I have written as I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person [for your travelling companion] — what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all new acquaintance.
’To live beloved is all I need,
And when I love, I love indeed.’
I never had any ambition, and now, I trust I have almost as little vanity.
For five months past my mind has been strangely shut up. I have taken the paper with the intention to write to you many times, but it has been one blank feeling; — one blank idealess feeling. I had nothing to say; — could say nothing. How dearly I love you, my very dreams make known to me. I will not trouble you with the gloomy tale of my health. When I am awake, by patience, employment, effort of mind, and walking, I can keep the Fiend at arm’s length, but the night is my Hell! — sleep my tormenting Angel. Three nights out of four, I fall asleep, struggling to lie awake, and my frequent night-screams have almost made me a nuisance in my own house. Dreams with me are no shadows, but the very calamities of my life….
In the hope of drawing the gout, if gout it should be, into my feet, I walked previously to my getting into the coach at Perth, 263 miles, in eight days, with no unpleasant fatigue; and if I could do you any service by coming to town, and there were no coaches, I would undertake to be with you, on foot in seven days. I must have strength somewhere. My head is equally strong: my limbs too are strong: but acid or not acid, gout or not gout, something there is in my stomach….
To diversify this dusky letter, I will write an Epitaph, which I composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying. To the best of my recollection I have not altered a word.
’Here sleeps at length poor Col. and without screaming
Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming:
Shot dead, while sleeping, by the gout within,
Alone, and all unknown, at E’nbro’ in an Inn.’
It was Tuesday night last, at the ‘Black Bull,’ Edinburgh. Yours, dear
Wedgewood, gratefully, and
Most affectionately,
S. T. Coleridge.
Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.”
“16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804.
My dear friend,
Some divines hold, that with God to think, and to create, are one and the same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write with me, I should have written as much too much as I have written too little. The whole truth of the matter is, that I have been very, very ill. Your letter remained four days unread, I was so ill. What effect it had upon me I cannot express by words. It lay under my pillow day after day. I should have written forty times, but as it often and often happens with me, my heart was too full, and I had so much to say that I said nothing. I never received a delight that lasted longer upon me—’Brooded on my mind and made it pregnant,’ than (from) the six last sentences of your last letter, — which I cannot apologize for not having answered, for I should be casting calumnies against myself; for the last six or seven weeks, I have both thought and felt more concerning you, and relating to you, than of all other men put together.
Somehow or other, whatever plan I determined to adopt, my fancy, good-natured pander of our wishes, always linked you on to it; or I made it your plan, and linked myself on. I left my home, December 20, 1803, intending to stay a day and a half at Grasmere, and then to walk to Kendal, whither I had sent all my clothes and viatica; from thence to go to London, and to see whether or no I could arrange my pecuniary matters, so as leaving Mrs. Coleridge all that was necessary to her comforts, to go myself to Madeira, having a persuasion, strong as the life within me, that one winter spent in a really warm, genial climate, would completely restore me. Wordsworth had, as I may truly say, forced on me a hundred pounds, in the event of my going to Madeira; and Stewart had kindly offered to befriend me. During the days and affrightful nights of my disease, when my limbs were swollen, and my stomach refused to retain the food — taken in in sorrow, then I looked with pleasure on the scheme: but as soon as dry frosty weather came, or the rains and damps passed off, and I was filled with elastic health, from crown to sole, then the thought of the weight of pecuniary obligation from so many people reconciled me; but I have broken off my story.
I stayed at Grasmere (Mr. Wordsworth’s) a month; three fourths of the time bed-ridden; — and deeply do I feel the enthusiastic kindness of Wordsworth’s wife and sister, who sat up by me, one or the other, in order to awaken me at the first symptoms of distressful feeling; and even when they went to rest, continued often and often to weep and watch for me even in their dreams. I left them January the 14th, and have spent a very pleasant week at Dr. Crompton’s, at Liverpool, and arrived in London, at Poole’s lodgings, last night at eight o’clock.
Though my right hand is so much swollen that I can scarcely keep my pen steady between my thumb and finger, yet my stomach is easy, and my breathing comfortable, and I am eager to hope all good things of my health. That gained, I have a cheering, and I trust prideless confidence that I shall make an active, and perseverant use of the faculties and requirements that have been entrusted to my keeping, and a fair trial of their height, depth, and width. Indeed I look back on the last four months with honest pride, seeing how much I have done, with what steady attachment of mind to the same subject, and under what vexations and sorrows, from without, and amid what incessant sufferings. So much of myself. When I know more, I will tell you more.
I find you are still at Cote-house. Poole tells me you talk of Jamaica as a summer excursion. If it were not for the voyage, I would that you would go to Madeira, for from the hour I get on board the vessel, to the time that I once more feel England beneath my feet, I am as certain as past and present experience can make me, that I shall be in health, in high health; and then I am sure, not only that I should be a comfort to you, but that I should be so without diminution of my activity, or professional usefulness. Briefly, dear Wedgewood! I truly and at heart love you, and of course it must add to my deeper and moral happiness to be with you, if I can be either assistance or alleviation. If I find myself so well that I defer my Madeira plan, I shall then go forthwith to Devonshire to see my aged mother, once more before she dies, and stay two or three months with my brothers. But, wherever I am, I never suffer a day, (except when I am travelling) to pass without doing something.
