I
could not lessen, I should prevent the deficit from growing. On all
these grounds I did--I need not say down right--_engage_ myself, but I
certainly permitted Mr. Stutfield to make the trial in such a form that
I scarcely know whether I can, in the spirit of the expectation I
excited, be the first to cry _off_, he appearing fully satisfied and in
good earnest. Now, supposing this to be the state of the case, how would
my work fare the better by dictating it to two amanuenses instead of
five or six, if I get so many? For the occasional explanations, and the
necessity of removing difficulties and misapprehensions, are a real
advantage in a work which I am peculiarly solicitous to have "level with
the plainest capacities." To be sure, on the other hand, I _might_ go on
three days in the week instead of one, and let the work outrun the
lectures, but just so I _might_ on the plan of an increased number of
auditors; and secondly, so many little obstacles start up when it is not
_fore_-known that on such a day I _must_ do so and so. I need not
explain myself further. You can understand the "I would not ask you, but
it is only--" "and but that--" "I pray do not take any _time_ about it,"
etc., etc., added to my _startings_ off.
If I do not see you on Sunday, do not fail to write to me, for of course
I shall take no step till I am quite certain that your judgment is
_satisfied_ one way or other, for I am with unwrinkled confidence and
inmost reclination,
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
* * * * *
It will be seen from this letter that Coleridge was falling behind with
his Board money due to Gillman: hence his anxiety to form a
philosophical class composed of Mr. Seth Watson, Mr. Stutfield, and
others.
LETTER 200. TO ALLSOP
March 4th, 1822.
My dearest Friend,
I have been much more than ordinarily unwell for more than a week
past--my sleeps worse than my vigils, my nights than my days;
----The night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunned the intervening day;
but last night I had not only a calmer night, without roaming in my
dreams through any of Swedenborg's Hells _modéré_; but arose this
morning lighter and with a sense of _relief_.
I scarce know whether the enclosed Detenu[125] is worth enclosing or
reading. I fancy that I send it because I cannot write at any length
that which is even tolerably adequate to what I wish to say. Mrs.
Gillman returned from town--very much pleased with her reception by Mrs.
Allsop, and with the impression that it would be her husband's fault if
she did not make him a happy home.
I shall make you smile, as I did dear Mary Lamb, when I say that you
sometimes mistake my position. As individual to individual, from my
childhood, I do not remember feeling myself either superior or inferior
to any human being; except by an act of my own will in cases of real or
imagined moral or intellectual superiority. In regard to worldly rank,
from eight years old to nineteen, I was habituated, nay, naturalized, to
look up to men circumstanced as you are, as my superiors--a large number
of our governors, and almost _all_ of those whom we regarded as greater
men still, and whom we saw most of, viz. our committee governors, were
such--and as neither awake nor asleep have I any other feelings than
what I had at Christ's Hospital, I distinctly remember that I felt a
little flush of pride and consequence--just like what we used to feel at
school when the boys came running to us--"Coleridge! here's your friends
want you--they are quite _grand_," or "It is quite a _lady_"--when I
first heard who you were, and laughed at myself for it with that
pleasurable sensation that, spite of my sufferings at that school, still
accompanies any sudden re-awakening of our school-boy feelings and
notions. And oh, from sixteen to nineteen what hours of Paradise had
Allen and I in escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were
then at a milliner's whom we used to think, and who I believe really
was, such a nice lady;--and we used to carry thither, of a summer
morning, the pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town,
with Sonnet or Love Rhyme wrapped round the nose-gay. To be feminine,
kind, and genteelly (what I should now call neatly) dressed, these were
the only things to which my head, heart, or imagination had any
polarity, and what I was then, I still am.
God bless you and yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 201. TO ALLSOP
March 22nd, 1822.
My dear Friend,
Mr. Watson is but now returned. I was about to set off to your house and
take turns with Mrs. Allsop in watching you. It is a comfort to hear
from Watson that he thinks you look not only better than when he saw you
before, but more promisingly.
Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant
Haec tria: mens hilaris, requies, moderata dieta
is the adage of the old Schola Salernitana, and his belief and judgment.
Would to God that there were any druggist or apothecary within the
king's dominions where I could procure for you the first ingredient of
the recipe, fresh and genuine. I would soon make up the prescription,
have the credit of curing you, and then make my fortune by advertising
the nostrum under the name of Dr. Samsartorius, _Carbonijugius's Panacea
Salernitana----iensis_.
