Keswick, November 3, 1802.
Dear Wedgwood,
It is now two hours since I received your letter; and after the necessary consultation, Mrs. Coleridge herself is fully of opinion that to lose time is merely to lose spirits. Accordingly I have resolved not to look the children in the face, (the parting from whom is the downright bitter in the thing) but to go to London by to-morrow's mail. Of course I shall be in London, God permitting, on Saturday morning. I shall rest that day, and the next, and proceed to Bristol by the Monday night's mail. At Bristol I will go to "Cote-House"[1] At all events, barring serious illness, serious fractures, and the et cetera of serious unforeseens, I shall be at Bristol, Tuesday noon, November 9.
You are aware that my whole knowledge of French does not extend beyond the power of limping slowly, not without a dictionary crutch, through an easy French book: and that as to pronunciation, all my organs of speech, from the bottom of the Larynx to the edge of my lips, are utterly and naturally anti-Gallican. If only I shall have been any comfort, any alleviation to you I shall feel myself at ease—and whether you go abroad or no, while I remain with you, it will greatly contribute to my comfort, if I know you will have no hesitation, nor pain, in telling me what you wish me to do, or not to do.
I regard it among the blessings of my life, that I have never lived among men whom I regarded as my artificial superiors: that all the respect I have at any time paid, has been wholly to supposed goodness, or talent. The consequence has been that I have no alarms of pride; no "cheval de frise" of independence. I have always lived among equals. It never occurs to me, even for a moment, that I am otherwise. If I have quarrelled with men, it has been as brothers or as school-fellows quarrel. How little any man can give me, or take from me, save in matters of kindness and esteem, is not so much a thought or conviction with me, or even a distinct feeling, as it is my very nature. Much as I dislike all formal declarations of this kind, I have deemed it well to say this. I have as strong feelings of gratitude as any man. Shame upon me if in the sickness and the sorrow which I have had, and which have been kept unaggravated and supportable by your kindness, and your brother's (Mr. Josiah Wedgwood) shame upon me if I did not feel a kindness, not unmixed with reverence towards you both. But yet I never should have had my present impulses to be with you, and this confidence, that I may become an occasional comfort to you, if, independently of all gratitude, I did not thoroughly esteem you; and if I did not appear to myself to understand the nature of your sufferings; and within the last year, in some slight degree to have felt myself, something of the same.
Forgive me, my dear sir, if I have said too much. It is better to write it than to say it, and I am anxious in the event of our travelling together that you should yourself be at ease with me, even as you would with a younger brother, to whom, from his childhood you had been in the habit of saying, "Do this Col." or "don't do that." All good be with you.
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.[2]
[Footnote: 1 Westbury, near Bristol, the then residence of Mr. JohnWedgwood.]
[Footnote 2: Letters CXXXII-CXXXIV follow 112.]
LETTER 113. To THOMAS WEDGWOOD
Keswick, January 9, 1803.
My dear Wedgwood,
I send you two letters, one from your dear sister, the second from Sharp, by which you will see at what short notice I must be off, if I go to the "Canaries", If your last plan continue in full force, I have not even the phantom of a wish thitherward struggling, but if aught have happened to you, in the things without, or in the world within, to induce you to change the place, or the plan, relatively to me, I think I could raise the money. But I would a thousand-fold rather go with you whithersoever you go. I shall be anxious to hear how you have gone on since I left you. You should decide in favour of a better climate somewhere or other. The best scheme I can think of, is to go to some part of Italy or Sicily, which we both liked. I would look out for two houses. Wordsworth and his family would take the one, and I the other, and then you might have a home either with me, or if you thought of Mr. and Mrs. Luff, under this modification, one of your own; and in either case you would have neighbours, and so return to England when the home sickness pressed heavy upon you, and back to Italy when it was abated, and the climate of England began to poison your comforts. So you would have abroad in a genial climate, certain comforts of society among simple and enlightened men and women; and I should be an alleviation of the pang which you will necessarily feel, as often as you quit your own family.
I know no better plan: for travelling in search of objects is at best a dreary business, and whatever excitement it might have had, you must have exhausted it. God bless you, my dear friend. I write with dim eyes, for indeed, indeed, my heart is very full of affectionate sorrowful thoughts toward you.
I write with difficulty, with all the fingers but one of my right hand very much swollen. Before I was half up the "Kirkstone" mountain, the storm had wetted me through and through, and before I reached the top it was so wild and outrageous, that it would have been unmanly to have suffered the poor woman (guide) to continue pushing on, up against such a torrent of wind and rain: so I dismounted and sent her home with the storm in her back. I am no novice in mountain mischiefs, but such a storm as this was, I never witnessed, combining the intensity of the cold, with the violence of the wind and rain. The rain drops were pelted or slung against my face by the gusts, just like splinters of flint, and I felt as if every drop cut my flesh. My hands were all shrivelled up like a washer-woman's, and so benumbed that I was obliged to carry my stick under my arm. O, it was a wild business! Such hurry skurry of clouds, such volleys of sound! In spite of the wet and the cold, I should have had some pleasure in it, but for two vexations; first, an almost intolerable pain came into my right eye, a smarting and burning pain; and secondly, in consequence of riding with such cold water under my seat, extremely uneasy and burthensome feelings attacked my groin, so that, what with the pain from the one, and the alarm from the other, I had "no enjoyment at all"!
Just at the brow of the hill I met a man dismounted, who could not sit on horse-back. He seemed quite scared by the uproar, and said to me, with much feeling, "O sir, it is a perilous buffeting, but it is worse for you than for me, for I have it at my back." However I got safely over, and immediately all was calm and breathless, as if it was some mighty fountain put on the summit of Kirkstone, that shot forth its volcano of air, and precipitated huge streams of invisible lava down the road to Patterdale.
