S. T. Coleridge.
CXXXIV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
Christmas Day, 1802.
My dear Southey,—I arrived at Keswick with T. Wedgwood on Friday afternoon, that is to say, yesterday, and had the comfort to find that Sara was safely brought to bed, the morning before, that is on Thursday, half-past six, of a healthy Girl. I had never thought of a girl as a possible event; the words child and man-child were perfect synonyms in my feelings. However, I bore the sex with great fortitude, and she shall be called Sara. Both Mrs. Coleridge and the Coleridgiella are as well as can be. I left the little one sucking at a great rate. Derwent and Hartley are both well.
I was at Cote[277] in the beginning of November, and of course had calculated on seeing you, and, above all, on seeing little Edith’s physiognomy, among the certain things of my expedition, but I had no sooner arrived at Cote than I was forced to quit it, T. Wedgwood having engaged to go into Wales with his sister. I arrived at Cote in the afternoon, and till late evening did not know or conjecture that we were to go off early in the next morning. I do not say this for you,—you must know how earnestly I yearn to see you,—but for Mr. Estlin, who expressed himself wounded by the circumstance. When you see him, therefore, be so good as to mention this to him. I was much affected by Mrs. Coleridge’s account of your health and eyes. God have mercy on us! We are all sick, all mad, all slaves! It is a theory of mine that virtue and genius are diseases of the hypochondriacal and scrofulous genera, and exist in a peculiar state of the nerves and diseased digestion, analogous to the beautiful diseases that colour and variegate certain trees. However, I add, by way of comfort, that it is my faith that the virtue and genius produce the disease, not the disease the virtue, etc., though when present it fosters them. Heaven knows, there are fellows who have more vices than scabs, and scabs countless, with fewer ideas than plaisters. As to my own health it is very indifferent. I am exceedingly temperate in everything, abstain wholly from wine, spirits, or fermented liquors, almost wholly from tea, abjure all fermentable and vegetable food, bread excepted, and use that sparingly; live almost entirely on eggs, fish, flesh, and fowl, and thus contrive not to be ill. But well I am not, and in this climate never shall be. A deeply ingrained though mild scrofula is diffused through me, and is a very Proteus. I am fully determined to try Teneriffe or Gran Canaria, influenced to prefer them to Madeira solely by the superior cheapness of living. The climate and country are heavenly, the inhabitants Papishes, all of whom I would burn with fire and faggot, for what didn’t they do to us Christians under bloody Queen Mary? Oh the Devil sulphur-roast them! I would have no mercy on them, unless they drowned all their priests, and then, spite of the itch (which they have in an inveterate degree, rich and poor, gentle and simple, old and young, male and female), would shake hands with them ungloved.
By way of one impudent half line in this meek and mild letter—will you go with me? “I” and “you” mean mine and yours, of course. Remember you are to give me Thomas Aquinas and Scotus Erigena.
God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
I can have the best letters and recommendation. My love and their sisters to Mary and Edith, and if you see Mrs. Fricker, be so good as to tell her that she will hear from me or Sara in the course of ten days.