men to each other, the practical inference was drawn that every proof of these distinctive faculties, being in a _tense_ and _active_ state, that even the sparks and crackling of mental electricity, in the sportive approaches and collisions of ordinary intercourse, (such as we have in the wit-combats of Benedict and Beatrice, of Mercutio, and in the dialogues assigned to courtiers and gentlemen, by all the dramatic writers of that reign,) are stronger indications of natural superiority, and, therefore, more becoming signs and accompaniments of _artificial_ rank, than apathy, studied mediocrity, and the ostentation of wealth. When I think of the vigour and felicity of style characteristic of the age from Edward VI to the restoration of Charles, and observable in the letters and family memoirs of noble families--take, for instance, the _Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his widow--I cannot suppress the wish--O that the _habits_ of those days could return, even though they should bring pedantry and Euphuism in their train![121] * * * * * Coleridge and the Gillmans had gone to Ramsgate for a holiday while Allsop had gone to Derbyshire. The next letter is from Ramsgate. LETTER 195. TO ALLSOP Oct. 20, 1821. My dear Friend, Not a day has passed since we left Highgate in which I have not been tracing you in spirit up and down the Glens and Dells of Derbyshire, while my feet only have been in commune with the sandy beach here at Ramsgate. Once when I had stopped and stood stone still for some minutes, Mrs. Gillman's call snatched me away from a spot opposite to a house, to the second-floor window of which I had been gazing, as if I had feared, yet expected, to see you passing to and fro by it. These, however, were visions to which I had myself given the commencing act--fabrics of which the "I wonder where Allsop is now" had laid the foundation stone. But for the last three days your image, alone or lonely in an unconcerning crowd of human figures, has forced itself on my sleep in dreams of the rememberable kind, accompanied with the feeling of being afraid to go up to you--and now of letting you pass by unnoticed, from want of courage to ask you, what was most on my mind--respecting the one awful to me because so awfully dear to you--(for there is a _religion in all deep love_, but the love of a Mother is, at your age, the veil of softer light between the Heart and the Heavenly Father!) Mrs. Gillman likewise has been thinking of you both asleep and awake: and so, though I know not how to direct my letter, yet a letter I am resolved to write.