LETTER IV.

Highgate, Sept. 30th, 1819.

MY DEAR SIR, Returned from Ramsgate, I hasten to assure you that, next to seeing you, I have pleasure in hearing from you and wish the former in preference, not merely from the greater mutual enjoyment, but likewise because one can convey more, and with greater assurance of being understood, in an hour, than one could write in a day. On the other hand, letters are more permanent, and an epistolary correspondence more endearing, like all marks of remembrance in absence.

My sentiments concerning the expediency, and both moral and intellectual advantages, of a trade or profession, for such as fix their ultimate end on objects nobler than trades or professions can bestow on the most favoured of their followers, may be learned from the eleventh chapter of my Literary Life, which, though addressed to a small and particular class, yet permits a more general application. To you, my dear young friend, I should say, temptations and preventives-the poisons and the antidotes-are pretty evenly dispersed through all the different accredited paths of life. Nay, those temptations which are foreknown and foreseen as most appertinent to our particular calling, are commonly least dangerous, or even cease to be temptations, to a mind forearmed by principles and aspirations like yours. The false step is more likely to take place in the recoil than the advance; in the neglect rather than in the too eager pursuit of the means; in under, rather than over, valuing the advantages of wealth and worldly respectability. The true plan on which you should regulate your conduct and feelings (that, at least, which to me appears such), is the following.

Propose to yourself, from the present hour, such views of action and enjoyment as will make the leisure attached to independence, and honourably earned by previous industry, the fair object of a wise man's efforts and a good man's desires. Meantime, let the chosen employments of the years in hope be the relaxations of the time present, of the years devoted to present duties, and, among these, to the means of realizing that hope; thus you will answer two great ends at once. Your inward trains of thought, your faculties, and your feelings, will be preserved in a fitness, and, as it were, contempered to a life of ease, and capable of enjoying leisure, because both able and disposed to employ it. Secondly, while you thus render future affluence more and more desirable, you will at the same time prevent all undue impatience, and disarm the temptation of poisoning the allotted interval by anxieties, and anxious schemes and efforts to get rich in haste. There is yet one other inducement to look on your existing appointment with complacency. Every improvement in knowledge, and the moral power of wielding and directing it, will tell for more,—have a wider and more benignant influence, than the same accomplishment would in a man who belonged to one of the learned professions. Both your information and your example will fall where they are most wanted, like the noiseless dews in Malta, where rain comes seldom, and no regular streams are to be met with. As to your present studies, for such portions of your time. as you can prudently appropriate to reading, without wrong to the claims of health and social relaxation, there is one department of knowledge, which, like an ample palace, contains within itself mansions for every other knowledge; which deepens and extends the interest of every other, gives it new charms and additional purpose; the study of which, rightly and liberally pursued, is beyond any other entertaining, beyond all others tends at once to tranquillize and enliven, to keep the mind elevated and steadfast, the heart humble and tender: it is biblical theology-the philosophy

of religion, the religion of philosophy. I would that I could refer you to any book in which such a plan of reading had been sketched out, in detail or even but generally.

Alas! I know of none.

But most gladly will I make the attempt to supply this desideratum by conversation, and then by letter. But of this when I have next the pleasure of seeing you at Highgate.

You have, perhaps, heard that my publisher is a bankrupt.

All the profits from the sale of my writings which I should have had, and which, in spite of the accumulated disadvantages under which the works were published, would have been considerable, I have lost; and not only so, but have been obliged, at a sum larger than all the profits made by my lectures, to purchase myself my own books and the half copyrights. Well, I am now sole proprietor; and representing my works by ciphers, and the author by I, my emblem might be 0000I. I have withdrawn them from sale. This is rather hard, but perhaps my comet may some time or other have its perihelion of popularity, and then the tail, you know, whisks round to the other end; and for 00001, lo and behold, 10,000. Meantime, enough for me to thank God that, relatively to my fellow-men at least, I have been "sinned against, not sinning;" and relatively to my Maker, these afflictions are but penances of mercy, less than the least of my forfeitures. I hope you will soon take potluck with us. Believe me, with esteem and regard,

Yours,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Leaving out the particular expression of biblical theology, liable to be interpreted, or, rather, misinterpreted, by every believer in belief according to his own particular faith or delusion, and keeping constantly

in mind what the writer intended to convey, viz., the philosophy of humanity, the humanity of philosophy, I am not aware that I can recommend to your perusal, or press earnestly and affectionately upon your attention, any letter, essay, or advice, so beautifully expressed, or, when applied to practice, so well adapted to secure that happiness which surpasseth understanding-far, very far, surpasseth adequate expression. Often do I dwell upon the recommendation, to "let the chosen employments of the years in hope be the relaxations of the time present, of the years devoted to present duties, and, among these, to the means of realizing that hope; thus you will answer two great ends at once. Your inward trains of thought, your faculties, and your feelings, will be preserved in a fitness, and, as it were, contempered to a life of ease, and capable of enjoying leisure, because both able and disposed to employ it. Secondly, while you thus render affluence more desirable, you will prevent all undue impatience, and disarm the temptation of poisoning the allotted interval by anxieties, and anxious schemes and efforts to get rich in haste."

I would fain hope that, not only for you, but for all others, riches, as such, will be better appreciated ere your career commences; this is my anxious hope for others-for all. For you, it shall be my care to place before you irresistible examples and illustrations of the frightful evils of contemplating riches, power, fame, as ends to be sought and valued for their own sake, not as means to greater and higher ends,—the high aim and purpose of destroying these fruitful sources of crime and misery, or of subjecting them to general, not individual, advancement. Alas! could I but recall

"The time when, though my path was rough,
The joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness;

When hope grew round me like the twining vine,

And fruits and foliage, not my own, seemed mine:"

I might then have some hope of conveying to you, with good effect, the results of my experience.

"But seared thoughts now bow me down to earth,
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth.
But, oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of imagination.

For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient all I can,

And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man,—
This is my sole resource, my only plan;

Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul."

LETTER V.

Dec. 13th, 1819.

MY DEAR SIR,

Accept my affectionate thanks; and, in mine, conceive those of my housemates included. Would to Heaven I had more than barren thanks to offer you. If you, or rather your residence, were nearer to me, and I could have more of your society, I should feel this the less. It was, for me at least, unfortunate, that, almost every time you have been here, I should have been engaged in the only way that I should have suffered to be a pre-engagement, viz., the duties of friendship. These are now discharged; and whenever you can give me a day, henceforward, I shall have nothing to do but to enjoy it. I could not help "winning an hour from the hard season," as Milton says, the day before yesterday, by surrendering my reason to the detail of a day-dream, as I was going over, and after I had gone over, a very pretty house, with beautiful garden and grounds, and a still more lovely prospect, at the moderate rent of 60l. and taxes proportionally low, discussing the question with myself, as seriously as if it were actually to be decided, how far the rising at eight, breakfasting, and riding, driving, or staging to London, and returning by the stage or otherwise, would be advantageous to your health; and then the ways and means of improving