S. T. Coleridge.
CCXLVII. TO GEORGE CATTERMOLE.[205]
Grove, Highgate, Thursday, August 14, 1828.
My dear Sir,—I have but this moment received yours of the 13th, and though there are but ten minutes in my power, if I am to avail myself of this day’s post, I will rather send you a very brief than not an immediate answer. I shall be much gratified by standing beside the baptismal font as one of the sponsors of the little pilgrim at his inauguration into the rights and duties of Immortality, and he shall not want my prayers, nor aught else that shall be within my power, to assist him in becoming that of which the Great Sponsor who brought light and immortality into the world has declared him an emblem.
There are one or two points of character belonging to me, so, at least, I believe and trust, which I would gladly communicate with the name,—earnest love of Truth for its own sake, and steadfast convictions grounded on faith, not fear, that the religion into which I was baptised is the Truth, without which all other knowledge ceases to merit the appellation. As to other things, which yet I most sincerely wish for him, a more promising augury might be derived from other individuals of the Coleridge race.
Any day, that you and your dear wife (to whom present my kindest remembrances and congratulations) shall find convenient, will suit me, if only you will be so good as to give me two or three days’ knowledge of it.
Believe me, my dear sir, with sincere respect and regard,
Your obliged
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I returned from my seven weeks’ Continental tour with Mr. Wordsworth and his daughter this day last week. We saw the Rhine as high up as Bingen, Holland, and the Netherlands.