The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838Gillman, James
General
The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838
Gillman, James
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the finery of the
profession of blood:
'Such were the notes our once loved poet sung;'
and, for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard
the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together.
Truth and Genius had embraced under the eye and with the sanction of
Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well
satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the
sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the 'good
cause'; and the cold dank drops of dew, that hung half melted on
the beard of the thistle, had something genial and refreshing in
them--
...
"On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired speaker came. I was
called down into the room where he was, and went half-hoping,
half-afraid. He received me very graciously, and I listened for a long
time without uttering a word, and did not suffer in his opinion by my
silence. 'For those two hours (he was afterwards pleased to say) he
was conversing with W. H.'s forehead.' His appearance was different
from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, and
in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wildness in
his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with the
small-pox. His complexion was at that time clear, and even bright,
'As are the children of yon azure sheen.'
His forehead was broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large
projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with
darkened lustre.
'A certain tender bloom his face o'erspread;'
a purple tinge, as we see it in the pale, thoughtful complexions of
the Spanish portrait painters, Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was
rather open, his chin good-humoured and round, and his nose small.
Coleridge in his person was rather above the common size, inclining to
the corpulent. His hair (now, alas! grey, and during the latter years
of his life perfectly white) was then black, and glossy as the raven's
wing, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long liberal
hair is peculiar to enthusiasts." [23]
(The Liberal, vol. ii. pp. 23-27.)
He used, in his hours of relaxation, to relate the state of his
feelings, and his adventures during the short time he was a preacher.
His congregations were large, and if he had the power of attracting one
man of such talents from a distance, it may well be understood how the
many near the chapel flocked to listen to him; in short, if one is to
give credence to current report, he emptied churches and chapels to hear
him. If he had needed any stimulus, this would have been sufficient, but
such a mind so intensely occupied in the search after truth needed no
external excitement.
He has often said, that one of the effects of preaching was, that it
compelled him to examine the Scriptures with greater care and industry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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