Chapter I: Student Life (2)

I had entertained hopes that you would _really_ have _sent_ me a piece of sticking plaister, which would have been very convenient at that time, I having cut my finger. I had to buy sticking plaister, etc. What is the use of a man’s knowing you girls, if he cannot _chouse_ you out of such little things as that? Do not your fingers, Mary, feel an odd kind of titillation to be about my ears for my impudence?

On Saturday night, as I was sitting by myself all alone, I heard a creaking sound, something like the noise which a crazy chair would make, if pressed by the tremendous weight of Mr. Barlow’s extremities. I cast my eyes around, and what should I behold but a _Ghost_ rising out of the floor! A deadly paleness instantly overspread my body, which retained no other symptom of life _but_ its violent trembling. My hair (as is usual in frights of this nature) stood upright by many degrees stiffer than the oaks of the mountains, yea, stiffer than Mr. ----; yet was it rendered oily-pliant by the profuse perspiration that burst from every pore. This spirit advanced with a book in his hand, and having first dissipated my terrors, said as follows: “I am the Ghost of _Gray_. There lives a young lady” (then he mentioned _your_ name), “of whose judgment I entertain so high an opinion, that _her_ approbation of my works would make the turf lie lighter on me; present her with this book, and transmit it to her as soon as possible, adding my love to her. And, as for you, O young man!” (now he addressed himself to me) “write no more verses. In the first place your poetry is vile stuff; and secondly” (here he sighed almost to bursting), “all poets go to --ll; we are so intolerably addicted to the vice of lying!” He vanished, and convinced me of the truth of his last dismal account by the sulphurous stink which he left behind him.

His first mandate I have obeyed, and, I hope you will receive _safe_ your ghostly admirer’s present. But so far have I been from obeying his second injunction, that I never had the scribble-mania stronger on me than for these last three or four days: nay, not content with suffering it myself, I must pester those I love best with the blessed effects of my disorder.

Besides two _things_, which you will find in the next sheet, I cannot forbear filling the remainder of this sheet with an Odeling, though I know and approve your aversion to _mere prettiness_, and though my tiny love ode possesses no other property in the world. Let then its shortness recommend it to your perusal--_by the by_, the _only_ thing in which it resembles you, for wit, sense, elegance, or beauty it has none.

AN ODE IN THE MANNER OF ANACREON.[24]

As late in wreaths gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found,
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz’d the minion,
Then in my cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry guest
Flutt’ring _his wings_ within my breast!

Are you quite asleep, dear Mary? Sleep on; but when you awake, read the following productions, and then, I’ll be bound, you will sleep again sounder than ever.

A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEBRUARY 10, 1792.[25]

Lo! through the dusky silence of the groves,
Thro’ vales irriguous, and thro’ green retreats,
With languid murmur creeps the placid stream
And works its secret way.

Awhile meand’ring round its native fields,
It rolls the playful wave and winds its flight:
Then downward flowing with awaken’d speed
Embosoms in the Deep!

Thus thro’ its silent tenor may my Life
Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth unclogg’d,
Alike unconscious of forensic storms,
And Glory’s blood-stain’d palm!

And when dark Age shall close Life’s little day,
Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils,
E’en thus may slumb’rous Death my decent limbs
Compose with icy hand!

A LOVER’S COMPLAINT TO HIS MISTRESS

WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN THE EAST INDIES.[26]

The dubious light sad glimmers o’er the sky:
’Tis silence all. By lonely anguish torn,
With wandering feet to gloomy groves I fly,
And wakeful Love still tracks my course forlorn.

And will you, cruel Julia? will you go?
And trust you to the Ocean’s dark dismay?
Shall the wide, wat’ry world between us flow?
And winds unpitying snatch my Hopes away?

Thus could you sport with my too easy heart?
Yet tremble, lest not unaveng’d I grieve!
The winds may learn your own delusive art,
And faithless Ocean smile--but to deceive!

I have written too long a letter. Give me a hint, and I will avoid a repetition of the offence.

It’s a compensation for the above-written rhymes (which if you ever condescend to read a second time, pray let it be by the light of their own flames) in my next letter I will send some delicious poetry lately published by the exquisite Bowles.

To-morrow morning I fill the rest of this sheet with a letter to Anne. And now, good-night, dear sister! and peaceful slumbers await us both!

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XII. TO ANNE EVANS.

February 19, 1792.

DEAR ANNE,--To be sure I felt myself rather disappointed at my not receiving a few lines from you; but I am nevertheless greatly rejoiced at your amicable dispositions towards me. Please to accept two kisses, as the seals of reconciliation--you will find them on the word “Anne” at the beginning of the letter--at least, there I left them. I must, however, give you warning, that the next time you are affronted with Brother Coly, and show your resentment by that most cruel of all punishments, silence, I shall address a letter to you as long and as sorrowful as Jeremiah’s Lamentations, and somewhat in the style of your sister’s favourite lover, beginning with,--

TO THE IRASCIBLE MISS.

DEAR MISS, &c.

My dear Anne, you are my Valentine. I dreamt of you this morning, and I have seen no female in the whole course of the day, except an old bedmaker belonging to the College, and I don’t count her one, as the bristle of her beard makes me suspect her to be of the masculine gender. Some one of the genii must have conveyed your image to me so opportunely, nor will you think this impossible, if you will read the little volumes which contain their exploits, and crave the honour of your acceptance.

