The authorities did not admire the brilliant young Coleridge, full of his reasons and prolix abstractions. He was attracting too much attention to himself, and gradually gathering about him a throng of admirers who might disturb the balance of things. He was there anyway only through sufferance, and an intimation was given him that if he were not willing to accept things as they existed, and as they were taught, he had better go elsewhere. Piqued by his treatment and feeling he had been misunderstood and wronged, he suddenly disappeared. Some months afterwards, an acquaintance found him in a company of dragoons, duly enlisted in His Majesty's service, under an assumed name. The authorities at Jesus College were notified, and knowing that such a youth was out of place serving as a soldier, and feeling further a small pang of regret possibly for having driven him away, a plan was set on foot to secure his discharge. This was soon brought about, and doubtless much to Coleridge's relief. Erelong he found himself back at Cambridge—a little subdued, and a trifle more discreet, for his rough contact with the workaday world. A journey to Oxford, to visit an old friend, proved a pivotal point in his life. The fame of Coleridge as a poet had gone abroad, and the literary fledglings at Oxford sought to do the visitor honor in the proper way. Among others whom he met on this visit were Robert Southey and Robert Lovell, both poets of considerable local fame. Lovell had been married but a few months before to a young woman by the name of Fricker. Southey was engaged to a sister of the bride, and there was still a third sister fancy-free. The three poets became fast friends. They were all radicals, full of ambition to make a name for themselves, and all intent on elevating society out of the ruts into which it had fallen. All had suffered contumely on account of advanced ideas; and all were out of conceit with the existing order. They discussed the matter at length, and decided to set the world an example, by founding an ideal colony and showing how to make the most of life. Coleridge had long been interested in America, and from an acquaintanceship with sundry soldiers who had helped fight the battles of George the Third in the New World, he had gathered a rather romantic idea of the country. The stories of returned sailors and soldiers, told to civilians, are seldom exactly authentic. And Coleridge the poet, bubbling with the effervescence of youth, argued that a home on the banks of the Susquehanna, with love and books and comradeship, was the ideal condition. The matter was broached to the three sisters Fricker, and they of course responded—what woman worthy of the name of woman would not? And so the arrangements were fast being made, and as a necessary feature the three poets were duly and legally married to the three sisters, and Eden was to be peopled with the best.