I went on to Grasmere. [1] I was not at all unwell, when I arrived there, though wet of course to the skin. My right eye had nothing the matter with it, either to the sight of others, or to my own feelings, but I had a bad night, with distressful dreams, chiefly about my eye; and waking often in the dark I thought it was the effect of mere recollection, but it appeared in the morning that my right eye was blood-shot, and the lid swollen. That morning however I walked home, and before I reached Keswick, my eye was quite well, but "I felt unwell all over". Yesterday I continued unusually unwell all over me till eight o'clock in the evening. I took no "laudanum or opium", but at eight o'clock, unable to bear the stomach uneasiness and achings of my limbs, I took two large tea-spoons full of Ether in a wine glass of camphorated gum-water, and a third teaspoon full at ten o'clock, and I received complete relief; my body calmed; my sleep placid; but when I awoke in the morning, my right hand, with three of the fingers, was swollen and inflamed. The swelling in the hand is gone down, and of two of the fingers somewhat abated, but the middle finger is still twice its natural size, so that I write with difficulty. This has been a very rough attack, but though I am much weakened by it, and look sickly and haggard, yet I am not out of heart. Such a 'bout'; such a "periless buffetting," was enough to have hurt the health of a strong man. Few constitutions can bear to be long wet through in intense cold. I fear it will tire you to death to read this prolix scrawled story.
Affectionately dear Friend, Yours ever,
[Footnote 1: The then residence of Mr. Wordsworth. [Cottle.]]
[Footnote 2: Letter CXXXV is our No. 110.]
Friday night, Jan. 14, 1803
Dear Friend,
I was glad at heart to receive your letter, and still more gladdened by the reading of it. The exceeding kindness which it breathed was literally medicinal to me, and I firmly believe, cured me of a nervous rheumatic affection, the acid and the oil, very completely at Patterdale; but by the time it came to Keswick, the oil was all atop.
You ask me, "Why, in the name of goodness, I did not return when I saw the state of the weather?" The true reason is simple, though it may be somewhat strange. The thought never once entered my head. The cause of this I suppose to be, that (I do not remember it at least) I never once in my whole life turned back in fear of the weather. Prudence is a plant, of which I no doubt possess some valuable specimens, but they are always in my hothouse, never out of the glasses, and least of all things would endure the climate of the mountains. In simple earnestness, I never find myself alone, within the embracement of rocks and hills, a traveller up an alpine road, but my spirit careers, drives, and eddies, like a leaf in autumn; a wild activity of thoughts, imaginations, feelings, and impulses of motion rises up from within me; a sort of bottom wind, that blows to no point of the compass, comes from I know not whence, but agitates the whole of me; my whole being is filled with waves that roll and stumble, one this way, and one that way, like things that have no common master. I think that my soul must have pre-existed in the body of a chamois chaser. The simple image of the old object has been obliterated, but the feelings, and impulsive habits, and incipient actions, are in me, and the old scenery awakens them.
The further I ascend from animated nature, from men, and cattle, and the common birds of the woods and fields, the greater becomes in me the intensity of the feeling of life. Life seems to me then an universal spirit, that neither has, nor can have an opposite. "God is everywhere," I have exclaimed, and works everywhere, and where is there room for death? In these moments it has been my creed, that death exists only because ideas exist; that life is limitless sensation; that death is a child of the organic senses, chiefly of the sight; that feelings die by flowing into the mould of the intellect becoming ideas, and that ideas passing forth into action, reinstate themselves again in the world of life. And I do believe that truth lies in these loose generalizations. I do not think it possible that any bodily pains could eat out the love of joy, that is so substantially part of me, towards hills, and rocks, and steep waters; and I have had some trial.
On Monday night I had an attack in my stomach and right side, which in pain, and the length of its continuance appeared to me by far the severest I ever had. About one o'clock the pain passed out of my stomach, like lightning from a cloud, into the extremities of my right foot. My toe swelled and throbbed, and I was in a state of delicious ease, which the pain in my toe did not seem at all to interfere with. On Tuesday I was uncommonly well all the morning, and ate an excellent dinner; but playing too long and too rompingly with Hartley and Derwent, I was very unwell that evening. On Wednesday I was well, and after dinner wrapped myself up warm, and walked with Sarah Hutchinson, to Lodore. I never beheld anything more impressive than the wild outline of the black masses of mountain over Lodore, and so on to the gorge of Borrowdale. Even through the bare twigs of a grove of birch trees, through which the road passes; and on emerging from the grove a red planet, so very red that I never saw a star so red, being clear and bright at the same time. It seemed to have sky behind it. It started, as it were from the heavens, like an eye-ball of fire. I wished aloud at that moment that you had been with me.
The walk appears to have done me good, but I had a wretched night; shocking pains in my head, occiput, and teeth, and found in the morning that I had two blood-shot eyes. But almost immediately after the receipt and perusal of your letter the pains left me, and I am bettered to this hour; and am now indeed as well as usual saving that my left eye is very much blood-shot. It is a sort of duty with me, to be particular respecting facts that relate to my health. I have retained a good sound appetite through the whole of it, without any craving after exhilarants or narcotics, and I have got well as in a moment. Rapid recovery is constitutional with me; but the former circumstances, I can with certainty refer to the system of diet, abstinence from vegetables, wine, spirits, and beer, which I have adopted by your advice.
I have no dread or anxiety respecting any fatigue which either of us is likely to undergo, even in continental travelling. Many a healthy man would have been laid up with such a bout of thorough wet, and intense cold at the same time, as I had at Kirkstone. Would to God that also for your sake I were a stronger man, but I have strong wishes to be with you. I love your society, and receiving much comfort from you, and believing likewise that I receive much improvement, I find a delight very great, my dear friend! indeed it is, when I have reason to imagine that I am in return an alleviation to your destinies, and a comfort to you. I have no fears and am ready to leave home at a two days' warning. For myself I should say two hours, but bustle and hurry might disorder Mrs. Coleridge. She and the three children are quite well.[1]
I grieve that there is a lowering in politics. The 'Moniteur' contains almost daily some bitter abuse of our minister and parliament, and in London there is great anxiety and omening. I have dreaded war from the time that the disastrous fortunes of the expedition to Saint Domingo, under Le Clerc, was known in France. Write me one or two lines, as few as you like.
I remain, my dear Wedgwood, with most affectionate esteem, and grateful attachment,
Your sincere friend,
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.
[Footnote 1: Sara had been born 23rd December 1802.]
Nether Stowey, Feb. 10, 1803.
Dear Wedgwood,
Last night Poole and I fully expected a few lines from you. When the newspaper came in, without your letter, we felt as if a dull neighbour had been ushered in after a knock at the door which had made us rise up and start forward to welcome some long absent friend. Indeed in Poole's case, this simile is less over-swollen than in mine, for in contempt of my convictions and assurance to the contrary, Poole, passing off the Brummagem coin of his wishes for sterling reasons, had persuaded himself fully that he should see you in 'propria persona'. The truth is, we had no right to expect a letter from you, and I should have attributed your not writing to your having nothing to write, to your bodily dislike of writing, or, though with reluctance, to low spirits, but that I have been haunted with the fear that your sister is worse, and that you are at Cote-House, in the mournful office of comforter to your brother. God keep us from idle dreams. Life has enough of real pains.
