Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey Part 37

The following is Mr. Coleridge's reply.

"April 26th, 1814.

You have poured oil in the raw and festering wound of an old friend's conscience, Cottle! but it is _oil of vitriol!_ I but barely glanced at the middle of the first page of your letter, and have seen no more of it--not from resentment, G.o.d forbid! but from the state of my bodily and mental sufferings, that scarcely permitted human fort.i.tude to let in a new visitor of affliction.

The object of my present reply, is, to state the case just as it is--first, that for ten years the anguish of my spirit has been indescribable, the sense of my danger staring, but the consciousness of my GUILT worse--far worse than all! I have prayed, with drops of agony on my brow; trembling, not only before the justice of my Maker, but even before the mercy of my Redeemer. 'I gave thee so many talents, what hast thou done with them?' Secondly overwhelmed as I am with a sense of my direful infirmity, I have never attempted to disguise or conceal the cause. On the contrary, not only to friends, have I stated the whole case with tears, and the very bitterness of shame; but in two instances, I have warned young men, mere acquaintances, who had spoken of having taken laudanum, of the direful consequences, by an awful exposition of its tremendous effects on myself.

Thirdly, though before G.o.d I cannot lift up my eyelids, and only do not despair of his mercy, because to despair would be adding crime to crime, yet to my fellow-men, I may say, that I was seduced into the ACCURSED habit ignorantly. I had been almost bed-ridden for many months, with swellings in my knees. In a medical Journal, I unhappily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case, or what appeared to me so, by rubbing in of Laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally. It acted like a charm, like a miracle! I recovered the use of my limbs, of my appet.i.te, of my spirits, and this continued for near a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint returned,--the supposed remedy was recurred to--but I cannot go through the dreary history.

Suffice it to say, that effects were produced which acted on me by terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me G.o.d!) by any temptation of pleasure, or expectation, or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far, as to say, that the longer I abstained, the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments--till the moment, the direful moment arrived, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewilderment, that in the last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed in agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, 'I am too poor to hazard this.' Had I but a few hundred pounds, but 200,--half to send to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private mad house, where I could procure nothing but what a physician thought proper, and where a medical attendant could be constantly with me for two or three months, (in less than that time, life or death would be determined) then there might be hope. Now there is none!! O G.o.d! how willingly would I place myself under Dr. Fox, in his establishment; for my case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself: go bid a man paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly together, and that will cure him. 'Alas!' he would reply, 'that I cannot move my arms, is my complaint and my misery.' May G.o.d bless you, and

Your affectionate, but most afflicted,

S. T. Coleridge."

On receiving this full and mournful disclosure, I felt the deepest compa.s.sion for Mr. C.'s state, and sent him the following letter.

(Necessary to be given, to understand Mr. Coleridge's reply.)

"Dear Coleridge,

I am afflicted to perceive that Satan is so busy with you, but G.o.d is greater than Satan. Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? That he came into the world to save sinners? He does not demand, as a condition, any merit of your own, he only says, 'Come and be healed!' Leave your idle speculations: forget your vain philosophy. Come as you are. Come and be healed. He only requires you to be sensible of your need of him, to give him your heart, to abandon with penitence, every evil practice, and he has promised that whosoever thus comes, he will in no wise cast out. To such as you Christ ought to be precious, for you see the hopelessness of every other refuge. He will add strength to your own ineffectual efforts.

For your encouragement, I express the conviction, that such exercises as yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will still be as 'a brand plucked from the burning,' and that you (with all your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen instrument, to spread a Saviour's name. Many a 'chief of sinners,' has been brought, since the days of 'Saul of Tarsus,' to sit as a little child, at the Redeemer's feet. To this state you, I am a.s.sured, will come. Pray! Pray earnestly, and you will be heard by your Father, which is in Heaven. I could say many things of duty and virtue, but I wish to direct your views at once to Christ, in whom is the alone balm for afflicted souls.

May G.o.d ever bless you,

Joseph Cottle.

P. S. If my former letter appeared unkind, pardon me! It was not intended. Shall I breathe in your ear?--I know one, who is a stranger to these throes and conflicts, and who finds 'Wisdom's ways to be ways of pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace."

To this letter I received the following reply.

"O dear friend! I have too much to be forgiven, to feel any difficulty in forgiving the cruellest enemy that ever trampled on me: and you I have only to _thank!_ You have no conception of the dreadful h.e.l.l of my mind, and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of G.o.d to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I am a Christian.

April 26, 1814."

S. T. C.

At this time Mr. Coleridge was indeed in a pitiable condition. His pa.s.sion for opium had so completely subdued his _will_, that he seemed carried away, without resistance, by an overwhelming flood. The impression was fixed on his mind, that he should inevitably die, unless he were placed under _constraint_, and that constraint he thought could be alone effected in an _asylum!_ Dr. Fox, who presided over an establishment of this description in the neighbourhood of Bristol, appeared to Mr. C. the individual, to whose subjection he would most like to submit. This idea still impressing his imagination, he addressed to me the following letter.

"Dear Cottle,

I have resolved to place myself in any situation, in which I can remain for a month or two, as a child, wholly in the power of others. But, alas!

I have no money! Will you invite Mr. Hood, a most dear and affectionate friend to worthless me; and Mr. Le Breton, my old school-fellow, and, likewise, a most affectionate friend: and Mr. Wade, who will return in a few days: desire them to call on you, any evening after seven o'clock, that they can make convenient, and consult with them whether any thing of this kind can be done. Do you know Dr. Fox?