You will have thought, I fear, that I had forgotten my promise of
sending you Charles Lamb's _epistola porcina_. But it was not so. I now
enclose it, and when you return it I will make a copy for you if you
wish it, for I think that writing in your present state will be most
injurious to you.
I am interrupted--"a poor lad, very ragged, he says Mr. Dowling has sent
him to you to show you his poetry."--"Well! desire him to step up,
Maria!"
As soon as Mr. Green left me, Mrs. Gillman delivered your letter. I am
not sorry, therefore, that the _Wild Irish Boy_ made it too late to
finish the above for that day's post. His name, poor lad! is Esmond
Wilton; his mother, I guess, was poetical. But I will reserve him for a
dish on our table of chat when we meet.--In reply to your affectionate
letter what can I say, but that from all that you say, write or do, I
receive but two impressions; first a full, cordial, and unqualified
assurance of your love towards me, a genial unclouded faith in the
entireness and steadfastness of your more than friendship, sustained and
renewed by the consciousness of a responsive attachment in myself, that
blends the affections of parent, brother and friend,--
A love of thee that seems, yet cannot greater be;
and secondly, impressions of grief or joy, according, and in proportion
to, the information I receive, or the inferences that I draw, respecting
your health, ease of heart and mind, and all the events, incidents, and
circumstances, that affect, or are calculated to affect, both or either.
Only this in addition--whatever _else_ may pass through your mind,
never, from any motive, or with any view, withhold from me your
thoughts, your feelings, and your sorrows. What if they be momentary,
winged thoughts, not native, that blowing weather has driven out of
their course, and to which your mind has allowed thorough flight, but
neither nest, perch, nor halting room? Send them onward to pass through
mine; and between us both, we shall be better able to give a good
account of them! What if they are the offspring of low or perturbed
spirits--the changelings of ill health or disquietude? So much the
rather communicate them. When on the white paper, they are already out
of _us_; and when the letter is gone, they will not stay long behind;
the very anticipation of the answer will have answered them, and
superseded the need, though not the wish, of its arrival. And shall I
not, think you, take them for what they are? With what comfort, with
what security, could I receive or read your letters, or you mine, if we
either of us had reason to believe, that whatever affliction had
befallen, or discomfort was harassing, or anxiety was weighing on the
heart, the other would say no word of or about it, under the plea of not
transplanting thorns, or whatever other excuse a depressed fancy might
invent, in order to transmute _unfriendly withholding_ into a
self-sacrifice of tenderness. If you had come to stay with me while I
lay on a bed of pain, it would grieve you indeed, if, from an imagined
duty of not grieving you, I should suppress every expression of
suffering, and not tell you where my pain was, or whether it was greater
or less. _Grant_ that I was rendered anxious or heavy at heart, or
keenly sorrowful, by any tidings you had communicated respecting
yourself! _Should_ it not be so? Ought it not to be so? Will not the Joy
be greater when the Cloud is passed off--greater in _kind_, nobler,
better--because I should feel it was my _right_? And is there not a
dignity and a hidden Healing in the suffering itself--which is soothed
in the wish and tempered in the endeavour of removing, or lessening, or
supporting it, in the Soul of a dear Friend? However trifling my
vexations are, yet if they vex me, and I am writing to you, to you I
will unbosom them, my dear ... and my serious sorrows and hindrances I
will still less keep back from you. General Truths, Discussions, Poems,
Queries--all these are parts of my nature, _often_ uppermost; and when
they are so, you have them--and I like well to write to, and to hear
from you on them--but these I might write to the Public: and with all
Christian respect for that gentleman, I love your little finger better
than his whole multitudinous Body.
Give my love to Mrs. Allsop, and tell her I will try to deserve hers.
Ever and ever God bless you, my dearest friend.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
* * * * *
"The letter here alluded to," says Allsop, "is a most delightful
communication from Charles Lamb; which, with the hints thrown out by
Manning, as to the probable origin of roast meat, were afterwards
interwoven into that paper on _Roast Pig_, one of the best of Lamb's
productions."
9 Mch. 1822.
Dear C.,
It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the Pig turned out so
well--they are interesting creatures at a certain age. What a pity
such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had all
some of the crackling--and brain sauce--did you remember to rub it
with butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the crisis?
