Chapter XXX: Letter 151: To Stuart39

Wednesday, 8th May, 1816.
James Gillman's, Esq., Surgeon,
Highgate.

My dear Stuart,

Since you left me, I have been reflecting a great deal on the subject of the Catholic question, and somewhat on _The Courier_ in general. With all my weight of _faults_, (and no one is less likely to underrate them than myself), a tendency to be influenced by selfish motives in my friendships, or even in the cultivation of my acquaintance, will not, I am sure, be by _you_ placed among them. When we first knew each other, it was perhaps the most interesting period of both our lives, at the very turn of the flood; and I can never cease to reflect with affectionate delight on the steadiness and independence of your conduct and principles, and how, for so many years, with little assistance from others, and with one main guide, a sympathizing tact for the real sense, feeling, and impulses of the _respectable_ part of the English nation, you went on so auspiciously, and likewise so _effectively_. It is far, very far, from being an hyperbole to affirm, that you did more against the French scheme of Continental domination than the Duke of Wellington has done; or rather, Wellington could neither have been supplied by the Ministers, nor the Ministers supported by the nation, but for the tone first given, and then constantly kept up by the plain, un-ministerial, anti-opposition, anti-Jacobin, anti-Gallican, anti-Napoleon spirit of your writings, aided by a colloquial style and evident good sense, in which, as acting on an immense mass of knowledge of existing men and existing circumstances, you are superior to any man I ever met with in my life-time. Indeed you are the only human being, of whom I can say with severe truth, that I never conversed with you for an hour without rememberable instruction; and with the same simplicity I dare affirm my belief, that my greater knowledge of _man_ has been useful to you, though, from the nature of things, not so useful as your knowledge of _men_ has been to me.

Now, with such convictions, my dear Stuart, how is it possible that I can look back on the conduct of _The Courier_, from the period of the Duke of York's restoration, without some pain? You cannot be seriously offended or affronted with me, if, in this deep confidence and in a letter, which, or its contents, can meet no eye but your own, I venture to declare, that though since then much has been done, very much of high utility to the country, by and under Mr. Street, yet _The Courier_ itself has gradually lost that sanctifying spirit which was the life of its life, and without which, even the best and soundest principles lose half their effect on the human mind; I mean, the faith in the _faith_ of the person and paper which brings them forward. They are attributed to the _accident_ of their happening to be for such a side, or for such a party. In short, there is no longer any _root_ in the paper, out of which all the various branches and fruits, and even fluttering leaves, are seen or believed to grow. But it is the old tree, barked round above the root, though the circular decortication is so small and so neatly filled up and coloured as to be scarcely visible but in its effects, excellent fruit still hanging on the boughs, but they are tied on by threads and hairs.

In all this I am well aware, that you are no otherwise to be blamed than in permitting that which without disturbance to your heart and tranquillity, you could not, perhaps, have prevented or effectively modified. But the whole plan of Street seems to me to have been motiveless from the beginning, or at least affected by the grossest miscalculations, in respect even of pecuniary interests. For, had the paper maintained and asserted not only its independence, but its appearance of it;--it is true that Mr. Street might not have had Mr. A. to dine with him, or received as many nods and shakes of the hand from Lord this or that; but at least equally true, that the ministry would have been far more effectively served, and that (I speak from facts), both the paper and its conductor would have been held by the adherents of ministers in far higher respect; and after all, ministers do not _love_ newspapers in their hearts, not even those that support them; indeed it seems epidemic among Parliament men in general to affect to look down upon and despise newspapers, to which they owe 999/1000 of their influence and character, and at least 3/5ths of their knowledge and phraseology. Enough! burn the letter, and forgive the writer, for the purity and affectionateness of his motive."--Quoted from the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of June, 1838.[40]

One other point connected with Mr. C.'s writings for public journals I must advert to before concluding this chapter. Mr. Cottle finds want of memory in some part of the narrative, contained in this work, respecting the publication of _The Watchman_; it is as well to let him tell the story in his own way, which he does as follows. "The plain fact is, I purchased the whole of the paper for _The Watchman_, allowing Mr. C. to have it at prime cost, and receiving small sums from Mr. C. occasionally, in liquidation. I became responsible, also, with Mr. B. for printing the work, by which means, I reduced the price per sheet, as a bookseller (1000), from fifty shillings to thirty-five shillings. Mr. C. paid me for the paper in fractions, as he found it convenient, but from the imperfection of Mr. Coleridge's own receipts I never received the whole. It was a losing concern altogether, and I was willing, and did bear, uncomplaining, my portion of the loss. There is some difference between this statement, and that of Mr. Coleridge, in his _Biographia Literaria_. A defect of memory must have existed, arising out of the lapse of twenty-two years; but my notices, made at the time, did not admit of mistake. There were but twenty sheets in the whole ten numbers of _The Watchman_, which, at thirty-five shillings per sheet, came to only thirty-five pounds. The paper amounted to much more than the printing.