If I could draw, I would have sent a pretty heart stuck through with arrows, with some such sweet posy underneath it as this:--

“The rose is red, the violet blue;
The pink is sweet, and so are you.”

But as the Gods have not made me a drawer (of anything but corks), you must accept the will for the deed.

You never wrote or desired your sister to write concerning the bodily health of the Barlowites, though you know my affection for that family. Do not forget this in your next.

Is Mr. Caleb Barlow recovered of the rheumatism? The quiet ugliness of Cambridge supplies me with very few communicables in the news way. The most important is, that Mr. Tim Grubskin, of this town, citizen, is dead. Poor man! he loved fish too well. A violent commotion in his bowels carried him off. They say he made a very good end. There is his epitaph:--

“A loving friend and tender parent dear,
Just in all actions, and he the Lord did fear,
Hoping, that, when the day of Resurrection come,
He shall arise in glory like the Sun.”

It was composed by a Mr. Thistlewait, the town crier, and is much admired. We are all mortal!!

His wife carries on the business. It is whispered about the town that a match between her and Mr. Coe, the shoemaker, is not improbable. He certainly seems very assiduous in con_soling_ her, but as to anything matrimonial I do not write it as a well authenticated fact.

I went the other evening to the concert, and spent the time there much to my heart’s content in cursing Mr. Hague, who played on the violin most piggishly, and a Miss (I forget her name)--Miss Humstrum, who sung most sowishly. O the Billington! That I should be absent during the oratorios! The prince unable to conceal his pain! Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!

To which house is Mrs. B. engaged this season?

The mutton and winter cabbage are confoundedly tough here, though very venerable for their old age. Were you ever at Cambridge, Anne? The river Cam is a handsome stream of a muddy complexion, somewhat like Miss Yates, to whom you will present my love (if you like).

In Cambridge there are sixteen colleges, that look like workhouses, and fourteen churches that look like little houses. The town is very fertile in alleys, and mud, and cats, and dogs, besides men, women, ravens, clergy, proctors, tutors, owls, and other two-legged cattle. It likewise--but here I must interrupt my description to hurry to Mr. Costobadie’s lectures on Euclid, who is as mathematical an author, my dear Anne, as you would wish to read on a long summer’s day. Addio! God bless you, ma chère soeur, and your affectionate frère,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P. S. I add a postscript on purpose to communicate a joke to you. A party of us had been drinking wine together, and three or four freshmen were most deplorably intoxicated. (I have too great a respect for delicacy to say drunk.) As we were returning homewards, two of them fell into the gutter (or kennel). We ran to assist one of them, who very generously stuttered out, as he lay sprawling in the mud: “N-n-n-no--n-n-no!--save my f-fr-fr-friend there; n-never mind me, I can swim.”

Won’t you write me a long letter now, Anne?

P. S. Give my respectful compliments to Betty, and say that I enquired after her health with the most emphatic energy of impassioned avidity.

XIII. TO MRS EVANS.

February 22 [? 1792].

DEAR MADAM,--The incongruity of the dates in these letters you will immediately perceive. The truth is that I had written the foregoing heap of nothingness six or seven days ago, but I was prevented from sending it by a variety of disagreeable little impediments.

Mr. Massy must be arrived in Cambridge by this time; but to call on an utter stranger just arrived with so trivial a message as yours and his uncle’s love to him, when I myself had been in Cambridge five or six weeks, would appear rather awkward, not to say ludicrous. If, however, I meet him at any wine party (which is by no means improbable) I shall take the opportunity of mentioning it _en passant_. As to Mr. M.’s debts, the most intimate friends in college are perfect strangers to each other’s affairs; consequently it is little likely that I should procure any information of this kind.

I hope and trust that neither yourself nor my sisters have experienced any ill effects from this wonderful change of weather. A very slight cold is the only favour with which it has honoured _me_. I feel myself apprehensive for all of you, but more particularly for Anne, whose frame I think most susceptible of cold.

Yesterday a Frenchman came dancing into my room, of which he made but three steps, and presented me with a card. I had scarcely collected, by glancing my eye over it, that he was a tooth-monger, before he seized hold of my muzzle, and, baring my teeth (as they do a horse’s, in order to know his age), he exclaimed, as if in violent agitation: “Mon Dieu! Monsieur, all your teeth will fall out in a day or two, unless you permit me the honour of _scaling_ them!” This ineffable piece of assurance discovered such a genius for impudence, that I could not suffer it to go unrewarded. So, after a hearty laugh, I sat down, and let the rascal _chouse_ me out of half a guinea by scraping my grinders--the more readily, indeed, as I recollected the great penchant which all your family have for delicate teeth.

So (I hear) Allen[27] will be most precipitately emancipated. Good luck have thou of thy emancipation, Bob-bee! Tell him from me that if he does not kick Richards’[28] fame out of doors by the superiority of his own, I will never forgive him.

If you will send me a box of Mr. Stringer’s tooth powder, mamma! we will accept of it.

And now, Right Reverend Mother in God, let me claim your permission to subscribe myself with all observance and gratitude, your most obedient humble servant, and lowly slave,

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,

Reverend in the future tense, and scholar of Jesus College in the present time.

XIV. TO MARY EVANS.

JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 22 [1792].