Poole made me promise that I would leave one side for him. God bless him! He looks so worshipful in his office, among his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes’ good spirits to look in upon him. Pray you as soon as you can command your pen, give me half a score lines, and now that I am loose, say whether or no I can be any good to you.
S. T. Coleridge.”
“16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 28, 1804.
My dear friend,
It is idle for me to say to you, that my heart and very soul ache with the dull pain of one struck down and stunned. I write to you, for my letter cannot give you unmixed pain, and I would fain say a few words to dissuade you. What good can possibly come of your plan? Will not the very chairs and furniture of your room be shortly more, far more intolerable to you than new and changing objects! more insufferable reflectors of pain and weariness of spirit? Oh, most certainly they will! You must hope, my dearest Wedgewood; you must act as if you hoped. Despair itself has but that advice to give you. Have you ever thought of trying large doses of opium, a hot climate, keeping your body open by grapes, and the fruits of the climate?
Is it possible that by drinking freely, you might at last produce the gout, and that a violent pain and inflammation in the extremities might produce new trains of motion and feeling in your stomach, and the organs connected with the stomach, known and unknown? Worse than what you have decreed for yourself cannot well happen. Say but a word and I will come to you, will be with you, will go with you to Malta, to Madeira, to Jamaica, or (if the climate, o
f which, and its strange effects, I have heard wonders, true or not) to Egypt.
At all events, and at the worst even, if you do attempt to realize the scheme of going to and remaining at Gunville, for God’s sake, my dear dear friend, do keep up a correspondence with one or more; or if it were possible for you, with several. I know by a little what your sufferings are, and that to shut the eyes, and stop up the ears, is to give one’s self up to storm and darkness, and the lurid forms and horrors of a dream. I scarce know why it is; a feeling I have, and which I can hardly understand. I could not endure to live if I had not a firm faith that the life within you will pass forth out of the furnace, for that you have borne what you have borne, and so acted beneath such pressure — constitutes you an awful moral being. I am not ashamed to pray aloud for you.
Your most affectionate friend,
S. T. Coleridge.”
“March, 1804.
My dear friend,
Though fearful of breaking in upon you after what you have written to me, I could not have left England without having written both to you and your brother, at the very moment I received a note from Sharp, informing me that I must instantly secure a place in the Portsmouth mail for Tuesday, and if I could not, that I must do so in the light coach for Tuesday’s early coach.
I am agitated by many things, and only write now because you desired an answer by return of post. I have been dangerously ill, but the illness is going about, and not connected with my immediate ill health, however it may be with my general constitution. It was the cholera-morbus. But for a series of the merest accidents I should have been seized in the streets, in a bitter east wind, with cold rain; at all events have walked through it struggling. It was Sunday-night.
I have suffered it at Tobin’s; Tobin sleeping out at Woolwich. No fire, no wine or spirits, or medicine of any kind, and no person being within a call, but luckily, perhaps the occasion would better suit the word providentially, Tuffin, calling, took me home with him…. I tremble at every loud sound I myself utter. But this is rather a history of the past than of the present. I have only enough for memento, and already on Wednesday I consider myself in clear sunshine, without the shadow of the wings of the destroying angel.
What else relates to myself, I will write on Monday. Would to heaven you were going with me to Malta, if it were but for the voyage! With all other things I could make the passage with an unwavering mind. But without cheerings of hope, let me mention one thing; Lord Cadogan was brought to absolute despair, and hatred of life, by a stomach complaint, being now an old man. The symptoms, as stated to me, were strikingly like yours, excepting the nervous difference of the two characters; the flittering fever, &c. He was advised to reduce lean beef to a pure jelly, by Papin’s digester, with as little water as could secure it from burning, and of this to take half a wine glass 10 or 14 times a day. This and nothing else. He did so. Sir George Beaumont saw, within a few weeks a letter from himself to Lord St. Asaph, in which he relates the circumstance of his perseverance in it, and rapid amelioration, and final recovery. ‘I am now,’ he says, ‘in real good health; as good, and in as cheerful spirits as I ever was when a young man.’
May God bless you, even here,
S. T. Coleridge.”
Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, refers to the different states of his health. In the letter dated January, 1800, he observed, “I have my health perfectly;” and in the same letter he clearly indicates that he was no stranger to opium, by remarking, “I have a stomach sensation attached to all my thoughts, like those which succeed to the pleasurable operations of a dose of opium.” I can testify, that during the four or five years in which Mr. C. resided in or near Bristol, no young man could enjoy more robust health. Dr. Carlyon also, verbally stated that Mr. C; both at Cambridge, and at Gottingen, “possessed sound health.” From these premises the conclusion is fair, that Mr. Coleridge’s unhappy use of narcotics, which commenced thus early, was the true cause of all his maladies, his languor, his acute and chronic pains, his indigestion, his swellings, the disturbances of his general corporeal system, his sleepless nights, and his terrific dreams!