Affectionately,

S. T. C.

I have to prepare my lecture. Oh! with how blank a spirit!"[94]

I _did_ know the late Dr. Fox, who was an opulent and liberal-minded man; and if I had applied to him, or any friend had so done, I cannot doubt but that he would instantly have received Mr. Coleridge gratuitously; but nothing could have induced me to make the application, but that extreme case, which did not then appear fully to exist. My sympathy for Mr. C. at this time, was so excited, that I should have withheld no effort, within my power, to reclaim, or to cheer him; but this recurrence to an asylum, I strenuously opposed.

Mr. Coleridge knew Dr. Fox himself, eighteen years before, and to the honour of Dr. E. I think it right to name, that, to my knowledge, in the year 1796, Dr. Fox, in admiration of Mr. C.'s talents, presented him with FIFTY POUNDS!

It must here be, noticed, that, fearing I might have exceeded the point of discretion, in my letter to Mr. C. and becoming alarmed, lest I had raised a spirit that I could not lay, as well as to avoid an unnecessary weight of responsibility, I thought it best to consult Mr. Southey, and ask him, in these hara.s.sing circ.u.mstances, what I was to do; especially as he knew more of Mr. C.'s latter habits than myself, and had proved his friends.h.i.+p by evidences the most substantial.

The years 1814 and 1815, were the darkest periods in Mr. Coleridge's life. However painful the detail, it is presumed that the reader would desire a knowledge of the undisguised truth. This cannot be obtained without introducing the following letters of Mr. Southey, received from him, after having sent him copies of the letters which pa.s.sed between Mr.

Coleridge and myself.

"Keswick, April, 1814.

My dear Cottle,

You may imagine with what feelings I have read your correspondence with Coleridge. Shocking as his letters are, perhaps the most mournful thing they discover is, that while acknowledging the guilt of the habit, he imputes it still to morbid bodily causes, whereas after every possible allowance is made for these, every person who has witnessed his habits, knows that for the greater, infinitely the greater part, inclination and indulgence are its motives.

It seems dreadful to say this, with his expressions before me, but it is so, and I know it to be so, from my own observation, and that of all with whom he has lived. The Morgans, with great difficulty and perseverance, _did_ break him of the habit, at a time when his ordinary consumption of laudanum was, from _two quarts a week_, to _a pint a day!_ He suffered dreadfully during the first abstinence, so much so, as to say it was better for him to die than to endure his present feelings. Mrs. Morgan resolutely replied, it was indeed better that he should die, than that he should continue to live as he had been living. It angered him at the time, but the effort was persevered in.

To what then was the relapse owing? I believe to this cause--that no use was made of renewed health and spirits; that time pa.s.sed on in idleness, till the lapse of time brought with it a sense of neglected duties, and then relief was again sought for _a self-accusing mind_;--in bodily feelings, which when the stimulus ceased to act, added only to the load of self-accusation. This Cottle, is an insanity which none but the soul's physician can cure. Unquestionably, restraint would do as much for him as it did when the Morgans tried it, but I do not see the slightest reason for believing it would be more permanent. This too I ought to say, that all the medical men to whom Coleridge has made his confession, have uniformly ascribed the evil, not to bodily disease, but indulgence. The restraint which alone could effectually cure, is that which no person can impose upon him. Could he be compelled to a certain quant.i.ty of labour every day, _for his family_, the pleasure of having done it would make his heart glad, and the sane mind would make the body whole.

I see nothing so advisable for him, as that he should come here to Greta Hall. My advice is, that he should visit T. Poole for two or three weeks, to freshen himself and recover spirits, which new scenes never fail to give him. When there, he may consult his friends at Birmingham and Liverpool, on the fitness of lecturing at those two places, at each of which he has friends, and would, I should think beyond all doubt be successful. He must be very unfortunate if he did not raise from fifty to one hundred pounds at the two places. But whether he can do this or not, here it is that he ought to be. He knows in what manner he would be received;--by his children with joy; by his wife, not with tears, if she can control them--certainly not with reproaches;--by myself only with encouragement.

He has sources of direct emolument open to him in the '_Courier_,' and in the '_Eclectic Review_.'--These for his immediate wants, and for everything else, his pen is more rapid than mine, and would be paid as well. If you agree with me, you had better write to Poole, that he may press him to make a visit, which I know he has promised. His great object should be, to get out a play, and appropriate the whole produce to the support of his son Hartley, at College. Three months' pleasurable exertion would effect this. Of some such fit of industry I by no means despair; of any thing more than fits, I am afraid I do. But this of course I shall never say to him. From me he shall never hear ought but cheerful encouragement, and the language of hope.

You ask me if you did wrong in writing to him. A man with your feelings and principles never does wrong. There are parts which would have been expunged had I been at your elbow, but in all, and in every part it is strictly applicable.

I hope your next will tell me that he is going to T. Poole's--I have communicated none of your letters to Mrs. Coleridge, who you know resides with us. Her spirits and health are beginning to sink under it. G.o.d bless you.

Yours affectionately,

Robert Southey."

After anxious consideration, I thought the only effectual way of benefitting Mr. Coleridge, would be, to renew the object of an annuity, by raising for him, amongst his friends, one hundred, or, if possible, one hundred and fifty pounds a year; purposing through a committee of three, to pay for his comfortable board, and all necessaries, but not of giving him the disposition of any part, till it was hoped, the correction of his bad habits, and the establishment of his better principles, might qualify him for receiving it for his own distribution. It was difficult to believe that his subjection to opium could much longer resist the stings of his own conscience, and the solicitations of his friends, as well as the pecuniary dest.i.tution to which his _opium habits_ had reduced him. The proposed object was named to Mr. C. who reluctantly gave his consent.

I now drew up a letter, intending to send a copy to all Mr. Coleridge's old and steady friends, (several of whom approved of the design) but before any commencement was made, I transmitted a copy of my proposed letter to Mr. Southey, to obtain his sanction. The following is his reply.