DEAR MARY,--_Writing long letters_ is not the fault into which I am most apt to fall, but whenever I do, by some inexplicable ill luck, my prolixity is always directed to those whom I would yet least of all wish to torment. You think, and think rightly, that I had no occasion to _increase_ the preceding accumulations of wearisomeness, but I wished to inform you that I have sent the poem of Bowles, which I mentioned in a former sheet; though I dare say you would have discovered this without my information. If the pleasure which you receive from the perusal of it prove equal to that which I have received, it will make you some small return for the exertions of friendship, which you must have found necessary in order to travel through my long, long, long letter.

Though it may be a little effrontery to point out beauties, which would be obvious to a far less sensible heart than yours, yet I cannot forbear the self-indulgence of remarking to you the exquisite description of Hope in the third page and of Fortitude in the sixth; but the poem “On leaving a place of residence” appears to me to be almost superior to any of Bowles’s compositions.

I hope that the Jermyn Street ledgers are well. How can they be otherwise in such lovely keeping?

Your Jessamine Pomatum, I trust, is as strong and as odorous as ever, and the roasted turkeys at Villiers Street honoured, as usual, with a thick crust of your Mille (what do you call it?) powder.

I had a variety of other interesting inquiries to make, but time and memory fail me.

Without a swanskin waistcoat, what is man? I have got a swanskin waistcoat,--a most attractive external.

Yours with sincerity of friendship,
SAMUEL TAYLOR C.

XV. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.

Monday night, April [1792].

DEAR BROTHER,--You would have heard from me long since had I not been entangled in such various businesses as have occupied my whole time. Besides my ordinary business, which, as I look forward to a smart contest some time this year, is not an indolent one, I have been writing for _all_ the prizes, namely, the Greek Ode, the Latin Ode, and the Epigrams. I have little or no expectation of success, as a Mr. Smith,[29] a man of immense genius, author of some papers in the “Microcosm,” is among my numerous competitors. The prize medals will be adjudged about the beginning of June. If you can think of a good thought for the beginning of the Latin Ode upon the miseries of the W. India slaves, communicate. My Greek Ode[30] is, I think, my _chef d’œuvre_ in poetical composition. I have sent you a sermon metamorphosed from an obscure publication by vamping, transposition, etc. If you like it, I can send you two more of the same kidney. Our examination as Rustats comes [off] on the Thursday in Easter week. After it a man of our college has offered to take me to town in his gig, and, if he can bring me back, I think I shall accept his offer, as the expense, at all events, will not be more than 12 shillings, and my very commons, and tea, etc., would amount to more than that in the week which I intend to stay in town. Almost all the men are out of college, and I am most villainously vapoured. I wrote the following the other day under the title of “A Fragment found in a Lecture-Room:”--

Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,
And bog and desolation reign supreme;
Where all Bœotia clouds the misty brain,
The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.
Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly,
Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:
The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,
And Wit congealed stands fix’d in wintry trance.
But to the sounds with duteous haste repair
Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care;
And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,
Pleas’d with the song uplifts her heavy head,
The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,
Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile....
[Cætera desunt.]

This morning I went for the first time with a party on the river. The clumsy dog to whom we had entrusted the sail was fool enough to fasten it. A gust of wind embraced the opportunity of turning over the boat, and baptizing all that were in it. We swam to shore, and walked dripping home, like so many river gods. Thank God! I do not feel as if I should be the worse for it.

I was matriculated on Saturday.[31] Oath-taking is very healthy in spring, I should suppose. I am grown very fat. We have two men at our college, great cronies, their names Head and Bones; the first an unlicked cub of a Yorkshireman, the second a very fierce buck. I call them _Raw Head_ and _Bloody Bones_.

As soon as you can make it convenient I should feel thankful if you could transmit me ten or five pounds, as I am at present cashless.

Pray, was the bible clerk’s place accounted a disreputable one at Oxford in your time? Poor Allen, who is just settled there, complains of the great distance with which the men treat him. ’Tis a childish University! Thank God! I am at Cambridge. Pray let me hear from you soon, and whether your health has held out this long campaign. I hope, however, soon to see you, till when believe me, with gratitude and affection, yours ever,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XVI. TO MRS. EVANS.

February 5, 1793.

MY DEAR MRS. EVANS,--This is the third day of my resurrection from the couch, or rather, the sofa of sickness. About a fortnight ago, a quantity of matter took it into its head to form in my left gum, and was attended with such violent pain, inflammation, and swelling, that it threw me into a fever. However, God be praised, my gum has at last been opened, a villainous tooth extracted, and all is well. I am still very weak, as well I may, since for seven days together I was incapable of swallowing anything but spoon meat, so that in point of spirits I am but the dregs of my former self--a decaying flame agonizing in the snuff of a tallow candle--a kind of hobgoblin, clouted and bagged up in the most contemptible shreds, rags, and yellow relics of threadbare mortality. The event of our examination[32] was such as surpassed my expectations, and perfectly accorded with my wishes. After a very severe trial of six days’ continuance, the number of the competitors was reduced from seventeen to four, and after a further process of ordeal we, the survivors, were declared equal each to the other, and the Scholarship, according to the will of its founder, awarded to the youngest of us, who was found to be a Mr. Butler of St. John’s College. I am just two months older than he is, and though I would doubtless have rather had it myself, I am yet not at all sorry at his success; for he is sensible and unassuming, and besides, from his circumstances, such an accession to his annual income must have been very acceptable to him. So much for myself.