I wrote to Captain Wordsworth to get me some Bang. The captain in an affectionate letter answers me: "The Bang if possible shall be sent. If any country ship arrives I shall certainly get it. We have not got anything of the kind in our China ships." If you would rather wait till it can be brought by Captain Wordsworth himself from China, give me a line that I may write and tell him. We shall hope for a letter from you to-night. I need not say, dear Wedgwood, how anxious I am to hear the particulars of your health and spirits.
Poole's account of his conversations, etc., in France, are very interesting and instructive. If your inclination lead you hither you would be very comfortable here. But I am ready at an hour's warning; ready in heart and mind, as well as in body and moveables.
I am, dear Wedgwood, most truly yours,
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.
Stowey, Feb. 10, 1803.
My dear Wedgwood,
With regard to myself and my accompanying you, let me say thus much. My health is not worse than it was in the North; indeed it is much better. I have no fears. But if you fear that, my health being what you know it to be, the inconveniences of my being with you will be greater than the advantages; (I feel no reluctance in telling you so) [1] it is so entirely an affair of spirits and feeling that the conclusion must be made by you, not in your reason, but purely in your spirit and feeling. Sorry indeed should I be to know that you had gone abroad with one, to whom you were comparatively indifferent. Sorry if there should be no one with you, who could with fellow-feeling and general like-mindedness, yield you sympathy in your sunshiny moments. Dear Wedgwood, my heart swells within me as it were. I have no other wish to accompany you than what arises immediately from my personal attachment, and a deep sense in my own heart, that let us be as dejected as we will, a week together cannot pass in which a mind like yours would not feel the want of affection, or be wholly torpid to its pleasurable influences. I cannot bear to think of your going abroad with a mere travelling companion; with one at all influenced by salary, or personal conveniences. You will not suspect me of flattering you, but indeed dear Wedgwood, you are too good and too valuable a man to deserve to receive attendance from a hireling, even for a month together, in your present state.
If I do not go with you, I shall stay in England only such time as may be necessary for me to raise the travelling money, and go immediately to the south of France. I shall probably cross the Pyrenees to Bilboa, see the country of Biscay, and cross the north of Spain to Perpignan, and so on to the north of Italy, and pass my next winter at Nice. I have every reason to believe that I can live, even as a traveller, as cheap as I can in England. God bless you. I will repeat no professions, even in the superscription of a letter. You know me, and that it is my serious, simple wish, that in everything respecting me, you would think altogether of yourself, and nothing of me, and be assured that no resolve of yours, however suddenly adopted, or however nakedly communicated, will give me any pain, any at least arising from my own bearings.
Yours ever,
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.
P. S. Perhaps Leslie will go with you.
[Footnote 1: Should be "Feel no reluctance in telling me so."]
Poole's, Feb. 17, 1803.
My dear Wedgwood,
I do not know that I have anything to say that justifies me in troubling you with the postage and perusal of this scrawl. I received a short and kind letter from Josiah last night. He is named the sheriff. Poole, who has received a very kind invitation from your brother John, in a letter of last Monday, and which was repeated in last night's letter, goes with me, I hope in the full persuasion that you will be there (at Cote-House) before he be under the necessity of returning home. Poole is a very, very good man, I like even his incorrigibility in little faults and deficiencies. It looks like a wise determination of nature to let well alone.
Are you not laying out a scheme which will throw your travelling in Italy, into an unpleasant and unwholesome part of the year? From all I can gather, you ought to leave this country at the first of April at the latest. But no doubt you know these things better than I. If I do not go with you, it is very probable we shall meet somewhere or other. At all events you will know where I am, and I can come to you if you wish it. And if I go with you, there will be this advantage, that you may drop me where you like, if you should meet any Frenchman, Italian, or Swiss, whom you liked, and who would be pleasant and profitable to you. But this we can discuss at Gunville.
As to ——,[1] I never doubted that he means to fulfil his engagements with you, but he is one of those weak moralled men, with whom the meaning to do a thing means nothing. He promises with ninety parts out of a hundred of his whole heart, but there is always a speck of cold at the core that transubstantiates the whole resolve into a lie.
I remain in comfortable health,—warm rooms, an old friend, and tranquillity, are specifics for my complaints. With all my ups and downs I have a deal of joyous feeling, and I would with gladness give a good part of it to you, my dear friend. God grant that spring may come to you with healing on her wings.
God bless you, my dear Wedgwood. I remain with most affectionate esteem, and regular attachment, and good wishes.
Yours ever,
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.
P. S. If Southey should send a couple of bottles, one of the red sulphate, and one of the compound acids for me, will you be so good as to bring them with you?
[Footnote 1: Mackintosh.]
Stowey, Feb. 17, 1803.
My dear Wedgwood,
Last night I received a four ounce parcel letter, by the post, which Poole and I concluded was the mistake or carelessness of the servant, who had put the letter into the post office, instead of the coach office. I should have been indignant, if dear Poole had not set me laughing. On opening it, it contained my letter from Gunville, and a small parcel of "Bang," from Purkis. I will transcribe the parts of his letter which relate to it.
Brentford, Feb. 7, 1803.
My dear Coleridge,
I thank you for your letter, and am happy to be the means of obliging you. Immediately on the receipt of yours, I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, who I verily believe is one of the most excellent and useful men of this country, requesting a small quantity of Bang, and saying it was for the use of Mr. T. Wedgwood. I yesterday received the parcel which I now send, accompanied with a very kind letter, and as part of it will be interesting to you and your friend, I will transcribe it. "The Bang you ask for is the powder of the leaves of a kind of hemp that grows in the hot climates. It is prepared, and I believe used, in all parts of the east, from Morocco to China. In Europe it is found to act very differently on different constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme; others it renders torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befal them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said, to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner, more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most skilful chirurgeons. This it may be necessary to have said to my friend Mr. T. Wedgwood, whom I respect much, as his virtues deserve, and I know them well. I send a small quantity only as I possess but little. If however, it is found to agree, I will instantly forward the whole of my stock, and write without delay to Barbary, from whence it came, for more."
