Chapter CII: Letter 213: To Allsop

April 27th, 1824.

My dearest Friend,

I direct this to your _house_, or _firm_ should I say? because I should not think myself justified in exciting in Mrs. Allsop an alarm, for which I have no more grounds than my own apprehensions and unlearned conjectures. And yet having these bodings, I cannot feel quite easy in withholding them from you. On Saturday, the morning Mrs. Allsop was here, I was in high hope, the little boy looking so much clearer and livelier than on the Thursday; but the weather since then being on the whole genial, and the baby showing no mark of progress, but rather the reverse, and it seeming to me each returning day to require a stronger effort to rouse its attention, and the relapse to a dulness, which it is evident the upright posture alone prevented from being a doze, becoming more immediate, I cannot repel the boding that there is either some mesenteric affection, which sometimes exists in infants without betraying itself by any notable change in the ingestion or the egesta, yet producing on the brain an effect similar to that which flatulence, or confined gas pressing on the nerves of the stomach, will do; or else that it is a case of chronic (slow) hydrocephalus. Against this fear I have to say, first, that I have not been able to detect any insensibility to light in the pupil of its eyes, and that the little innocent has no convulsive twitches, and neither starts nor screams in its sleep. For the first I have no opportunity (the sun being clouded) of making a decisive experiment, and requested Mrs. Constable to try it with a candle, as soon as it was taken up after dark; and though the presence of this symptom is an infallible evidence of the presence of effusion, or some equivalent cause of pressure, its absence is no sure proof of the absence of the disease, though it is a presumption in favour of the _degree_. The freedom from perturbation in sleep, however, is altogether a favourable circumstance, and allows a hope that the continued heaviness and immediate relapse into slumber on being placed horizontally may be the effect of weakness. But then the poor little fellow habitually keeps its hand to its head, and there is a sensible heat and throbbing at the temples. On the whole, you should be prepared for the possible event, and Mrs. Constable is naturally very anxious on this point, not merely lest any neglect should be suspected on her part, but likewise from an anticipation of the mother's agitation, should she at any time come up just to witness the baby's last struggles, or to find no more what she was expecting to see in incipient recovery.

Do not misunderstand me, my dearest friend, nor let this letter alarm you beyond what the facts require. I have seen no decisive marks, no positive change for the worse, no measurable _retro_-gression. I have of course repeatedly spoken to Mr. Gillman, but he says it is impossible to form any conclusive opinion. There is no proof that it may not be weakness at present and hitherto, but neither dare he determine what the continuance of the weakness may not produce. Nothing can warrantably be attempted in this uncertainty but mild alteratives, watchful attention to the infant's regularity, with as cordial nourishment as can be given without endangering heat or inflammatory action.

I do not think that I have been able to remain undisturbed an hour together for the last three days, such a tumble in of persons with requests or claims on me has there been. House-hunting, etc., etc.

* * * * *

The genial glow of Friendship once deadened can never be rekindled.

Idly we supplicate the Powers above--
There is no Resurrection for a Love
That uneclipsed, unthwarted, wanes away
In the chilled heart by inward self-decay.
Poor mimic of the Past! the love is o'er,
That must _resolve_ to do what did itself of yore.

God bless you, and your ever affectionate
S. T. COLERIDGE.

T. Allsop, Esq.

P.S. To my great surprise and delight, Mr. Anster came in on us this afternoon, and in perfect health and spirits.[133]

It was about this time that Coleridge wrote his beautiful _Youth and Age_,[134] in which occurs the fine designation of Friendship as "a Sheltering Tree."

* * * * *

The following opinion of Coleridge by Mrs. Gillman is taken from _The Bright Side of Life_ by Dr. Prentiss, an American, who visited Mrs. Gillman in 1842, and will fittingly close this chapter:

"In speaking of Coleridge personally and as a member of her family
Mrs. Gillman's testimony was to this effect:

"'I do assure you that through all the years he lived with us, I do
not remember once to have seen him fretful or out of humour; he was
the same kindly, affectionate being from morning till evening, and
from January till December. He delighted to reconcile little
differences, and to make all things go smoothly and happily. He was
always teaching the Beautiful and the Good, while his own daily life
was the best illustration of the good and beautiful which he taught.
You know how the world sometimes misrepresented and ill-treated him,
and he felt it now and then very keenly; but he bore it all with the
sweetest patience. As I have said, I never saw him in what could be
called an ill-temper during the nineteen years he was under our
roof,--never! The servants in the house idolized him; and when he died
it seemed as if their hearts would break. We all had one feeling
toward him: we all loved him alike, each in our own way; and we all
alike wept when he died. Love was the law of his nature. He clothed
his friends, to be sure, in the colours of his own fancy, and
sometimes, perhaps, the colours were too bright; but it was his
goodness of heart, quite as much as his imagination, that was at
fault.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Great as was the shock my friend sustained from the
unkind conduct of the gentlemen here alluded to, it is to me
a great solace to be assured that he forgave them fully and
entirely. [Allsop.]

[127] [Perhaps Wordsworth.]

[128] To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned
Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,
And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.

Sloth jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.
I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish dose.

_Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound?
Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crowned?
Tired sentinel! 'mid fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod._

[129] [The initials are probably Allsop's.]

[130] [Letter CCXXXI is our 206.]

[131] [Letters CCXXXII-CCXXXIII follow 207.]

[132] [Letter CCXXXIV follows 210.]

[133] [Letters CCXXXV-CCXXXVIII follow 213.]

[134] [1822-23.]