I am greatly rejoiced at your brother’s recovery; in proportion, indeed, to the anxiety and fears I felt on your account during his illness. I recollected, my most dear Mrs. Evans, that you are frequently troubled with a strange forgetfulness of yourself, and too apt to go far beyond your strength, if by any means you may alleviate the sufferings of others. Ah! how different from the majority of others whom we courteously dignify with the name of human--a vile herd, who sit still in the severest distresses of their _friends_, and cry out, There is a lion in the way! animals, who walk with leaden sandals in the paths of charity, yet to gratify their own inclinations will run a mile in a breath. Oh! I do know a set of little, dirty, pimping, petty-fogging, ambidextrous fellows, who would set your house on fire, though it were but to roast an egg for themselves! Yet surely, considering it were a selfish view, the pleasures that arise from whispering peace to those who are in trouble, and healing the broken in heart, are far superior to all the unfeeling can enjoy.

I have inclosed a little work of that great and good man Archdeacon Paley; it is entitled _Motives of Contentment_, addressed to the poorer part of our fellow men. The twelfth page I particularly admire, and the twentieth. The reasoning has been of some service to _me_, who am of the race of the Grumbletonians. My dear friend Allen has a resource against most misfortunes in the natural gaiety of his temper, whereas my hypochondriac, gloomy spirit _amid blessings_ too frequently warbles out the hoarse gruntings of discontent! Nor have all the lectures that divines and philosophers have given us for these three thousand years past, on the vanity of riches, and the cares of greatness, etc., prevented me from sincerely regretting that Nature had not put it into the head of some _rich_ man to beget _me_ for his _first_-born, whereas now I am likely to get bread just when I shall have no teeth left to chew it. Cheer up, my little one (thus I answer I)! _better late than never_. Hath literature been thy choice, and hast thou food and raiment? Be thankful, be _amazed_ at thy good fortune! Art thou dissatisfied and desirous of other things? Go, and make twelve votes at an election; it shall do thee more service and procure thee greater preferment than to have made twelve commentaries on the twelve prophets. My dear Mrs. Evans! excuse the wanderings of my castle building imagination. I have not a thought which I conceal from you. I _write_ to others, but my pen talks to you. Convey my softest affections to Betty, and believe me,

Your grateful and affectionate boy,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

XVII. TO MARY EVANS.

JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 7, 1793.

I would to Heaven, my dear Miss Evans, that the god of wit, or news, or politics would whisper in my ear something that might be worth sending fifty-four miles--but alas! I am so closely blocked by an army of misfortunes that really there is no passage left open for mirth or anything else. Now, just to give you a few articles in the large inventory of my calamities. Imprimis, a gloomy, uncomfortable morning. Item, my head aches. Item, the Dean has set me a swinging imposition for missing morning chapel. Item, of the two only coats which I am worth in the world, both have holes in the elbows. Item, Mr. Newton, our mathematical lecturer, has recovered from an illness. But the story is rather a laughable one, so I must tell it you. Mr. Newton (a tall, thin man with a little, tiny, blushing face) is a great botanist. Last Sunday, as he was strolling out with a friend of his, some curious plant suddenly caught his eye. He turned round his head with great eagerness to call his companion to a participation of discovery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward he fell into a pool, deep, muddy, and full of chickweed. I was lucky enough to meet him as he was entering the college gates on his return (a sight I would not have lost for the Indies), his best black clothes all green with duckweed, he shivering and dripping, in short a perfect river god. I went up to him (you must understand we hate each other most cordially) and sympathized with him in all the tenderness of condolence. The consequence of his misadventure was a violent cold attended with fever, which confined him to his room, prevented him from giving lectures, and freed me from the necessity of attending them; but this misfortune I supported with truly Christian fortitude. However, I constantly asked after his health with filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual inquiries, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexation, that he was perfectly recovered and intended to give lectures this very day!!! Verily, I swear that six of his duteous pupils--myself as their general--sallied forth to the apothecary’s house with a fixed determination to thrash him for having performed so speedy a cure, but, luckily for himself, the rascal was not at home. But here comes my fiddling master, for (but this is a secret) I am learning to play on the violin. Twit, twat, twat, twit! “Pray, M. de la Penche, do you think I shall ever make anything of this violin? Do you think I have an ear for music?” “Un magnifique! Un superbe! Par honneur, sir, you be a ver great genius in de music. Good morning, monsieur!” This M. de la Penche is a better judge than I thought for.

This new whim of mine is partly a scheme of self-defence. Three neighbours have run music-mad lately--two of them fiddle-scrapers, the third a flute-tooter--and are perpetually annoying me with their vile performances, compared with which the gruntings of a whole herd of sows would be seraphic melody. Now I hope, by frequently playing myself, to render my ear callous. Besides, the evils of life are crowding upon me, and music is “the sweetest assuager of cares.” It helps to relieve and soothe the mind, and is a sort of refuge from calamity, from slights and neglects and censures and insults and disappointments; from the warmth of real enemies and the coldness of pretended friends; from your _well wishers_ (as they are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to _well doers_), men whose inclinations to serve you always decrease in a most mathematical proportion as their opportunities to do it increase; from the

“Proud man’s contumely, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th’ unworthy takes;”

from grievances that are the growth of all times and places and not peculiar to _this age_, which authors call this _critical age_, and divines this _sinful age_, and politicians _this age of revolutions_. An acquaintance of mine calls it this _learned age_ in due reverence to his own abilities, and like Monsieur Whatd’yecallhim, who used to pull off his hat when he spoke of himself. The poet laureate calls it “_this golden age_,” and with good reason,--

For _him_ the fountains with Canary flow,
And, best of fruit, spontaneous guineas grow.