Sir Joseph adds, in a postscript: "It seems almost beyond a doubt, that the Nepenthe was a preparation of the Bang, known to the Ancients."
Now I had better take the small parcel with me to Gunville; if I send it by the post, besides the heavy expense, I cannot rely on the Stowey carriers, who are a brace of as careless and dishonest rogues as ever had claims on that article of the hemp and timber trade, called the gallows. Indeed I verily believe that if all Stowey, Ward excepted, does not go to hell, it will be by the supererogation of Poole's sense of honesty.—Charitable!
We will have a fair trial of Bang. Do bring down some of the Hyoscyaminepills, and I will give a fair trial of Opium, Henbane, and Nepenthe.By-the-bye I always considered Homer's account of the Nepenthe as a'Banging' lie.
God bless you, my dear friend, and
[Footnote 1: Letter CXXXVI follows 118.]
The last four letters were written from Stowey, whither Coleridge had gone on a visit to Poole.
During the same period some events had taken place which changed the aspect of things. He had become acquainted with William Sotheby, the poet, translator of Homer and Wieland, to whom he communicated in long letters his views on Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, indicating a widening divergence from his brother poet. He had also made for the satisfaction of Sotheby a translation in blank verse of Gessner's 'Erste Schiffer', which has been lost ('Letters', 369-401). He had likewise paraphrased one of Gessner's Idylls, published as the 'Picture of The Lover's Resolution', in the 'Morning Post' of 6th September 1802. 'Dejection, an Ode', the 'Hymn before Sunrise', and the beautiful dramatic fragment, the 'Night Scene', are the last products of Coleridge's chilled poetic imagination. A third edition (1803) of the Early Poems was issued under the superintendence of Lamb ('Ainger', i, 199-206). He had made a second tour in Wales in company with Tom Wedgwood in November and December 1802 ('Letters', 410-417) returning to find that Sara had been born on 23rd December 1802. In August 1803 Coleridge went on tour to Scotland with the Wordsworths ('Letters', 451, and Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Journal'). It is impossible for us to give all the correspondence of this busy, mental period, but on 4th June 1803, Coleridge writes to Godwin.
LETTER 119. To GODWIN
Saturday Night, June 4, 1803.
Greta Hall, Keswick.
My dear Godwin,
I trust that my dear friend, C. Lamb, will have informed you how seriously ill I have been. I arrived at Keswick on Good Friday, caught the influenza, have struggled on in a series of convalescence and relapse, the disease still assuming new shapes and symptoms; and, though I am certainly better than at any former period of the disease, and more steadily convalescent, yet it is not mere 'low spirits' that makes me doubt whether I shall ever wholly surmount the effects of it. I owe, then, explanation to you, for I quitted town, with strong feelings of affectionate esteem towards you, and a firm resolution to write to you within a short time after my arrival at my home. During my illness I was exceedingly affected by the thought that month had glided away after month, and year after year, and still had found and left me only 'preparing' for the experiments which are to ascertain whether the hopes of those who have hoped proudly of me have been auspicious omens or mere delusions; and the anxiety to realize something, and finish something, has, no doubt, in some measure retarded my recovery. I am now, however, ready to go to the press with a work which I consider as introductory to a 'system', though to the public it will appear altogether a thing by itself. I write now to ask your advice respecting the time and manner of its publication, and the choice of a publisher, I entitle it
'Organum Vera Organum, or an Instrument of Practical Reasoning in theBusiness of Real Life'; [1] to which will be prefixed,1. A familiar introduction to the common system of Logic, namely, thatof Aristotle and the Schools.2. A concise and simple, yet full statement of the Aristotelian Logic,with reference annexed to the authors, and the name and page of the workto which each part may be traced, so that it may be at once seen what isAristotle's, what Porphyry's, what the addition of the GreekCommentators, and what of the Schoolmen.3. An outline of the History of Logic in general,1st Chapter. The Origin of Philosophy in general, and of Logic 'speciatim'.2d Chap. Of the Eleatic and Megaric Logic.3d Chap. of the Platonic Logic.4th Chap, of Aristotle, containing a fair account of the "*[Greek:Orhganon]—of which Dr. Reid, in 'Kaimes' Sketches of Man', has givena most false, and not only erroneous, but calumnious statement—in asfar as the account had not been anticipated in the second part of mywork, namely, the concise and simple, yet full, etc. etc.5th Chap. A philosophical examination of the truth and of the value ofthe Aristotelian System of Logic, including all the after-additions toit.6th Chap. On the characteristic merits and demerits of Aristotle andPlato as philosophers in general, and an attempt to explain the factof the vast influence of the former during so many ages; and of theinfluence of Plato's works on the restoration of the Belles Lettres,and on the Reformation.7th Chap. Raymund Lully.8th Chap. Peter Ramus.9th Chap. Lord Bacon, or the Verulamian Logic. both Chap. Examinationof the same, and comparison of it with the Logic of Plato (in which Iattempt to make it probable that, though considered by Bacon himselfas the antithesis and the antidote of Plato, it is 'bona fide' thesame, and that Plato has been misunderstood).[2]10th Chap. Descartes,11th Chap. Condillac, and a philosophical examination of 'his' logic,'i.e.' the logic which he basely purloined from Hartley.Then follows my own 'Organum Vera Organum', which consists of a*[Greek: Eustaema] of all 'possible' modes of true, probable, and falsereasoning, arranged philosophically, 'i.e.' on a strict analysis ofthose operations and passions of the mind in which they originate, or bywhich they act; with one or more striking instances annexed to each,from authors of high estimation, and to each instance of falsereasoning, the manner in which the sophistry is to be detected, and thewords in which it may be exposed.