Did the eyes come away kindly with no Œdipean avulsion?--was the
crackling the colour of the ripe pomegranate?--had you no damned
complement of boiled neck of mutton before it to blunt the edge of
delicate desire?--did you flesh maiden teeth in it?
Not that I sent the Pig, or can form the remotest guess what part Owen
(our landlord) could play in the business. I never knew him give any
thing away in his life--he would not begin with strangers. I suspect
the Pig after all was meant for me--but at the unlucky juncture of
time being absent, the present, somehow, went round to Highgate.
To confess an honest truth, a Pig is one of those things I could never
think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door fowls,
ducks, geese, your tame villatic things--Welsh mutton--collars of
brawn--sturgeon, fresh and pickled--your potted char--Swiss
cheeses--French pies--early grapes--muscadines,--I impart as freely to
my friends as to myself,--they are but _self_-extended; but pardon me
if I stop somewhere--_where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a
higher smack than the sensual rarity; there my friends_ (or any good
man) _may command me_; but pigs are pigs; and I myself am therein
nearest to myself; nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing
done to Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if, in a churlish
mood, I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I
ever felt of remorse was when a child--my kind old aunt had strained
her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my
way home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man--not a
mendicant--but thereabouts; a _look-beggar_--not a verbal
petitionist--and, in the coxcombry of taught charity, I gave away the
cake to him. I walked on a little _in all the pride of an evangelical
peacock_, when of a sudden my old aunt's kindness crossed me--_the sum
it was to her_--_the pleasure that she had a right to expect that I,
not the old impostor, should take in eating her cake_--the damned
ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian virtue, I had
frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took it to heart
so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like. And I was
right; it was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to
me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to the
dunghill, with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper.
But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me
a Pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act
towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose.
Yours (short of Pig) to command in everything,
C. L.
LETTER 202. TO ALLSOP
April 18th, 1822.
My dearest Friend,
There was neither self nor unself in the flash or jet of pleasurable
-----
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sensation with which I saw the old | PALL MALL | tea-canister top
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surmounting my own name, but a mere unreflecting gladness, a sally of
inward welcoming, on finding you near to me again. I am indebted to it,
however, for this, and the dear and affectionate letter that sustained
and substantiated it, like a gleam of sunshine ushering in a genial
south-west, and setting all the birds a singing; while the joy at the
recall of the old, dry, _scathy_, viceroy of the discouraged spring, the
Tartar laird from the north-east, augments yet loses itself in the
delight at the arrival of the long-wished-for successor to his native
realm, gave a sudden spur and kindly sting to my spirits, the
restorative effects of which I felt on rising this morning, as soon
after, at least, as the pain which always greets me on awaking, and
never fails to be my Valentine for every day in the year, had taken its
leave.
Charles and Mary Lamb are to dine with us on Sunday next, and I hope it
will be both pleasant and possible for you and Mrs. Allsop to complete
the party; and if so, I will take care to be quite _free_ to enjoy your
society from the moment of your arrival, and I hope that Mrs. Allsop
will not be too much tired for me to show her some of our best views and
walks; and perhaps the nightingales may commence their ditties on or by
that day, for I have daily expected them.
Need I say what thoughts rush into my mind when I read a letter from you,
or think of your love towards me.
God bless you, my dear, dear friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.]
FOOTNOTES:
[119] Let it always be borne in mind, that this and other
expressions in these pages were the opinions which he ever
expressed _to me_, and are not to be taken as evidences of
doubt generally, but of disbelief in the corruptions of the
vulgar Christianity in vogue. [ALLSOP.]
[120] In after years he excepted Elliot, the smith, though he held
his judgment in very slight estimation. [ALLSOP.]
[121] [This letter is followed in _Blackwood_ by the two letters to
a Junior Soph, at Cambridge, republished by T. Ashe in
_Miscellanies, Authentic and Literary_, Bohn Library, pp.
244-260. As these are rather Essays than Letters they are not
reproduced in this work.]
[122] Thus in original letter, (Allsop).
[123] Mercury, the god of lucre and selfish ends, patron god of
thieves, tradesmen, stock-jobbers, diplomatists, pimps,
harlots and go-betweens; the soothing, pacifying god.
[124] [Letter CCXXX follows 198.]
[125] [_Letter to a Young Lady on the Choice of a Husband_ reprinted
in _Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary_, p. 229.]