Pope, in his “Dunciad,” makes it _this leaden age_, but I choose to call it without an epithet, _this_ age. Many things we must expect to meet with which it would be hard to bear, if a compensation were not found in honest endeavours to do well, in virtuous affections and connections, and in harmless and reasonable amusements. And why should _not_ a man amuse himself sometimes? _Vive la bagatelle!_

I received a letter this morning from my friend Allen. He is up to his ears in business, and I sincerely congratulate him upon it--occupation, I am convinced, being the great secret of happiness. “Nothing makes the temper so fretful as indolence,” said a young lady who, beneath the soft surface of feminine delicacy, possesses a mind acute by nature, and strengthened by habits of reflection. ’Pon my word, Miss Evans, I beg your pardon a thousand times for bepraising you to your face, but, really, I have written so long that I had forgot to whom I was writing.

Have you read Mr. Fox’s letter to the Westminster electors? It is quite the political _go_ at Cambridge, and has converted many souls to the Foxite faith.

Have you seen the Siddons this season? or the Jordan? An acquaintance of mine has a tragedy coming out early in the next season, the principal character of which Mrs. Siddons will act. He has importuned me to write the prologue and epilogue, but, conscious of my inability, I have excused myself with a jest, and told him I was too good a Christian to be accessory to the damnation of anything.

There is an old proverb of a river of words and a spoonful of sense, and I think this letter has been a pretty good proof of it. But as nonsense is better than blank paper, I will fill this side with a song I wrote lately. My friend, Charles Hague[33] the composer, will set it to wild music. I shall sing it, and accompany myself on the violin. _Ça ira!_

Cathloma, who reigned in the Highlands of Scotland about two hundred years after the birth of our Saviour, was defeated and killed in a war with a neighbouring prince, and Nina-Thoma his daughter (according to the custom of those times and that country) was imprisoned in a cave by the seaside. This is supposed to be her complaint:--

How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the Tree;

Thro’ the high sounding Hall of Cathloma
In the steps of my beauty I strayed,
The warriors beheld Nina-Thoma,
And they blessed the dark-tressed Maid!

By my Friends, by my Lovers discarded,
Like the Flower of the Rock now I waste,
That lifts its fair head unregarded,
And scatters its leaves on the blast.

A Ghost! by my cavern it darted!
In moonbeams the spirit was drest--
For lovely appear the Departed,
When they visit the dreams of my rest!

But dispersed by the tempest’s commotion,
Fleet the shadowy forms of Delight;
Ah! cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean!
To howl thro’ my Cavern by night.[34]

Are you asleep, my dear Mary? I have administered rather a strong dose of opium; however, if in the course of your nap you should chance to dream that I am, with ardor of eternal friendship, your affectionate

S. T. COLERIDGE,

you will never have dreamt a truer dream in all your days.

XVIII. TO ANNE EVANS.

JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 10, 1793.

MY DEAR ANNE,--A little before I had received your mamma’s letter, a bird of the air had informed me of your illness--and sure never did owl or night-raven (“those mournful messengers of heavy things”) pipe a more loathsome song. But I flatter myself that ere you have received this scrawl of mine, by care and attention you will have lured back the rosy-lipped fugitive, Health. I know of no misfortune so little susceptible of consolation as sickness: it is indeed easy to offer comfort, when we ourselves are well; _then_ we can be full of grave saws upon the duty of resignation, etc.; but alas! when the sore visitations of pain come _home_, all our philosophy vanishes, and nothing remains to be seen. I speak of myself, but a mere sensitive animal, with little wisdom and no patience. Yet if anything can throw a melancholy smile over the pale, wan face of illness, it must be the sight and attentions of those we love. There are one or two beings, in this planet of ours, whom God has formed in so kindly a mould that I could almost consent to be ill in order to be nursed by them.

O turtle-eyed affection!
If thou be present--who can be distrest?
Pain seems to smile, and sorrow is at rest:
No more the thoughts in wild repinings roll,
And tender murmurs hush the soften’d soul.

But I will not proceed at this rate, for I am writing and thinking myself fast into the spleen, and feel very obligingly disposed to communicate the same doleful fit to you, my dear sister. Yet permit me to say, it is almost your own fault. You were half angry at my writing _laughing nonsense_ to you, and see what you have got in exchange--pale-faced, solemn, stiff-starched stupidity. I must confess, indeed, that the latter is rather more in unison with my present feelings, which from one untoward freak of fortune or other are not of the most comfortable kind. Within this last month I have lost a brother[35] and a friend! But I struggle for cheerfulness--and sometimes, when the sun shines out, I succeed in the effort. This at least I endeavour, not to infect the cheerfulness of others, and not to write my vexations upon my forehead. I read a story lately of an old Greek philosopher, who once harangued so movingly on the miseries of life, that his audience went home and hanged themselves; but he himself (my author adds) lived many years afterwards in very sleek condition.

God love you, my dear Anne! and receive as from a brother the warmest affections of your

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XIX. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.