The whole will conclude with considerations of the value of the work, or its practical utility in scientific investigations (especially the first part, which contains the strictly demonstrative reasonings, and the analysis of all the acts and passions of the mind which may be employed to the discovery of truth) in the arts of healing, especially in those parts that contain a catalogue, etc. of probable reasoning; lastly, to the senate, the pulpit, and our law courts, to whom the whole—but especially the latter three-fourths of the work, on the probable and the false—will be useful, and finally instructive, how to form a commonplace book by the aid of this Instrument, so as to read with practical advantage, and (supposing average talents) to 'ensure' a facility and rapidity in proving and in computing. I have thus amply detailed the contents of my work, which has not been the labour of one year or of two, but the result of many years' meditations, and of very various reading. The size of the work will, printed at thirty lines a page, form one volume octavo, 500 pages to the volume; and I shall be ready with the first half of the work for the printer at a fortnight's notice. Now, my dear friend, give me your thoughts on the subject: would you have me to offer it to the booksellers, or, by the assistance of my friends, print and publish on my own account? If the former, would you advise me to sell the copyright at once, or only one or more editions? Can you give me a general notion what terms I have a right to insist on in either case? And, lastly, to whom would you advise me to apply? Phillips is a pushing man, and a book is sure to have fair play if it be his 'property'; and it could not be other than pleasant to me to have the same publisher with yourself, 'but'——. Now if there be anything of impatience, that whether truth and justice ought to follow that "'but'" you will inform me. It is not my habit to go to work so seriously about matters of pecuniary business; but my ill health makes my life more than ordinarily uncertain, and I have a wife and three little ones. If your judgment leads you to advise me to offer it to Phillips, would you take the trouble of talking with him on the subject, and give him your real opinion, whatever it may be, of the work and of the powers of the author?
When this book is fairly off my hands, I shall, if I live and have sufficient health, set seriously to work in arranging what I have already written, and in pushing forward my studies and my investigations relative to the 'omne scibile' of human nature—'what' we are, and 'how we become' what we are; so as to solve the two grand problems—how, being acted upon, we shall act; how, acting, we shall be acted upon. But between me and this work there may be death.
I hope your wife and little ones are well. I have had a sick family. At one time every individual—master, mistress, children, and servants—were all laid up in bed, and we were waited on by persons hired from the town for the week. But now all are well, I only excepted. If you find my paper smell, or my style savour of scholastic quiddity, you must attribute it to the infectious quality of the folio on which I am writing—namely, 'Scotus Erigena de Divisione Naturae', the forerunner, by some centuries, of the schoolmen. I cherish all kinds of honourable feelings towards you; and I am, dear Godwin,
Yours most sincerely,
[Footnote 1 Extant in MS. See 'Athenaeum', 26th October 1895.]
[Footnote 2: See the 'Friend', Bohn Library, pp. 319-345.]
You know the high character and present scarcity of 'Tuckers Light of Nature'. "I have found in this writer" (says Paley, in his preface to his 'Moral and Political Philosophy') "more original thinking and observation upon the several subjects he has taken in hand than in any other, not to say in all others put together". His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. But his thoughts are diffused through a long, various, and irregular work. And a friend of mine, every way calculated by his taste and private studies for such a work,[1] is willing to abridge and systematize that work from eight to two volumes—in the words of Paley, "to dispose into method, to collect into heads and articles, and to exhibit in more compact and tangible masses, what in that otherwise excellent performance is spread over too much surface." I would prefix to it an essay containing the whole substance of the first volume of Hartley; entirely defecated from all the corpuscular hypothesis, with more illustrations. I give my name to the essay. Likewise I will revise every sheet of the abridgment. I should think the character of the work, and the above quotations from so high an authority (with the present public, I mean) as Paley, would ensure its success. If you will read or transcribe, and send this to Mr. Phillips, or to any other publisher (Longman and Rees excepted) you would greatly oblige me; that is to say, my dear Godwin, you would essentially serve a young man of profound genius and original mind, who wishes to get his 'Sabine' subsistence by some employment from the booksellers, while he is employing the remainder of his time in nursing up his genius for the destiny which he believes appurtenant to it. "Qui cito facit, bis facit." Impose any task on me in return. [2]
[Footnote 1: Hazlitt. The abridgment was made, and published in 1807.]
[Footnote 2: Letter CXXXVII follows 119.]
Godwin published his 'Life of Chaucer' in 1803. The next letter refers to this work.
Friday, July 10, 1803.
Greta Hall.
My dear Godwin,
Your letter has this moment reached me, and found me writing for Stuart, to whom I am under a positive engagement to produce three essays by the beginning of next week. To promise, therefore, to do what I could not do would be worse than idle; and to attempt to do what I could not do well, from distraction of mind, would be trifling with my time and your patience. If I could convey to you any tolerably distinct notion of the state of my spirits of late, and the train or the sort of my ideas consequent on that state, you would feel instantly that my non-performance of the promise is matter of 'regret' with me indeed, but not of 'compunction'. It was my full intention to have prepared immediately a second volume of poems for the press; but, though the poems are all either written or composed, excepting only the conclusion of one poem (equal to four days' common work) and a few corrections, and though I had the most pressing motives for sending them off, yet after many attempts I was obliged to give up the very hope—the attempts acted so perniciously on my disorder.
Wordsworth, too, wished, and in a very particular manner expressed the wish, that I should write to him at large on a poetic subject, which he has at present 'sub malleo ardentem et ignitum'. I made the attempt, but I could not command my recollections. It seemed a dream that I had ever 'thought' on poetry, or had ever written it, so remote were my trains of ideas from composition or criticism on composition. These two instances will, in some manner, explain my non-performance; but, indeed, I have been very ill, and that I have done anything in any way is a subject of wonder to myself, and of no causeless self-complacency. Yet I am anxious to do something which may convince you of my sincerity by zeal: and, if you think that it will be of any service to you, I will send down for the work; I will instantly give it a perusal 'con amore'; and partly by my reverential love of Chaucer, and partly from my affectionate esteem for his biographer (the summer, too, bringing increase of health with it), I doubt not that my old mind will recur to me; and I will forthwith write a series of letters, containing a critique on Chaucer, and on the 'Life of Chaucer', by W. Godwin, and publish them, with my name, either at once in a small volume, or in the 'Morning Post' in the first instance, and republish them afterwards.
The great thing to be done is to present Chaucer stripped of all his adventitious matter, his translations, etc.; to analyse his own real productions, to deduce his province and his rank; then to compare him with his contemporaries, or with immediate prede- and suc- cessors, first as an Englishman, and secondly as a European; then with Spenser and with Shakespeare, between whom he seems to stand mid-way, with, however, a manner of his own which belongs to neither, with a manner and an excellence; lastly, to compare Dante and Chaucer, and inclusively Spenser and Shakespere, with the ancients, to abstract the characteristic differences, and to develop the causes of such differences. (For instance, in all the writings of the ancients I recollect nothing that, strictly examined, can be called humour; yet Chaucer abounds with it, and Dante, too, though in a very different way. Thus, too, the passion for personifications and, "me judice", strong, sharp, practical good sense, which I feel to constitute a strikingly characteristic difference in favour of the "feudal" poets.) As to information, I could give you a critical sketch of poems, written by contemporaries of Chaucer, in Germany; an epic to compare with his "Palamon", and tales with his Tales, descriptive and fanciful poems with those of the same kind in our own poet. In short, a Life of Chaucer ought, in the work itself, and in the appendices of the work, to make the poet explain his age, and to make the age both explain the poet, and evince the superiority of the poet over his age. I think that the publication of such a work would do "your" work some little service, in more ways than one. It would occasion, necessarily, a double review of it in all the Reviews; and there is a large class of fashionable men who have been pleased of late to take me into high favour, and among whom even my name might have some influence, and my praises of you weight. But let me hear from you on the subject.
