God bless you, and
S. T. Coleridge.
CXXXI. TO THE SAME.
Greta Hall, Keswick, Tuesday, September 27, 1802.
My dear Sir,—The river is full, and Lodore is full, and silver-fillets come out of clouds and glitter in every ravine of all the mountains; and the hail lies like snow, upon their tops, and the impetuous gusts from Borrowdale snatch the water up high, and continually at the bottom of the lake it is not distinguishable from snow slanting before the wind—and under this seeming snow-drift the sunshine gleams, and over all the nether half of the Lake it is bright and dazzles, a cauldron of melted silver boiling! It is in very truth a sunny, misty, cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform day, and I have been looking at as pretty a sight as a father’s eyes could well see—Hartley and little Derwent running in the green where the gusts blow most madly, both with their hair floating and tossing, a miniature of the agitated trees, below which they were playing, inebriate both with the pleasure—Hartley whirling round for joy, Derwent eddying, half-willingly, half by the force of the gust,—driven backward, struggling forward, and shouting his little hymn of joy. I can write thus to you, my dear sir, with a confident spirit; for when I received your letter on the 22nd, and had read the “family history,” I laid down the sheet upon my desk, and sate for half an hour thinking of you, dreaming of you, till the tear grown cold upon my cheek awoke me from my reverie. May you live long, long, thus blessed in your family, and often, often may you all sit around one fireside. Oh happy should I be now and then to sit among you—your pilot and guide in some of your summer walks!
“Frigidus ut sylvis Aquilo si increverit, aut si
Hiberni pluviis dependent nubibus imbres,
Nos habeat domus, et multo Lar luceat igne.
Ante focum mihi parvus erit, qui ludat, Iulus,
Blanditias ferat, et nondum constantia verba;
Ipse legam magni tecum monumenta Platonis!”
Or, what would be still better, I could talk to you (and, if you were here now, to an accompaniment of winds that would well suit the subject) instead of writing to you concerning your “Orestes.” When we talk we are our own living commentary, and there are so many running notes of look, tone, and gesture, that there is small danger of being misunderstood, and less danger of being imperfectly understood—in writing; but no! it is foolish to abuse a good substitute because it is not all that the original is,—so I will do my best and, believe me, I consider this letter which I am about to write as merely an exercise of my own judgment—a something that may make you better acquainted, perhaps, with the architecture and furniture of my mind, though it will probably convey to you little or nothing that had not occurred to you before respecting your own tragedy. One thing I beg solicitously of you, that, if anywhere I appear to speak positively, you will acquit me of any correspondent feeling. I hope that it is not a frequent feeling with me in any case, and, that if it appear so, I am belied by my own warmth of manner. In the present instance it is impossible. I have been too deeply impressed by the work, and I am now about to give you, not criticisms nor decisions, but a history of my impressions, and, for the greater part, of my first impressions, and if anywhere there seem anything like a tone of warmth or dogmatism, do, my dear sir, be kind enough to regard it as no more than a way of conveying to you the whole of my meaning; or, for I am writing too seriously, as the dexterous toss, necessary to turn an idea out of its pudding-bag, round and unbroken.
[No signature.]
Several pages of minute criticisms on Sotheby’s “Orestes” form part of the original transcript of the letter.
CXXXII. TO HIS WIFE.
St. Clear, Caermarthen, Tuesday, November 16, 1802.