The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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have quite given ‘up’ that, I have got into the religious line.’ Now, my dear sir, the rule which I have deduced from the writings of St. Paul and St. John, and (permit me also to add) of Luther, would be this. Form and endeavour to strengthen into an habitual and instinct-like feeling, the sense of the utter incompatibility of Christianity with every thing wrong or unseemly, with whatever betrays or fosters the mind of flesh, the predominence of the ‘animal’ within us, by having habitually present to the mind, the full and lively conviction of its perfect compatibility with whatever is innocent of its harmony, with whatever contradistinguishes the HUMAN from the animal; of its sympathy and coalescence with the cultivation of the faculties, affections, and fruitions, which God hath made ‘peculiar’ to ‘man’, either wholly or in their ordained ‘combination’ with what is peculiar to humanity, the blurred, but not obliterated signatures of our original title deed, (and God said, man will we make in our own image.) What? — shall Christianity exclude or alienate us from those powers, acquisitions, and attainments, which Christianity is so preeminently calculated to elevate and enliven and sanctify?
Far, very far, am I from suspecting in you, my dear sir, any participation in these prejudices of a shrivelled proselyting and censorious religionist. But a numerous and stirring faction there is, in the so called Religious Public, whose actual and actuating principles, with whatever vehemence they may disclaim it in words, is, that redemption is a something not yet effected — that there is neither sense nor force in our baptism — and that instead of the Apostolic command, ‘Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice’; baptized Christians are to be put on sackcloth and ashes, and try, by torturing themselves and others, to procure a rescue from the devil. Again, let me thank you for your remembrance of me, and believe me from the hour we first met at Bristol, with esteem and regard,
Your sincere friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.”
Ramsgate, 28th Oct. 1822.
DEAR FRIEND,
Words I know are not wanted between you and me. But there are occasions so awful, there may be instances and manifestations of friendship so affecting, and drawing up with them so long a train from behind, so many folds of recollection as they come onward on one’s mind, that it seems but a mere act of justice to oneself, a debt we owe to the dignity of our moral nature to give them some record; a relief which the spirit of man asks and demands to contemplate in some outward symbol, what it is inwardly solemnizing. I am still too much under the cloud of past misgivings, too much of the stun and stupor from the recent peals and thunder-crush still remains, to permit me to anticipate others than by wishes and prayers. What the effect of your unwearied kindness may be on poor M.’s mind and conduct, I pray fervently, and I feel a cheerful trust that I do not pray in vain, that on my own mind and spring of action, it will be proved not to have been wasted. I do inwardly believe, that I shall yet do something to thank you, my dear — in the way in which you would wish to be thanked — by doing myself honour. — Dear friend and brother of my soul, God only knows how truly, and in the depth, you are loved and prized by your affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.”
During the first lecture of the course in 1817, a young man of modest demeanor sent him a letter, and afterwards introduced himself, stating ti that he was a student in literature, and from his conversation, he struck Coleridge as one much more attached to the better part of our nature than to the love of gain. An intimacy consequently took place, and Coleridge addressed many letters to him, from which will be selected such as are critical or autobiographical. Fortunately they have been preserved, and are too valuable not to form a part of this volume.
The following is an answer to the first letter Coleridge received from him:
“Wednesday Morning, Jan. 28th, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
Your friendly letter was first delivered to me at the lecture-room door on yesterday evening, ten minutes before the lecture, and my spirits were so sadly depressed by the circumstance of my hoarseness, that I was literally incapable of reading it. I now express my acknowledgments, and with them the regret that I had not received the letter in time to have availed myself of it.
When I was young I used to laugh at flattery, as, on account of its absurdity, I now abhor it, from my repeated observations of its mischievous effects. Amongst these, not the least is, that it renders honourable natures more slow and reluctant in expressing their real feelings in praise of the deserving, than, for the interests of truth and virtue, might be desired. For the weakness of our moral and intellectual being, of which the comparatively strongest are often the most, and the most painfully, conscious, needs the confirmation derived from the coincidence and sympathy of the friend, as much as the voice of honour within us denounces the pretences of the flatterer. Be assured, then, that I write as I think, when I tell you that, from the style and thoughts of your letter, I should have drawn a very different conclusion from that which you appear to have done, concerning both your talents and the cultivation which they have received. Both the matter and manner are manly, simple, and correct.
Had I the time in my own power, compatibly with the performance of duties of immediate urgency, I would endeavour to give you, by letter, the most satisfactory answer to your questions that my reflections and the experience of my own fortunes could supply. But, at all events, I will not omit to avail myself of your judicious suggestion in my last lecture, in which it will form a consistent part of the subject and purpose of the discourse. Meantime, believe me, with great respect,
Your obliged fellow-student of the true and the beseeming
S. T. COLERIDGE.”
“Sept. 20th, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
Those who have hitherto chosen to take notice of me, as known to them only by my public character, have for the greater part taken out, not, indeed, a poetical, but a critical, license to make game of me, instead of sending game to me. Thank heaven! I am in this respect more tough than tender. But, to be serious, I heartily thank you for your polite remembrance; and, though my feeble health and valetudinarian stomach force me to attach no little value to the present itself, I feel still more obliged by the kindness that prompted it.
I trust that you will not come within the purlieus of Highgate without giving me the opportunity of assuring you personally that I am, with sincere respect,
Your obliged,
S. T. COLERIDGE.”
Following the chronological order I proposed, I am led to speak again of Lamb, who having at this time collected many little poems and essays, scattered in different publications, he reprinted and published them in two small volumes, which he dedicated to Coleridge; and those of my readers who have not seen this work will, doubtless, find it interesting. The simplicity of this dedication, and above all the biographical portion of it, seem to render it appropriate to this work, and it is therefore subjoined.
TO S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq.
MY DEAR COLERIDGE,
You will smile to see the slender labors of your friend designated by the title of ‘Works’; but such was the wish of the gentlemen who have kindly undertaken the trouble of collecting them, and from their judgment could be no appeal.
It would be a kind of disloyalty to offer to any one but yourself, a volume containing the ‘early pieces’ which were first published among your poems, and were fairly derivatives from you and them. My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle (authorship is a sort of warfare) under cover of the greater Ajax. How this association, which shall always be a dear and proud recollection to me, came to be broken; — who snapped the threefold cord, — whether yourself (but I know that was not the case,) grew ashamed of your former companions, — or whether (which is by much the more probable) some ungracious bookseller was author of the separation, I cannot tell; — but wanting the support of your friendly elm, (I speak for myself,) my vine has, since that time, put forth few or no fruits; the sap (if ever it had any) has become in a manner dried up and extinct: and you will find your old associate in his second volume, dwindled into prose and criticism. Am I right in assuming this as the cause? or is it that, as years come upon us, (except