Wednesday morning, July 28, 1793.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--I left Salisbury on Tuesday morning--should have stayed there longer, but that Ned, ignorant of my coming, had preëngaged himself on a journey to Portsmouth with Skinner. I left Ned well and merry, as likewise his wife, who, by all the Cupids, is a very worthy old lady.[36]

Monday afternoon, Ned, Tatum, and myself sat from four till ten drinking! and then arose as cool as three undressed cucumbers. Edward and I (O! the wonders of this life) disputed with great coolness and forbearance the whole time. We neither of us were _convinced_, though now and then Ned was _convicted_. Tatum umpire sat,

And by decision more embroiled the fray.

I found all well in Exeter, to which place I proceeded directly, as my mother might have been unprepared from the supposition I meant to stay longer in Salisbury. I shall dine with James to-day at brother Phillips’.[37]

My ideas are so discomposed by the jolting of the coach that I can write no more at present.

A piece of gallantry!

I presented a moss rose to a lady. Dick Hart[38] asked her if she was not afraid to put it in her bosom, as perhaps there might be love in it. I immediately wrote the following little ode or song or what you please to call it.[39] It is of the namby-pamby genus.

THE ROSE.

As late each flower that sweetest blows
I plucked, the Garden’s pride!
Within the petals of a Rose
A sleeping Love I spied.

Around his brows a beaming wreath
Of many a lucent hue;
All purple glowed his cheek beneath,
Inebriate with dew.

I softly seized the unguarded Power,
Nor scared his balmy rest;
And placed him, caged within the flower,
On Angelina’s breast.

But when unweeting of the guile
Awoke the prisoner sweet,
He struggled to escape awhile
And stamped his faery feet.

Ah! soon the soul-entrancing sight
Subdued the impatient boy!
He gazed! he thrilled with deep delight!
Then clapped his wings for joy.

“And O!” he cried, “of magic kind
What charms this Throne endear!
Some other Love let Venus find--
I’ll fix _my_ empire here.”

An extempore! Ned during the dispute, thinking he had got me down, said, “Ah! Sam! you _blush_!” “Sir,” answered I,

Ten thousand Blushes
Flutter round me drest like little Loves,
And veil my visage with their crimson wings.

There is no meaning in the lines, but we both agreed they were very pretty. If you see Mr. Hussy, you will not forget to present my respects to him, and to his accomplished daughter, who certes is a very sweet young lady.

God bless you and your grateful and affectionate

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XX. TO THE SAME.

[Postmark, August 5, 1793.]

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Since my arrival in the country I have been anxiously expecting a letter from you, nor can I divine the reason of your silence. From the letter to my brother James, a few lines of which he read to me, I am fearful that your silence proceeds from displeasure. If so, what is left for me to do but to grieve? The past is not in my power. For the follies of which I may have been guilty, I have been greatly disgusted; and I trust the memory of them will operate to future consistency of conduct.

My mother is very well,--indeed, better for her illness. Her complexion and eye, the truest indications of health, are much clearer. Little William and his mother are well. My brother James is at Sidmouth. I was there yesterday. He, his wife, and children are well. Frederick is a charming child. Little James had a most providential escape the day before yesterday. As my brother was in the field contiguous to his place he heard two men scream, and turning round saw a horse leap over little James, and then kick at him. He ran up; found him unhurt. The men said that the horse was feeding with his tail toward the child, and looking round ran at him open-mouthed, pushed him down and leaped over him, and then kicked back at him. Their screaming, my brother supposes, prevented the horse from repeating the blow. Brother was greatly agitated, as you may suppose. I stayed at Tiverton about ten days, and got no small kudos among the young belles by complimentary effusions in the poetic way.

A specimen:--

CUPID TURNED CHYMIST.

Cupid, if storying Legends tell aright,
Once framed a rich Elixir of Delight.
A chalice o’er love-kindled flames he fix’d,
And in it Nectar and Ambrosia mix’d:
With these the magic dews which Evening brings,
Brush’d from the Idalian star by faery wings:
Each tender pledge of sacred Faith he join’d,
Each gentler Pleasure of th’ unspotted mind--
Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow,
And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe.
The eyeless Chymist heard the process rise,
The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs;
Sweet sounds transpired, as when the enamor’d dove
Pours the soft murmuring of responsive Love.
The finished work might Envy vainly blame,
And “Kisses” was the precious Compound’s name.
With half the God his Cyprian Mother blest,
And breath’d on Nesbitt’s lovelier lips the rest.

Do you know Fanny Nesbitt? She was my fellow-traveler in the Tiverton diligence from Exeter. [She is], I think, a very pretty girl. The orders for tea are: Imprimis, five pounds of ten shillings green; Item, four pounds of eight shillings green; in all nine pounds of tea.

God bless you and your obliged

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XXI. TO G. L. TUCKETT.[40]

HENLEY, Thursday night, February 6 [1794].