Now for my own business. As soon as you possibly can do something respecting the abridgment of Tucker,[1] do so; you will, on my honour, be doing "good", in the best sense of the word! Of course I cannot wish you to do anything till after the 24th, unless it should be "put" in your way to read that part of the letter to Phillips.
As to my own work, let me correct one or two conceptions of yours respecting it. I could, no doubt, induce my friends to publish the work for me, but I am possessed of facts that deter me. I know that the booksellers not only do not encourage, but that they use unjustifiable artifices to injure works published on the authors' own account. It never answered, as far as I can find, in any instance. And even the sale of a first edition is not without objections on this score—to this, however, I should certainly adhere, and it is my resolution. But I must do something immediately. Now, if I knew that any bookseller would purchase the first edition of this work, as numerous as he pleased, I should put the work out of hand at once, "totus in illo". But it was never my intention to send one single sheet to the press till the whole was "bona fide" ready for the printer—that is, both written, and fairly written. The work is half written "out", and the materials of the other half are all in paper, or rather on papers. I should not expect one farthing till the work was delivered entire; and I would deliver it at once, if it were wished. But, if I cannot engage with a bookseller for this, I must do something else "first", which I should be sorry for. Your division of the sorts of works acceptable to booksellers is just, and what has been always my own notion or rather knowledge; but, though I detailed the whole of the contents of my work so fully to you, I did not mean to lay any stress with the bookseller on the first half, but simply state it as preceded by a familiar introduction, and critical history of logic. On the work itself I meant to lay all the stress, as a work really in request, and non-existent, either well or ill-done, and to put the work in the "same class" with "Guthrie" and books of practical instruction—for the universities, classes of scholars, lawyers, etc. etc. Its profitable sale will greatly depend on the pushing of the booksellers, and on its being considered as a "practical" book, "Organum vere Organum", a book by which the reader is to acquire not only knowledge, but likewise "power". I fear that it may extend to seven hundred pages; and would it be better to publish the Introduction of History separately, either after or before? God bless you, and all belonging to you, and your Chaucer. All happiness to you and your wife.
Ever yours, S. T. C.
P.S. If you read to Phillips any part of my letter respecting my own work, or rather detailed it to him, you would lay all the stress on the "practical".
[Footnote 1: Godwin exerted himself actively in the matter, as appears by the correspondence of Charles Lamb.]
The ambitious scheme of the letters to Godwin did not exhaustColeridge's projects at this season. To Southey he wrote:
LETTER 121. To SOUTHEY [1]
Keswick, July, 1803.
My dear Southey,
… I write now to propose a scheme, or rather a rude outline of a scheme, of your grand work. What harm can a proposal do? If it be no pain to you to reject it, it will be none to me to have it rejected. I would have the work entitled "Bibliotheca Britannica", or an History of British Literature, bibliographical, biographical, and critical. The two "last" volumes I would have to be a chronological catalogue of all noticeable or extant books; the others, be the number six or eight, to consist entirely of separate treatises, each giving a critical biblio-biographical history of some one subject. I will, with great pleasure, join you in learning Welsh and Erse: and you, I, Turner, and Owen, might dedicate ourselves for the first half year to a complete history of all Welsh, Saxon, and Erse books that are not translations, that are the native growth of Britain. If the Spanish neutrality continues, I will go in October or November to Biscay, and throw light on the Basque.
Let the next volume contain the history of "English" poetry and poets, in which I would include all prose truly poetical. The first half of the second volume should be dedicated to great single names, Chaucer and Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton and Taylor, Dryden and Pope; the poetry of witty logic,—Swift, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne: I write "par hasard", but I mean to say all great names as have either formed epochs in our taste, or such, at least, as are representative; and the great object to be in each instance to determine, first, the true merits and demerits of the "books"; secondly, what of these belong to the age—what to the author "quasi peculium". The second half of the second volume should be a history of poetry and romances, everywhere interspersed with biography, but more flowing, more consecutive, more bibliographical, chronological, and complete. The third volume I would have dedicated to English prose, considered as to style, as to eloquence, as to general impressiveness; a history of styles and manners, their causes, their birth-places and parentage, their analysis.
These three volumes would be so generally interesting, so exceedingly entertaining, that you might bid fair for a sale of the work at large. Then let the fourth volume take up the history of metaphysics, theology, medicine, alchemy, common, canon, and Roman law, from Alfred to Henry VII.; in other words, a history of the dark ages in Great Britain. The fifth volume—carry on metaphysics and ethics to the present day in the first half; the second half, comprise the theology of all the reformers. In the fourth volume there would be a grand article on the philosophy of the theology of the Roman Catholic religion. In this (fifth volume), under different names,—Hooker, Baxter, Biddle, and Fox,—the spirit of the theology of all the other parts of Christianity. The sixth and seventh volumes must comprise all the articles you can get, on all the separate arts and sciences that have been treated of in books since the Reformation; and, by this time, the book, if it answered at all, would have gained so high a reputation, that you need not fear having whom you liked to write the different articles—medicine, surgery, chemistry, etc., etc., navigation, travellers, voyagers, etc., etc. If I go into Scotland, shall I engage Walter Scott to write the history of Scottish poets? Tell me, however, what you think of the plan. It would have one prodigious advantage: whatever accident stopped the work, would only prevent the future good, not mar the past; each volume would be a great and valuable work "per se". Then each volume would awaken a new interest, a new set of readers, who would buy the past volumes of course; then it would allow you ample time and opportunities for the slavery of the catalogue volumes, which should be at the same time an index to the work, which would be, in very truth, a pandect of knowledge, alive and swarming with human life, feeling, incident. By the bye, what a strange abuse has been made of the word encyclopaedia! It signifies, properly, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and ethics and metaphysics, which last, explaining the ultimate principles of grammar—log., rhet., and eth.—formed a circle of knowledge. * * * To call a huge unconnected miscellany of the "omne scibile", in an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters, an encyclopaedia, is the impudent ignorance of your Presbyterian bookmakers. Good night!
