My dear Southey,—The awful event of yester-afternoon has forced me to defer my Lectures to Tuesday, the 19th, by advice of all my patrons. The same thought struck us all at the same moment, so that our letters might be said to meet each other. I write now to urge you, if it be in your power, to give one day or two of your time to write something in your impressive way on that theme which no one I meet seems to feel as they ought to do,—which, I find scarcely any but ourselves estimate according to its true gigantic magnitude—I mean the sinking down of Jacobinism below the middle and tolerably educated classes into the readers and all-swallowing auditors in tap-rooms, etc.; and the [political sentiments in the] “Statesman,” “Examiner,” etc. I have ascertained that throughout the great manufacturing counties, Whitbread’s, Burdett’s, and Waithman’s speeches and the leading articles of the “Statesman” and “Examiner” are printed in ballad [shape] and sold at a halfpenny or a penny each. I was turned numb, and then sick, and then into a convulsive state of weeping on the first tidings—just as if Perceval[94] had been my near and personal friend. But good God! the atrocious sentiments universal among the populace, and even the lower order of householders. On my return from the “Courier,” where I had been to offer my services if I could do anything for them on this occasion, I was faint from the heat and much walking, and took that opportunity of going into the tap-room of a large public house frequented about one o’clock by the lower orders. It was really shocking, nothing but exultation! Burdett’s health drank with a clatter of pots and a sentiment given to at least fifty men and women—“May Burdett soon be the man to have sway over us!” These were the very words. “This is but the beginning.” “More of these damned scoundrels must go the same way, and then poor people may live.” “Every man might maintain his family decent and comfortable, if the money were not picked out of our pockets by these damned placemen.” “God is above the devil, I say, and down to Hell with him and all his brood, the Ministers, men of Parliament fellows.” “They won’t hear Burdett; no! he is a Christian man and speaks for the poor,” etc., etc. I do not think I have altered a word.
My love to Sara, and I have received everything right. The plate will go as desired, and among it a present to Sariola and Edith from good old Mr. Brent, who had great delight in hearing them talked of. It was wholly the old gentleman’s own thought. Bless them both!
The affair between Wordsworth and me seems settled, much against my first expectation from the message I received from him and his refusal to open a letter from me. I have not yet seen him, but an explanation has taken place. I sent by Robinson an attested, avowed statement of what Mr. and Mrs. Montagu told me, and Wordsworth has sent me an unequivocal denial of the whole in spirit and of the most offensive passages in letter as well as spirit, and I instantly informed him that were ten thousand Montagus to swear against it, I should take his word, not ostensibly only, but with inward faith!
To-morrow I will write out the passage from “Apuleius,” and send the letter to Rickman. It is seldom that want of leisure can be fairly stated as an excuse for not writing; but really for the last ten days I can honestly do it, if you will but allow a due portion to agitated feelings. The subscription is languid indeed compared with the expectations. Sir T. Bernard almost pledged himself for my success. However, he has done his best, and so has Lady Beaumont, who herself procured me near thirty names. I should have done better by myself for the present, but in the future perhaps it will be better as it is.
CXCII. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[95]
71, Berners Street,
Monday noon, December 7, 1812.
Write? My dear Friend! Oh that it were in my power to be with you myself instead of my letter. The Lectures I could give up; but the rehearsal of my Play commences this week, and upon this depends my best hopes of leaving town after Christmas, and living among you as long as I live. Strange, strange are the coincidences of things! Yesterday Martha Fricker dined here, and after tea I had asked question after question respecting your children, first one, then the other; but, more than all, concerning Thomas, till at length Mrs. Morgan said, “What ails you, Coleridge? Why don’t you talk about Hartley, Derwent, and Sara?” And not two hours ago (for the whole family were late from bed) I was asked what was the matter with my eyes? I told the fact, that I had awoke three times during the night and morning, and at each time found my face and part of the pillow wet with tears. “Were you dreaming of the Wordsworths?” she asked.—“Of the children?” I said, “No! not so much of them, but of Mrs. W. and Miss Hutchinson, and yourself and sister.”
Mrs. Morgan and her sister are come in, and I have been relieved by tears. The sharp, sharp pang at the heart needed it, when they reminded me of my words the very yester-night: “It is not possible that I should do otherwise than love Wordsworth’s children, all of them; but Tom is nearest my heart—I so often have him before my eyes, sitting on the little stool by my side, while I was writing my essays; and how quiet and happy the affectionate little fellow would be if he could but touch one, and now and then be looked at.”
O dearest friend! what comfort can I afford you? What comfort ought I not to afford, who have given you so much pain? Sympathy deep, of my whole being.... In grief, and in joy, in the anguish of perplexity, and in the fulness and overflow of confidence, it has been ever what it is! There is a sense of the word, Love, in which I never felt it but to you and one of your household! I am distant from you some hundred miles, but glad I am that I am no longer distant in spirit, and have faith, that as it has happened but once, so it never can happen again. An awful truth it seems to me, and prophetic of our future, as well as declarative of our present real nature, that one mere thought, one feeling of suspicion, jealousy, or resentment can remove two human beings farther from each other than winds or seas can separate their bodies.
The words “religious fortitude” occasion me to add that my faith in our progressive nature, and in all the doctrinal facts of Christianity, is become habitual in my understanding, no less than in my feelings. More cheering illustrations of our survival I have never received, than from the recent study of the instincts of animals, their clear heterogeneity from the reason and moral essence of man and yet the beautiful analogy. Especially, on the death of children, and of the mind in childhood, altogether, many thoughts have accumulated, from which I hope to derive consolation from that most oppressive feeling which hurries in upon the first anguish of such tidings as I have received; the sense of uncertainty, the fear of enjoyment, the pale and deathy gleam thrown over the countenances of the living, whom we love.... But this is bad comforting. Your own virtues, your own love itself, must give it. Mr. De Quincey has left town, and will by this time have arrived at Grasmere. On Sunday last I gave him a letter for you; but he (I have heard) did not leave town till Thursday night, by what accidents prevented I know not. In the oppression of spirits under which I wrote that letter, I did not make it clear that it was only Mr. Josiah’s half of the annuity[96] that was withdrawn from me. My answer, of course, breathed nothing but gratitude for the past.