DEAR TUCKETT,--I have this moment received your long letter! The Tuesday before last, an accident of the Reading Fair, our regiment was disposed of for the week in and about the towns within ten miles of Reading, and, as it was not known before we set off to what places we would go, my letters were kept at the Reading post-office till our return. I was conveyed to Henley-upon-Thames, which place our regiment left last Tuesday; but I am ordered to remain on account of these dreadfully troublesome eruptions, and that I might nurse my comrade, who last Friday sickened of the confluent smallpox. So here I am, _videlicet_ the Henley workhouse.[41] It is a little house of one apartment situated in the midst of a large garden, about a hundred yards from the house. It is four strides in length and three in breadth; has four windows, which look to all the winds. The almost total want of sleep, the putrid smell, and the fatiguing struggles with my poor comrade during his delirium are nearly too much for me in my present state. In return I enjoy external peace, and kind and respectful behaviour from the people of the workhouse. Tuckett, your motives must have been excellent ones; how could they be otherwise! As an _agent_, therefore, you are blameless, but your efforts in my behalf demand my gratitude--_that_ my heart will pay you, into whatever depth of horror your mistaken activity may eventually have precipitated me. As an _agent_, you stand acquitted, but the action was _morally_ base. In an hour of extreme anguish, under the most solemn imposition of secrecy, I entrusted my place and residence to the young men at Christ’s Hospital; the intelligence which you extorted from their imbecility should have remained sacred with you. It lost not the obligation of secrecy by the transfer. But your _motives_ justify you? To the eye of your friendship the divulging might have appeared _necessary_, but what shadow of _necessity_ is there to excuse you in showing my letters--to stab the very heart of confidence. You have acted, Tuckett, so uniformly well that reproof must be new to you. I doubtless shall have offended you. I would to God that I, too, possessed the tender irritableness of unhandled sensibility. Mine is a sensibility gangrened with inward corruption and the keen searching of the air from without. Your gossip with the commanding officer seems so totally useless and unmotived that I almost find a difficulty in believing it.

A letter from my brother George! I feel a kind of pleasure that it is not directed--it lies unopened--am I not already sufficiently miserable? The anguish of those who love me, of him beneath the shadow of whose protection I grew up--does it not plant the pillow with thorns and make my dreams full of terrors? Yet I dare not burn the letter--it seems as if there were a horror in the action. One pang, however acute, is better than long-continued solicitude. My brother George possessed the cheering consolation of conscience--but I am talking I know not what--yet there is a pleasure, doubtless an exquisite pleasure, mingled up in the most painful of our virtuous emotions. Alas! my poor mother! What an intolerable weight of guilt is suspended over my head by a hair on one hand; and if I endure to live--the look ever downward--insult, pity, hell! God or Chaos, preserve me! What but infinite Wisdom or infinite Confusion can do it?

XXII. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.

February 8, 1794.

My more than brother! What shall I say? What shall I write to you? Shall I profess an abhorrence of my past conduct? Ah me! too well do I know its iniquity! But to abhor! this feeble and exhausted heart supplies not so strong an emotion. O my wayward soul! I have been a fool even to madness. What shall I dare to promise? My mind is illegible to myself. I am lost in the labyrinth, the trackless wilderness of my own bosom. Truly may I say, “I am wearied of being saved.” My frame is chill and torpid. The ebb and flow of my hopes and fears has stagnated into recklessness. One wish only can I read distinctly in my heart, that it were possible for me to be forgotten as though I had never been! The shame and sorrow of those who loved me! The anguish of him who protected me from my childhood upwards, the sore travail of her who bore me! Intolerable images of horror! They haunt my sleep, they enfever my dreams! O that the shadow of Death were on my eyelids, that I were like the loathsome form by which I now sit! O that without guilt I might ask of my Maker annihilation! My brother, my brother! pray for me, comfort me, my brother! I am very wretched, and, though my complaint be bitter, my stroke is heavier than my groaning.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XXIII. TO THE SAME.

Tuesday night, February 11, 1794.

I am indeed oppressed, oppressed with the greatness of your love! Mine eyes gush out with tears, my heart is sick and languid with the weight of unmerited kindness. I had intended to have given you a minute history of my thoughts and actions for the last two years of my life. A most severe and faithful history of the heart would it have been--the Omniscient knows it. But I am so universally unwell, and the hour so late, that I must defer it till to-morrow. To-night I shall have a bed in a separate room from my comrade, and, I trust, shall have repaired my strength by sleep ere the morning. For eight days and nights I have not had my clothes off. My comrade is not dead; there is every hope of his escaping death. Closely has he been pursued by the mighty hunter! Undoubtedly, my brother, I could wish to return to College; I know what I _must suffer_ there, but deeply do I feel what I _ought_ to suffer. Is my brother James still at Salisbury? I will write to him, to all.

Concerning my emancipation, it appears to me that my discharge can be easily procured by _interest_, with great difficulty by _negotiation_; but of this is not my brother James a more competent judge?

What my future life may produce I dare not anticipate. Pray for me, my brother. I will pray nightly to the Almighty dispenser of good and evil, that his chastisement may not have harrowed my heart in vain. Scepticism has mildewed my hope in the Saviour. I was far from disbelieving the truth of revealed religion, but still far from a steady faith--the “Comforter that should have relieved my soul” was far from me.

Farewell! to-morrow I will resume my pen. Mr. Boyer! indeed, indeed, my heart thanks him; how often in the petulance of satire, how ungratefully have I injured that man!

S. T. COLERIDGE.

XXIV. TO CAPTAIN JAMES COLERIDGE.

February 20, 1794.

In a mind which vice has not utterly divested of sensibility, few occurrences can inflict a more acute pang than the receiving proofs of tenderness and love where only resentment and reproach were expected and deserved. The gentle voice of conscience which had incessantly murmured within the soul then raises its tone and speaks with a tongue of thunder. My conduct towards you, and towards my other brothers, has displayed a strange combination of madness, ingratitude, and dishonesty. But you forgive me. May my Maker forgive me! May the time arrive when I shall have forgiven myself!