God bless you! S. T. C.
[Footnote 1: Southey's biographer says regarding this scheme: "Soon after the date of the letter, my father paid a short visit to London, the chief purpose of which was to negotiate with Messrs. Longman and Rees respecting 'the management of a "Bibliotheca Britannica" upon a very extensive scale, to be arranged chronologically, and made a readable book by biography, criticism, and connecting chapters, to be published like the Cyclopaedia in parts.'"]
Bristol, Aug. 3, 1803.
Dear Coleridge,
I meant to have written sooner; but those little units of interruption and preventions, which sum up to as ugly an aggregate as the items in a lawyer's bill, have come in the way. …
Your plan is too good, too gigantic, quite beyond my powers. If you had my tolerable state of health, and that love of steady and productive employment which is now grown into a necessary habit with me, if you were to execute and would execute it, it would be, beyond all doubt, the most valuable work of any age or any country; but I cannot fill up such an outline. No man can better feel where he fails than I do; and to rely upon you for whole quartos! Dear Coleridge, the smile that comes with that thought is a very melancholy one; and if Edith saw me now, she would think my eyes were weak again, when, in truth, the humour that covers them springs from another cause.
For my own comfort, and credit, and peace of mind, I must have a plan which I know myself strong enough to execute. I can take author by author as they come in their series, and give his life and an account of his works quite as well as ever it has yet been done. I can write connecting paragraphs and chapters shortly and pertinently, in my way; and in this way the labour of all my associates can be more easily arranged. … And, after all, this is really nearer the actual design of what I purport by a bibliotheca than yours would be,—a book of reference, a work in which it may be seen what has been written upon every subject in the British language: this has elsewhere been done in the dictionary form; whatever we get better than that form—"ponemus lucro". [1]
[Footnote 1: Letter CXXXVIII is our 121. CXXXIX-CXLII follow 121.]
To Thomas Wedgwood Coleridge, on his return from the Scotch tour, wrote:
LETTER 122. To THOMAS WEDGWOOD
Keswick, September 16, 1803.
My dear Wedgwood,
I reached home on yesterday noon. William Hazlitt, is a thinking, observant, original man; of great power as a painter of character-portraits, and far more in the manner of the old painters than any living artist, but the objects must be before him. He has no imaginative memory; so much for his intellectuals. His manners are to ninety-nine in one hundred singularly repulsive; brow-hanging; shoe-contemplating—strange. Sharp seemed to like him, but Sharp saw him only for half an hour, and that walking. He is, I verily believe, kindly-natured: is very fond of, attentive to, and patient with children, but he is jealous, gloomy, and of an irritable pride. With all this there is much good in him. He is disinterested; an enthusiastic lover of the great men who have been before us. He says things that are his own, in a way of his own: and though from habitual shyness, and the outside of bear skin, at least of misanthropy, he is strangely confused and dark in his conversation, and delivers himself of almost all his conceptions with a "Forceps", yet he "says" more than any man I ever knew (you yourself only excepted) of that which is his own, in a way of his own; and often times when he has warmed his mind, and the juice is come out, and spread over his spirits, he will gallop for half an hour together, with real eloquence. He sends well-feathered thoughts straight forward to the mark with a twang of the bow-string. If you could recommend him as a portrait painter, I should be glad. To be your companion, he is, in my opinion utterly unfit. His own health is fitful.
I have written as I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person (for your travelling companion)—what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all new acquaintance.
To live beloved is all I need,And when I love, I love indeed.
I never had any ambition, and now, I trust I have almost as little vanity.
For five months past my mind has been strangely shut up. I have taken the paper with the intention to write to you many times, but it has been one blank feeling;—one blank idealess feeling. I had nothing to say;—could say nothing. How dearly I love you, my very dreams make known to me. I will not trouble you with the gloomy tale of my health. When I am awake, by patience, employment, effort of mind, and walking, I can keep the Fiend at arm's length, but the night is my Hell!—sleep my tormenting Angel. Three nights out of four, I fall asleep, struggling to lie awake, and my frequent night-screams have almost made me a nuisance in my own house. Dreams with me are no shadows, but the very calamities of my life. * * *
In the hope of drawing the gout, if gout it should be, into my feet, I walked previously to my getting into the coach at Perth, 263 miles, in eight days, with no unpleasant fatigue; and if I could do you any service by coming to town, and there were no coaches, I would undertake to be with you, on foot in seven days. I must have strength somewhere. My head is indefatigably strong: my limbs too are strong: but acid or not acid, gout or not gout, something there is in my stomach. * * *
To diversify this dusky letter, I will write an "Epitaph", which I composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying. To the best of my recollection I have not altered a word.
Here sleeps at length poor Col. and without screamingWho died, as he had always lived, a dreaming:Shot dead, while sleeping, by the gout within,Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.
It was Tuesday night last, at the Black Bull, Edinburgh. Yours, dearWedgwood, gratefully, and
Most affectionately,
Thomas Wedgwood, Esq.
The character of Hazlitt in this letter is as good as anything in LaBruyere. The next letter (without date in Cottle's "Reminiscences", butwhich must be 1803) is to Miss Cruikshank, of Nether Stowey. ThePenelope referred to is Penelope Poole, the cousin of Tom Poole.
LETTER 123. To MISS CRUIKSHANK
(No date, supposed to be 1803.[1])
My dear Miss Cruikshank,
With the kindest intentions, I fear you have done me some little disservice, in borrowing the first edition of my poems from Miss B—. I never held any principles indeed, of which, considering my age, I have reason to be ashamed. The whole of my public life may be comprised in eight or nine months of my 22nd year; and the whole of my political sins during that time, consisted in forming a plan of taking a large farm in common, in America, with other young men of my age. A wild notion indeed, but very harmless.