* * * * *
Extracts, concerning Mr. Coleridge, from letters of the late Thomas
Poole, Esq., to the late Thomas Wedgewood, Esq.
“Stowey, Nov. 14, 1801.
… I expect Coleridge here in a week or ten days. He has promised to spend two or three months with me. I trust this air will re-establish his health, and that I shall restore him to his family and his friends a perfect man.”
“Stowey, Nov. 24, 1801.
I now expect daily to see Coleridge. He is detained I fear, by a thorn, which he unfortunately took in his heel a day or two before he wrote to me his last letter. He comes alone. As soon as he is here he shall write to you.”
“Stowey, Nov. 27, 1799.
… Coleridge went hence to Bristol as you know, to collect material for his ‘School-book.’ (Qy.) There he received a letter concerning Wordsworth’s health, which he said agitated him deeply. He set off immediately for Yorkshire. He has since been to the lakes. I suppose we shall soon see him.
T. P.”
“Stowey, March 15, 1804.
… Coleridge is still here with Tobin. He has taken his passage for Malta and paid half the money, so I conclude his going is fixed. They are waiting for convoy — the ‘Lapwing’ frigate.
T. P.”
“16, Abingdon Street, April 3, 1804.
My dear Sir,
… Poor Col. left London, as I suppose you know, and is now at Portsmouth, waiting for convoy. He was in a miserable state of health when he left town. Heaven grant that this expedition may establish him, body and mind. Northcote has been painting his picture for Sir George Beaumont. I am told it is a great likeness. Davy is gone to Hungerford for the holiday’s fishing….
T. Poole.
T. Wedgewood, Esq.”
Mr. Coleridge remarks, in his letter to Mr. T. Wedgewood, dated “16, Abingdon Street, London:” “Poole looks so worshipful in his office among his clerks, that it would give you a few minutes’ good spirits to look in upon him.” The following letter will explain this allusion.
“Stowey, Sept. 14, 1803.
My dear Sir,
… I thank you heartily for your kindness, and I will tell you all about my going to London. I became acquainted with Rickman, whom you saw, when you set off from Cote-house with Coleridge and myself, to London, to hear Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution. It was last January twelvemonths. I liked Rickman, and if I may judge from his conduct since, he liked me. I saw him frequently when I was in London in May and June last. We often talked about the poor laws, the sin of their first principle, their restraints, their contradictions, their abuses, their encouragement to idleness, their immense burdens to those who pay, and their degradation to those who receive. On this subject also some letters have passed between us.
I have long imagined that the principles of benefit societies may be extended and modified, so as to remedy the greater part of those evils, and I have long had a plan in my mind which attempted something of this sort, and which as soon as I had leisure I meant to detail in writing, and perhaps to publish. I mentioned this to Coleridge when he was last with me. He mentioned it to Rickman, who wrote to me on the subject.
Soon after this Sir George Eose introduced a bill into parliament for obtaining information from the overseers of every parish, concerning the poor, benefit societies, &c. He applied to Rickman to assist him in framing the bill; and finally requested him to get some one to make an abstract, to present to parliament, of the returns made by the overseers. This office Rickman has desired me to undertake. He states to me a variety of inducements; such as my being in London, getting much information on a subject which interests me; and in short, I have agreed to undertake it. Rickman says it will take me three months. I am to have eight clerks under me, or more if I can employ them. He says there will be twenty thousand returns. He proposes t
hat my expenses should be paid with a douceur of three or otherwise four hundred pounds. I stipulated for the former, but told him the douceur would be the pleasure, I trusted, of being useful to the poor….
T. P.”
This was a rare instance of noble disinterestedness, especially in respect of government transactions.
“London, 16, Abingdon Street, May 24, 1804.
I saw a letter this morning from Coleridge. It was written to Lamb, from Gibraltar. He says his health and spirits are much improved, yet still he feels alarming symptoms about him. He made the passage from England in eleven days. If the wind permitted, they were to sail in two days for Malta. He says he is determined to observe a strict regimen, as to eating and drinking. He has drunk lately only lemonade, with a very small quantity of bottled porter. He anticipates better health than he has enjoyed for many years.
I heard by accident that Giddy was at Davy’s. I have not seen Davy for some time.
T. P.”
* * * * *
* * * * *
If the public “bide their time,” there is one memorial, resembling the following, which will infallibly, if not soon, be attached to the busiest and the most celebrated name.
“On Sept. 8, 1837, died at Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, Thomas Poole, Esq. He was one of the magistrates for that county, the duties of which station he discharged through a long course of years with distinguished reputation. In early life the deceased was intimately associated with Coleridge, Lamb, Sir H. Davy, Wordsworth, Southey, and other men of literary endowments, who occasionally made long sojournments at his hospitable residence, and in whose erudite and philosophical pursuits he felt a kindred delight. His usefulness and benevolence have been long recognized, and his loss will be deplored.” — Exeter Paper.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 351