CLXXXVII. TO CHARLES LAMB.
May 2, 1812.
My dear Charles,—I should almost deserve what I have suffered, if I refused even to put my life in hazard in defence of my own honour and veracity, and in satisfaction of the honour of a friend. I say honour, in the latter instance, singly, because I never felt as a matter of serious complaint, what was stated to have been said (for this, though painfully aggravated, was yet substantially true)—but by WHOM it was said, and to whom, and how and when. Grievously unseasonable therefore as it is, that I should again be overtaken and hurried back by the surge, just as I had begun to feel the firm ground under my feet—just as I had flattered myself, and given reason to my hospitable friends to flatter themselves, that I had regained tranquillity, and had become quite myself—at the time, too, when every thought should be given to my lectures, on the success or failure of my efforts in which no small part of my reputation and future prospects will depend—yet if Wordsworth, upon reflection, adheres to the plan proposed, I will not draw back. It is right, however, that I should state one or two things. First, that it has been my constant desire that evil should not propagate evil—or the unhappy accident become the means of spreading dissension. (2) That I never quarrelled with Mr. Montagu—say rather, for that is the real truth, that Mr. Montagu never was, or appeared to be, a man with whom I could, without self-contempt, allow myself to quarrel—and lastly, that in the present business there are but three possible cases—either (1) Mr. Wordsworth said what I solemnly aver that I most distinctly recollect Mr. Montagu’s representing him as having said, and which I understood, not merely as great unkindness and even cruelty, but as an intentional means of putting an end to our long friendship, or to the terms at least, under which it had for so long a period subsisted—or (2), Mr. Montagu has grossly misrepresented Wordsworth, and most cruelly and wantonly injured me—or (3), I have wantonly invented and deliberately persevered in atrocious falsehoods, which place me in the same relation to Mr. Montagu as (in the second case) Mr. Montagu would stand in to me. If, therefore, Mr. Montagu declares to my face that he did not say what I solemnly aver that he did—what must be the consequence, unless I am a more abject coward than I have hitherto suspected, I need not say. Be the consequences what they may, however, I will not shrink from doing my duty; but previously to the meeting I should very much wish to transmit to Wordsworth a statement which I long ago began, with the intention of sending it to Mrs. Wordsworth’s sister,—but desisted in consequence of understanding that she had already decided the matter against me. My reason for wishing this is that I think it right that Wordsworth should know, and have the means of ascertaining, some conversations which yet I could not publicly bring forward without hazarding great disquiet in a family known (though slightly) to Wordsworth—(2) Because common humanity would embarrass me in stating before a man what I and others think of his wife—and lastly, certain other points which my own delicacy and that due to Wordsworth himself and his family, preclude from being talked of. For Wordsworth ought not to forget that, whatever influence old associations may have on his mind respecting Montagu, yet that I never respected or liked him—for if I had ever in a common degree done so, I should have quarrelled with him long before we arrived in London. Yet all these facts ought to be known—because supposing Montagu to affirm what I am led to suppose he has—then nothing remains but the comparative probability of our two accounts, and for this the state of my feelings towards Wordsworth and his family, my opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, and my previous intention not to lodge with them in town, are important documents as far as they do not rely on my own present assertions. Woe is me, that a friendship of fifteen years should come to this! and such a friendship, in which I call God Almighty to be my witness, as I ever thought it no more than my duty, so did I ever feel a readiness to prefer him to myself, yea, even if life and outward reputation itself had been the pledge required. But this is now vain talking. Be it, however, remembered that I have never wandered beyond the one single complaint, that I had been cruelly and unkindly treated—that I made no charge against my friend’s veracity, even in respect to his charges against me—that I have explained the circumstance to those only who had already more or less perfectly become acquainted with our difference, or were certain to hear of it from others, and that except on this one point, no word of reproach, or even of subtraction from his good name, as a good man, or from his merits as a great man, ever escaped me. May God bless you, my dear Charles.
S. T. Coleridge.