As to my principles, they were, at all times, decidedly anti-jacobin and anti-revolutionary, and my American scheme is a proof of this. Indeed at that time, I seriously held the doctrine of passive obedience, though a violent enemy of the first war. Afterwards, and for the last ten years of my life, I have been fighting incessantly in the good cause, against French ambition, and French principles; and I had Mr. Addington's suffrage, as to the good produced by my Essays, written in the "Morning Post", in the interval of the peace of Amiens, and the second war, together with my two letters to Mr. Fox. [2]
Of my former errors, I should be no more ashamed, than of my change of body, natural to increase of age; but in that first edition, there was inserted (without my consent!) a Sonnet to Lord Stanhope, in direct contradiction, equally, to my "then", as to my present principles. A Sonnet written by me in ridicule and mockery of the bloated style of French jacobinical declamation, and inserted by Biggs, (the fool of a printer,) in order forsooth, that he might send the book, and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who, to prove that he was not mad in all things, treated both book and letter with silent contempt. I have therefore sent Mr. Poole's second edition, and if it be in your power, I could wish you to read the "dedication to my brother," at the beginning, to Lady E. Perceval, to obtain whose esteem, so far at least as not to be confounded with the herd of vulgar mob flatterers, I am not ashamed to confess myself solicitous.
I would I could be with you, and your visitors. Penelope, you know, is very high in my esteem. With true warmth of heart, she joins more strength of understanding; and, to steady principle, more variety of accomplishments, than it has often been my lot to meet with among the fairer sex. When I praise one woman to another I always mean a compliment to both. My tenderest regards to your dear mother, whom I really long to spend a few hours with, and believe me with sincere good wishes,
Yours, etc.,
[Footnote 1: Dated "1807" in "Early Recollections".]
[Footnote 2: It appears from Sir James Macintosh's Life, published by his son, that a diminution of respect towards Sir James was entertained by Mr. Fox, arising from the above two letters of Mr. Coleridge, which appeared in the "Morning Post". Some enemy of Sir James had informed Mr. Fox that these two letters were written by Macintosh, and which exceedingly wounded his mind. Before the error could be corrected, Mr. Fox died. This occurrence was deplored by Sir James, in a way that showed his deep feeling of regret, but which, as might be supposed, did not prevent him from bearing the amplest testimony to the social worth and surpassing talents of that great statesman. Mr. Coleridge's Bristol friends will remember that once Mr. Fox was idolized by him as the paragon of political excellence; and Mr. Pitt depressed in the same proportion. [Note by Cottle.]]
[Footnote 3: Letter CXLIII follows 123.]
In the beginning of 1804 we find Coleridge in London, whither Poole, too, had gone to superintend the compilation of an Abstract on the condition of the Poor Laws.
16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804.
My dear friend,
Some divines hold, that with God to think, and to create, are one and the same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write with me, I should have written as much too much as I have written too little. The whole truth of the matter is, that I have been very, very ill. Your letter remained four days unread, I was so ill. What effect it had upon me I cannot express by words. It lay under my pillow day after day. I should have written forty times, but as it often and often happens with me, my heart was too full, and I had so much to say that I said nothing. I never received a delight that lasted longer upon me—"Brooded on my mind and made it pregnant," than (from) the six last sentences of your last letter,—which I cannot apologize for not having answered, for I should be casting calumnies against myself; for, for the last six or seven weeks, I have both thought and felt more concerning you, and relating to you, than of all other men put together.
Somehow or other, whatever plan I determined to adopt, my fancy, good-natured pander of our wishes, always linked you on to it; or I made it your plan, and linked myself on. I left my home, December 20, 1803, intending to stay a day and a half at Grasmere, and then to walk to Kendal, whither I had sent all my clothes and viatica; from thence to go to London, and to see whether or no I could arrange my pecuniary matters, so as leaving Mrs. Coleridge all that was necessary to her comforts, to go myself to Madeira, having a persuasion, strong as the life within me, that one winter spent in a really warm, genial climate, would completely restore me. Wordsworth had, as I may truly say, forced on me a hundred pounds, in the event of my going to Madeira; and Stuart had kindly offered to befriend me. During the days and affrightful nights of my disease, when my limbs were swollen, and my stomach refused to retain the food—taken in in sorrow, then I looked with pleasure on the scheme: but as soon as dry frosty weather came, or the rains and damps passed off, and I was filled with elastic health, from crown to sole, then the thought of the weight of pecuniary obligation from so many people reconciled me; but I have broken off my story.
I stayed at Grasmere (Mr. Wordsworth's) a month; three fourths of the time bed-ridden;—and deeply do I feel the enthusiastic kindness of Wordsworth's wife and sister, who sat up by me, one or the other, in order to awaken me at the first symptoms of distressful feeling; and even when they went to rest, continued often and often to weep and watch for me even in their dreams. I left them January the 14th, and have spent a very pleasant week at Dr. Crompton's, at Liverpool, and arrived in London, at Poole's lodgings, last night at eight o'clock.
Though my right hand is so much swollen that I can scarcely keep my pen steady between my thumb and finger, yet my stomach is easy, and my breathing comfortable, and I am eager to hope all good things of my health. That gained, I have a cheering, and I trust prideless confidence that I shall make an active, and perseverant use of the faculties and requirements that have been entrusted to my keeping, and a fair trial of their height, depth, and width. Indeed I look back on the last four months with honest pride, seeing how much I have done, with what steady attachment of mind to the same subject, and under what vexations and sorrows, from without, and amid what incessant sufferings. So much of myself. When I know more, I will tell you more.
I find you are still at Cote-house. Poole tells me you talk of Jamaica as a summer excursion. If it were not for the voyage, I would that you would go to Madeira, for from the hour I get on board the vessel, to the time that I once more feel England beneath my feet, I am as certain as past and present experience can make me, that I shall be in health, in high health; and then I am sure, not only that I should be a comfort to you, but that I should be so without diminution of my activity, or professional usefulness. Briefly, dear Wedgwood! I truly and at heart love you, and of course it must add to my deeper and moral happiness to be with you, if I can be either assistance or alleviation. If I find myself so well that I defer my Madeira plan, I shall then go forthwith to Devonshire to see my aged mother, once more before she dies, and stay two or three months with my brothers. But, wherever I am, I never suffer a day, (except when I am travelling) to pass without doing something.
Poole made me promise that I would leave one side for him. God bless him! He looks so worshipful in his office, among his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes' good spirits to look in upon him. Pray you as soon as you can command your pen, give me half a score lines, and now that I am loose, say whether or no I can be any good to you.
[Footnote 1: Letters CXLIV-CXLVI follow 124.]