Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
I shall miss the post if I do more than add, that whatever really serves
_you_, will (and on his death-pillow quite as much as in his present
garret) delight
Your sincere and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[138]
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 215. TO ALLSOP
April 30th, 1825.
My dearest Friend,
Having disburdened myself of the main loads of outward obligation at
least that pressed upon me, my Essay for the R. S. L.,[139] and my _Aids
to Reflection_, with other matters not so expressly my own, but having
the same, if not greater, demands on such quantity of time, as bodily
pain and disqualification, with unprecludible interruption, have enabled
me to make use of, I take the _very_ first moment of the Furlough to
tell you that I have been perplexed both by your silence and your
absence. In fact, I had taken for granted you were in Derbyshire, till
this afternoon, when I saw one who had met you yesterday.
Now I cannot recollect anything that can--I am sure, ought to have given
you offence, unless it were my non-performance of the request
communicated to me by Mr. Jameson.
I was ever in the _stifle_ of my _reflected_ anxieties, _i.e._ anxieties
felt by reflection from those of others, and my _Tangle_ of
_Things-to-be-done_, solicitous to see and talk with you. You must not
feel wounded if, loving you so truly as I do, and feeling more and more
every week that nothing is worth living for but the consciousness of
living aright, I was _nervous_ if you will, with regard to the effect of
this undertaking on the frame of your moral and intellectual Being. In
the meantime, you never came near me, so that I might have been able to
rectify my opinions, or rather to form them; and I felt, and still feel,
that I would gladly go into a garret and work from morning to late
night, at any work I could get money by, and more than share my
pittance with you and yours, than see you unhappy with twenty thousand
at your command.
Do not, my dearest friend, therefore let my perplexities, derived in
great measure from my unacquaintance with the facts, and to which my
ever-wakeful affection gave the origin, prevent you from treating, as
you were wont to do,
Your truly sincere
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
LETTER 216. TO ALLSOP
Saturday, May 2nd, 1825.
My dear Friend,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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