CLXXII. TO THOMAS WILKINSON.[51]
Grasmere, December 31, 1808.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for your exertions in my behalf, and—which more deeply interests me—for the openness with which you have communicated your doubts and apprehensions. So much, indeed, am I interested, that I cannot lay down my head on my pillow in perfect tranquillity, without endeavoring to remove them. First, however, I must tell you that ... “The Friend” will not appear at the time conditionally announced. There are, besides, great difficulties at the Stamp Office concerning it. But the particulars I will detail when we meet. Myself, with William Wordsworth and the family, are glad that we are so soon to see you. Now then for what is so near my heart. Only a certain number of prospectuses were printed at Kendal, and sent to acquaintances. The much larger number, which were to have been printed at London, have not been printed. When they are, you will see in the article, noted in this copy, that I neither intend to omit, nor from any fear of offence have scrupled to announce my intention of treating, the subject of religion. I had supposed that the words “speculative gloom” would have conveyed this intention. I had inserted another article, which I was induced to omit, from the fear of exciting doubts and queries. This was: On the transition of natural religion into revelation, or the principle of internal guidance: and the grounds of the possibility of the connection of spiritual revelation with historic events; that is, its manifestation in the world of the senses. This meant as a preliminary—leaving, as already performed by others, the proof of the reality of this connection in the particular fact of Christianity. Herein I wished to prove only that true philosophy rather leads to Christianity, than contained anything preclusive of it, and therefore adopted the phrase used in the definition of philosophy in general: namely, The science which answers the question of things actual, how they are possible? Thus the laws of gravitation illustrate the possibility of the motion of the heavenly bodies, the action of the lever, etc.; the reality of which was already known. I mention this, because the argument assigned which induced me to omit it in a prospectus was, that by making a distinction between revelation in itself (i. e. a principle of internal supernatural guidance), and the same revelation conjoined with the power of external manifestation by supernatural works, would proclaim me to be a Quaker, and “The Friend” as intended to propagate peculiar and sectarian principles. Think then, dear Friend! what my regret was at finding that you had taken it for granted that I denied the existence of an internal monitor! I trust I am neither of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas; but of Christ. Yet I feel reverential gratitude toward those who have conveyed the spirit of Christ to my heart and understanding so as to afford light to the latter and vital warmth to the former. Such gratitude I owe and feel toward W. Penn. Take his Preface to G. Fox’s Journal, and his Letter to his Son,—if they contain a faithful statement of genuine Christianity according to your faith, I am one with you. I subscribe to each and all of the principles therein laid down; and by them I propose to try, and endeavour to justify, the charge made by me (my conscience bears me witness) in the spirit of entire love against some passages of the journals of later Friends. Oh—and it is a groan of earnest aspiration! a strong wish of bitter tears and bitter self-dissatisfaction,—Oh that in all things, in self-subjugation, unwearied beneficence, and unfeigned listening and obedience to the Voice within, I were as like the evangelic John Woolman, as I know myself to be in the belief of the existence and the sovran authority of that Voice! When we meet, I will endeavour to be wholly known to you as I am, in principle at least.
A few words more. Unsuspicious of the possibility of misunderstanding, I had inserted in this prospectus Dress and Dancing among the fine Arts, the principles common to which I was to develope. Now surely anything common to Dress or Dancing with Architecture, Gardening, and Poetry could contain nothing to alarm any man who is not alarmed by Gardening, Poetry, etc., and secondly, principles common to Poetry, Music, etc., etc., could hardly be founded in the ridiculous hopping up and down in a modern ball-room, or the washes, paints, and patches of a fine lady’s toilet. It is well known how much I admired Thomas Clarkson’s Chapter on Dancing. The truth is, that I referred to the drapery and ornamental decoration of Painting, Statuary, and the Greek Spectacles; and to the scientific dancing of the ancient Greeks, the business of a life confined to a small class, and placed under the direction of particular magistrates. My object was to prove the truth of the principles by shewing that even dress and dancing, when the ingenuity and caprice of man had elaborated them into Fine Arts, were bottomed in the same principles. But desirous even to avoid suspicion, the passage will be omitted in the future prospectuses. Farewell! till we meet.
S. T. Coleridge. See P. S.
P. S. Do you not know enough of the world to be convinced that by declaring myself a warm defender of the Established Church against all sectarians, or even by attacking Quakerism in particular as a sect hateful to the bigots of the day from its rejection of priesthood and outward sacraments, I should gain twenty subscribers to one? It shocks me even to think that so mean a motive could be supposed to influence me. I say aloud everywhere, that in the essentials of their faith I believe as the Quakers do, and so I make enemies of the Church, of the Calvinists, and even of the Unitarians. Again, I declare my dissatisfaction with several points both of notion and of practice among the present Quakers—I dare not conceal my convictions—and therefore receive little good opinion even from those, with whom I most accord. But Truth is sacred.
CLXXIII. TO THOMAS POOLE.
Grasmere, Kendal, February 3, 1809.
My dearest Poole,—For once in my life I shall have been blamed by you for silence, indolence, and procrastination without reason. Even now I write this letter on a speculation, for I am to take it with me to-morrow to Kendal, and if I can bring the proposed printer and publisher to final terms, to put it into the post. It would be a tiresome job were I to detail to you all the vexations, hindrances, scoundrelisms, disappointments, and pros and cons that, without the least fault or remissness on my part, have rendered it impracticable to publish “The Friend” till the first week of March. The whole, however, is now settled, provided that Pennington (a worthy old bookseller and printer of Kendal, but a genius and mightily indifferent about the affairs of this life, both from that cause and from age, and from being as rich as he wishes) will become, as he has almost promised, the printer and publisher.[52]
“The Friend” will be stamped as a newspaper and under the Newspaper Act, which will take 3½d. from each shilling, but enable the essay to pass into all parts and corners of the Empire without expense or trouble. It will be so published as to appear in London every Saturday morning, and be sent off from the Kendal post to every part of the Kingdom by the Thursday morning’s post. I hope that Mr. Stuart will have the prospectuses printed by this time,—at all events, within a day or two after your receipt of this letter you will receive a parcel of them. The money is to be paid to the bookseller, the agent, in the next town, once in twenty weeks, where there are several subscribers in the same vicinity; otherwise, [it] must be remitted to me direct. This is the ugliest part of the business: but there is no getting over it without a most villainous diminution of my profits. You will, I know, exert yourself to procure me as many names as you can, for if it succeeds, it will almost make me.