With regard to my emancipation, every inquiry I have made, every piece of intelligence I could collect, alike tend to assure me that it may be done by _interest_, but not by negotiation without an expense which I should tremble to write. Forty guineas were offered for a discharge the day after a young man was sworn in, and were refused. His friends made interest, and his discharge came down from the War Office. If, however, negotiation _must_ be first attempted, it will be expedient to write to our colonel--his name is Gwynne--he holds the rank of general in the army. His address is General Gwynne, K. L. D., King’s Mews, London.

My assumed name is Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke, 15th, or King’s Regiment of Light Dragoons, G Troop. My _number_ I do not know. It is of no import. The bounty I received was six guineas and a half; but a light horseman’s bounty is a mere lure; it is expended for him in things which he must have had without a bounty--gaiters, a pair of leather breeches, stable jacket, and shell; horse cloth, surcingle, watering bridle, brushes, and the long etc. of military accoutrement. I _enlisted_ the 2d of December, 1793, was attested and sworn the 4th. I am at present nurse to a sick man, and shall, I believe, stay at Henley another week. There will be a large draught from our regiment to complete our troops abroad. The men were picked out to-day. I suppose I am not one, being a very indocile equestrian. Farewell.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Our regiment is at Reading, and Hounslow, and Maidenhead, and Kensington; our headquarters, Reading, Berks. The commanding officer there, Lieutenant Hopkinson, our adjutant.

TO CAPTAIN JAMES COLERIDGE, Tiverton, Devonshire.

XXV. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.

THE COMPASSES, HIGH WYCOMBE, March 12, 1794.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Accept my poor thanks for the day’s enclosed, which I received safely. I explained the whole matter to the adjutant, who laughed and said I had been used scurvily; he deferred settling the bill till Thursday morning. A Captain Ogle,[42] of our regiment, who is returned from abroad, has taken great notice of me. When he visits the stables at night he always enters into conversation with me, and to-day, finding from the corporal’s report that I was unwell, he sent me a couple of bottles of wine. These things demand my gratitude. I wrote last week--_currente calamo_--a declamation for my friend Allen on the comparative good and evil of novels. The credit which he got for it I should almost blush to tell you. All the fellows have got copies, and they meditate having it printed, and dispersing it through the University. The best part of it I built on a sentence in a last letter of yours, and indeed, I wrote most part of it _feelingly_.

I met yesterday, smoking in the recess, a chimney corner of the pot-house[43] at which I am quartered, a man of the greatest information and most original genius I ever lit upon. His philosophical theories of heaven and hell would have both amused you and given you hints for much speculation. He solemnly assured me that he believed himself divinely inspired. He slept in the same room with me, and kept me awake till three in the morning with his ontological disquisitions. Some of the ideas would have made, you shudder from their daring impiety, others would have astounded with their sublimity. My memory, tenacious and systematizing, would enable [me] to write an octavo from his conversation. “I find [says he] from the intellectual atmosphere that emanes from, and envelops you, that you are in a state of recipiency.” He was deceived. I have little faith, yet am wonderfully fond of speculating on mystical schemes. Wisdom may be gathered from the maddest flights of imagination, as medicines were stumbled upon in the wild processes of alchemy. God bless you. Your ever grateful

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Tuesday evening.--I leave this place [High Wycombe] on Thursday, 10 o’clock, for Reading. A letter will arrive in time before I go.

XXVI. TO THE SAME.

Sunday night, March 21, 1794.

I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to feel. Affiliated to you from my childhood, what must be my present situation? But I know you, my dear brother; and I entertain a humble confidence that my efforts in well-doing shall in some measure repay you. There is a _vis inertiæ_ in the human mind--I am convinced that a man once corrupted will ever remain so, unless some sudden revolution, some unexpected change of place or station, shall have utterly altered his connection. When these shocks of adversity have electrified his moral frame, he feels a convalescence of soul, and becomes like a being recently formed from the hands of nature.

The last letter I received from you at High Wycombe was that almost blank letter which enclosed the guinea. I have written to the postmaster. I have breeches and waistcoats at Cambridge, three or four shirts, and some neckcloths, and a few pairs of stockings; the clothes, which, rather from the order of the regiment than the impulse of my necessities, I parted with in Reading on my first arrival at the regiment, I disposed of for a mere trifle, comparatively, and at a small expense can recover them all but my coat and hat. They are gone irrevocably. My shirts, which I have with me, are, all but one, worn to rags--mere rags; their texture was ill-adapted to the labour of the stables.

Shall I confess to you my weakness, my more than brother? I am afraid to meet you. When I call to mind the toil and wearisomeness of your avocations, and think how you sacrifice your amusements and your health; when I recollect your habitual and self-forgetting economy, how generously severe, my soul sickens at its own guilt. A thousand reflections crowd in my mind; they are almost too much for me. Yet you, my brother, would comfort me, not reproach me, and extend the hand of forgiveness to one whose purposes were virtuous, though infirm, and whose energies vigorous, though desultory. Indeed, I long to see you, although I cannot help dreading it.

I mean to write to Dr. Pearce. The letter I will enclose to you. Perhaps it may not be proper to write, perhaps it may be necessary. You will best judge. The discharge should, I think, be sent down to the adjutant--yet I don’t know; it would be more comfortable to me to receive my dismission in London, were it not for the appearing in these clothes.

By to-morrow I shall be enabled to tell the exact expenses of equipping, etc.

I must conclude abruptly. God bless you, and your ever grateful