"I cannot refrain from observing further, that my loss was augmented from another cause. Mr. C. states in the above work, that his London publisher never paid him 'one farthing,' but 'set him at defiance.' I also was more than his equal companion in this misfortune. The thirty copies of Mr. C.'s poems, and the six '_Joans of Arc_' (referred to in the preceding letter)[41] found a ready sale, by this said 'indefatigable London publisher,' and large and fresh orders were received, so that Mr. Coleridge and myself successively participated in two very opposite sets of feeling; the one of exultation that our publications had found _so good a sale_; and the other of _depression_, that the time of _payment_ never arrived!"

I take this opportunity of expressing my sense of many kind acts and much friendly conduct of Mr. Cottle towards my Father, often spoken of to me by my dear departed Mother, into whose heart all benefits sank deep, and by whom he was ever remembered with respect and affection. If I still regard with any disapproval his publication of letters exposing his friend's unhappy bondage to opium and consequent embarrassments and deep distress of mind, it is not that I would have wished a broad influencive fact in the history of one whose peculiar gifts had made him in some degree an object of public interest, to be finally concealed, supposing it to be attested, as this has been, by clear unambiguous documents. I agree with Mr. Cottle in thinking that he would himself have desired, even to the last, that whatever benefit the world might obtain by the knowledge of his sufferings from opium,--the calamity which the _unregulated_ use of this drug had been to him--into which he first fell ignorantly and innocently, (not as Mr. De Quincey has said, to restore the "riot of his animal spirits," when "youthful blood no longer sustained it," but as a relief from bodily pain and nervous irritation)--that others might avoid the rock, on which so great a part of his happiness for so long a time was wrecked; and this from the same benevolent feeling, which prompted him earnestly to desire that his body should be opened after his death, in the hope that some cause of his life-long pains in the region of the bowels might be discovered, and that the knowledge thus obtained might lead to the invention of a remedy for like afflictions. Such a wish indeed, on the former point, as well as afterwards on the latter, he once strongly expressed; but I believe myself to be speaking equally in his spirit when I say, that all such considerations of advantage to the public should be subordinated to the prior claims of private and natural interests. My own opinion is, that it is the wiser and better plan for persons connected with those, whose feats of extraordinary strength have drawn the public gaze upon them, to endure patiently that their frailties should be gazed and wondered at too; and even if they think, that any reflection to them of such celebrity, on such conditions, is far more to be deprecated than desired, still to consider that they are not permitted to determine their lot, in this respect, but are to take it as it has been determined for them, independently of their will, with its peculiar pains and privileges annexed to it. I believe that most of them would be like the sickly queen in the fairy tale of Peronella, who repented when she had obtained the country maiden's youth and health at the loss of rank and riches. Be this as it may, they have not a choice of evils, nor can exchange the aches and pains of their portion, or its wrinkles and blemishes,--for a fair and painless obscurity. These remarks, however, refer only to the feeling and conduct of parties privately affected by such exposures. Others are bound to care for them as they are not bound to care for themselves. If a finished portrait of one, in whom they are nearly concerned, is due to the world, they alone can be the debtors, for the property by inheritance is in them. Other persons, without their leave, should not _undertake_ to give any such portrait; _their_ duties move on a different plane; nor can they rightly feel themselves "entitled" (to borrow the language of Mr. De Quincey, while I venture to dissent from his judgment), "to notice the most striking aspects of his character, of his disposition and his manners, as so many reflex indications of his intellectual constitution," if this involves the publication of letters on private subjects, the relation of domestic circumstances and other such personalities affecting the living. I am sure at least that conscience would prohibit _me_ from any such course. I should never think the public good a sufficient apology for publishing the secret history of any man or woman whatever, who had connections remaining upon earth; but if I were possessed of private notices respecting one in whom the world takes an interest, should think it right to place them in the hands of his nearest relations, leaving it to them to deal with such documents, as a sense of what is due to the public, and what belongs to openness and honesty, may demand.

* * * * *

Of all the censors of Mr. Coleridge, Mr. De Quincey is the one whose remarks are the most worthy of attention; those of the rest in general are but views taken from a distance, and filled up by conjecture, views taken through a medium so thick with _opinion_, even if not clouded with vanity and self-love, that it resembles a horn more than glass or the transpicuous air;--The Opium eater, as he has called himself, had sufficient inward sympathy with the subject of his criticism to be capable in some degree of beholding his mind, as it actually existed, in all the intermingling shades of individual reality; and in few minds have these shades been more subtly intermingled than in my Father's. But Mr. De Quincey's portrait of Coleridge is not the man himself; for besides that his knowledge of what concerned him outwardly was imperfect, the inward sympathy of which I have spoken was far from entire, and he has written as if it were greater than it really was. I cannot but conjecture, from what he has disclosed concerning himself, that on some points he has seen Mr. Coleridge's mind _too much_ in the mirror of his own. His sketches of my Father's life and character are, like all that he writes, so finely written, that the blots on the narrative are the more to be deplored. One of these blots is the passage to which I referred at the beginning of the last paragraph: "I believe it to be notorious that he first began the use of opium, not as a relief from any bodily pains or nervous irritations--for his constitution was strong and excellent--but as a source of luxurious sensations. It is a great misfortune, at least it is a great pain, to have tasted the enchanted cup of youthful rapture incident to the poetic temperament. Coleridge, to speak in the words of _Cervantes_, wanted better bread than was made with wheat." Mr. De Quincey mistook a constitution that had vigour in it for a vigorous constitution. His body was originally full of life, but it was full of death also from the first; there was in him a slow poison, which gradually leavened the whole lump, and by which his muscular frame was prematurely slackened and stupified. Mr. Stuart says that his letters are "one continued flow of complaint of ill health and incapacity from ill health." This is true of all his letters--(all the _sets_ of them)--which have come under my eye, even those written before he went to Malta, where his opium habits were confirmed. Indeed it was in search of health that he visited the Mediterranean,--for one in his condition of nerves a most ill-advised measure,--I believe that the climate of South Italy is poison to most persons who suffer from relaxation and tendency to low fever. If my Father sought more from opium than the mere absence of pain, I feel assured that it was not luxurious sensations or the glowing phantasmagoria of passive dreams; but that the power of the medicine might keep down the agitations of his nervous system, like a strong hand grasping the jangled strings of some shattered lyre,--that he might once more lightly flash along

Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide,--

released, for a time at least, from the tyranny of ailments, which, by a spell of wretchedness, fix the thoughts upon themselves, perpetually drawing them inwards, as into a stifling gulf. A letter[42] of his has been given in this Supplement, which records his first experience of opium: he had recourse to it in that instance for violent pain in the face, afterwards he sought relief in the same way from the suffering of rheumatism.

I shall conclude this chapter with a poetical sketch drawn from my Father by a friend, who knew him during the latter years of his life, after spending a few days with him at Bath, in the year 1815.[43]

Proud lot is his, whose comprehensive soul,
Keen for the parts, capacious for the whole,
Thought's mingled hues can separate, dark from bright,
Like the fine lens that sifts the solar light;
Then recompose again th' harmonious rays,
And pour them powerful in collected blaze--
Wakening, where'er they glance, creations new,
In beauty steeped, nor less to nature true;
With eloquence that hurls from reason's throne
A voice of might, or pleads in pity's tone:
To agitate, to melt, to win, to soothe,
Yet kindling ever on the side of truth;
Or swerved, by no base interest warped awry,
But erring in his heart's deep fervency;
Genius for him asserts the unthwarted claim,
With these to mate--the sacred Few of fame--
Explore, like them, new regions for mankind,
And leave, like theirs, a deathless name behind.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] [The whole of this chapter is by Sara Coleridge, whose
narrative is now resumed from the beginning of Chapter V.]

[29] In articles on _Mr. Coleridge, the Poet, and his Newspaper
writings_, etc., in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of May, June,
July, August of 1838.--S. C.

[30] "Short pieces," Mr. Stuart calls them in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. But among them was _France, an Ode_, which was first
published in the _M. P._ in the beginning of 1798, and
republished in the same Paper some years afterwards, and must
have helped to give it a decent poetical reputation, I
think.--S. C.

[31] Nov. 27, 1799.--S. C.

[32] [No. IV of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[33] [No. VII of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[34] [For the full text of this letter, see _Letters_, CLXXXII.]

[35] [In the _Essays on his Own Times_, 1850.]

[36] [Letter, 4 June 1811.]

[37] "He never could write a thing that was immediately required of
him," says Mr. S., in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of May, 1838.
"The thought of compulsion disarmed him. I could name other
able literary men in this unfortunate plight." One of the many
grounds of argument against the sole _profession_ of
literature.--S. C.

[38] [Sir Archibald Alison, after having eulogized Sir Walter Scott,
Byron, Campbell, Southey, and Moore, and indicated their
relationship to the French Revolution, says: "But the genius of
these men, great and immortal as it was, did not arrive at the
bottom of things. They shared in the animation of passing
events, and were roused by the storm which shook the world; but
they did not reach the secret caves whence the whirlwind
issued, nor perceive what spirit had let loose the tempest upon
the earth. In the bosom of retirement, in the recesses of
solitary thought, the awful source was discovered, and the
Aeolus stood forth revealed in the original Antagonist Power of
wickedness. The thought of Coleridge, even during the whirl of
passing events, discovered their hidden springs, and poured
forth in an obscure style, and to an unheeding age, the great
moral truths which were then being proclaimed in characters of
fire to mankind."--_History of Europe_, chap. lxiv.]

[39] [No. XVII of _Gentleman's Magazine_.]

[40] [Letter CCIX is our 151.]

[41] [Letter 32.]

[42] [Letter 43.]

[43] The passage belongs to him as far as "heart's deep fervency."
It concluded, when first written, with a reference to the
unhappy thraldom of his powers, of which I have been speaking;
for at that time, says the writer, in a private communication,
"he was not so well regulated in his habits and labours
afterwards." The verses are from a _Rhymed Plea for Tolerance_:
in two dialogues, by John Kenyon. I wish that I had space to
quote the sweet lines that follow, relating to the author's own
character and feelings, and his childhood passed "in our Carib
isle." They do justice to Mr. Kenyon's humility and
cheerfulness, in what they say of himself, but not to his
powers.