S. T. COLERIDGE.
Before Coleridge left for Malta, Humphry Davy wrote the following beautiful letter to Coleridge, and Coleridge replied in a letter equally beautiful in its self-portraiture.
Royal Institution, Twelve o'clock, Monday.
My dear Coleridge,
My mind is disturbed, and my body harassed by many labours; yet I cannot suffer you to depart, without endeavouring to express to you some of the unbroken and higher feelings of my spirit, which have you at once for their cause and object.
Years have passed since we first met; and your presence, and recollections in regard to you, have afforded me continued sources of enjoyment. Some of the better feelings of my nature have been elevated by your converse; and thoughts which you have nursed, have been to me an eternal source of consolation.
In whatever part of the world you are, you will often live with me, not as a fleeting idea, but as a recollection possessed of creative energy,—as an imagination winged with fire, inspiring and rejoicing.
You must not live much longer without giving to all men the proof of power, which those who know you feel in admiration. Perhaps at a distance from the applauding and censuring murmurs of the world, you will be best able to execute those great works which are justly expected from you: you are to be the historian of the philosophy of feeling. Do not in any way dissipate your noble nature! Do not give up your birthright!
May you soon recover perfect health—the health of strength and happiness! May you soon return to us, confirmed in all the powers essential to the exertion of genius. You were born for your country, and your native land must be the scene of your activity. I shall expect the time when your spirit, bursting through the clouds of ill health, will appear to all men, not as an uncertain and brilliant flame, but as a fair and permanent light, fixed, though constantly in motion,—as a sun which gives its fire, not only to its attendant planets, but which sends beams from all its parts into all worlds.
May blessings attend you, my dear friend! Do not forget me: we live for different ends, and with different habits and pursuits; but our feelings with regard to each other have, I believe, never altered. They must continue; they can have no natural death; and, I trust, they can never be destroyed by fortune, chance, or accident.