and “opinions in psychology” and had drawn at full “a portrait of my friend’s mind & character”, but this manuscript had been lost with his other Malta papers.85
As Sir James Mackintosh – now Josiah’s son-in-law – was editing Tom Wedgwood’s unpublished work, Coleridge did not offer to resurrect this paper from memory: “too great pain has baffled my attempts in going over again the detail of past times”. In the event Mackintosh did not fulfil his promise either, and it was left to Coleridge to insert a short but beautiful tribute to Tom in a footnote to The Friend in 1809. “He is gone, my Friend! my munificent Co-patron, and not less the Benefactor of my Intellect! – He who beyond all other men known to me, added a fine and ever-wakeful sense of Beauty to the most patient Accuracy in experimental Philosophy…”86
Coleridge particularly credited Tom with a “Theory of Perception” based on self-analytic notes of his own abnormal mental states and hallucinations, calmly and empirically pursued, “even during the wretched nights of sickness, in watching and instantly recording these experiences of the world within us…” Tom’s theory emphasized, in a new way, the subjective influence of memory and imagination on apparently inexplicable phenomena like ghosts and hallucinations. It was evidently of great importance to Coleridge, and his awkward protestations to Josiah – “O Sir! if you knew, what I suffer, and am this moment suffering, in thinking of him” – were heartfelt. Yet there was also a degree of calculation, since Coleridge “suspected & feared” his annuity would be discontinued.87
But Josiah Wedgwood, a large-minded man who had much experience of literary “hypochondria” was prepared to be mollified. “I was truly glad to hear from him,” he confided to Poole. “His letter removed all those feelings of anger which occasionally, but not permanently, existed in my mind towards him. I am very sorry for him.”88 It might also have calmed Coleridge to know that half the annuity was actually secured by the terms of Tom Wedgwood’s will, and in practice Josiah could not touch it; but this only became clear later.
Not even Tom Poole’s diplomacy could resolve the misunderstanding with George Coleridge. His letter of 6 April was still unopened at the end of June, when Coleridge was intending to go down to Ottery in less than a week, “from a sense of Duty as it affects myself, & from a promise made to Mrs Coleridge, as far as it affects her”.89 His folly in leaving it so long would be incredible if he had not openly admitted such procrastination to Josiah Wedgwood: “I have sunk under such a strange cowardice of Pain, that I have not unfrequently kept Letters from persons dear to me for weeks together unopened.”90 Southey would later observe that, in practical terms, this was perhaps the most damaging of all the symptoms of Coleridge’s opium addiction, leading to endless business confusions, personal affronts and family chaos for over a decade. But it is also a revealing one, for it suggests that Coleridge knew instinctively where “Pain” and censure would come from, and unconsciously sought to protect himself by refusing to conform to civilized norms of behaviour. If the real world promised to be too harsh, he simply ignored it as long as possible, and tried to live in the breathing space. One is tempted to believe that he knew very well that George’s letter would bring bad news. If so, Coleridge was not disappointed when he finally opened it in July.
George was overwhelmed with his own family difficulties – illness at the school, the frailty of their “poor aged mother”, the “hereditary” despondency of Mrs James Coleridge – and could not possibly receive them. “To come to Ottery for such a purpose would be to create a fresh expense for yourself and to load my feelings with what they could not bear without endangering my life – I pray you therefore do not do so.” He could not take on the children at the school, though he might be able to help financially. He thought Mrs Coleridge’s friends might make “a settlement”, but he strongly disapproved of the separation. (Later he would say it was “an irreligious act…which the New Testament forbids”.) He upbraided Coleridge in the old paternal tones of his Cambridge days: “For God’s sake strive to put on some fortitude and do nothing rashly.”91 The whole Ottery plan thus collapsed in a storm of mutual reproaches. Mrs Coleridge not unnaturally blamed her husband. Coleridge with far less reason blamed not only George but all his Ottery brothers. Coleridge’s anger was surprising and curiously refreshing to him. Though so largely unjustified, it left him free to dramatize himself as an outcast in a cruel world. Paradoxically, it made him feel better about himself, by embracing the worst that the respectable world could do to him. He wrote to Josiah Wade in a kind of satisfied fury at the ruin of his reputation and prospects. George had betrayed him.
His pride & notion of character took alarm and he made public to all my Brothers, & even to their Children, [my] most confidential Letter, & so cruelly that while I was ignorant of all this Brewing, Colonel Coleridge’s eldest son (a mere youth) had informed Mr King that he should not call on me (his Uncle) for that “The Family” had resolved not to receive me. These people are rioting in Wealth & without the least feeling add another £100 to my already most embarrassed circumstance…So that at the age of 35 I am to be penniless, resourceless, in heavy debt – my health & spirits absolutely broken down – & with scarce a friend in the world.92
Coleridge’s sustaining anger against George would rumble on for another two years, when after a further outburst (which George described as “your downright red hot letter”), it was abruptly dispelled. But from July 1807 he began to feel steadily stronger, to write and plan, and cultivate his circle of friends, both old and new. Mrs Coleridge had announced that she would return to Bristol, much to Coleridge’s relief, but first some social visits were to be paid in Bridgwater. Coleridge meekly accompanied her, noting laconically: “All the Linen at the Bridgwater Arms mark’d ‘Stolen from the Bridgwater Arms.’”93
12
While staying at Thomas Chubb’s house, Coleridge was taking the afternoon air at the gate, when he was approached by a diminutive figure leading a large horse. The shy, elfin young man introduced himself as an unknown admirer who had pursued him from London, to Bristol, to Stowey, and thence to Bridgwater. This pilgrim was the 22-year-old Thomas De Quincey. He later claimed to have recognized Coleridge by the “peculiar haze or dreaminess” in his large, softly gazing eyes. “He was in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling arrangements at an inn door, and advanced close to him, before he had apparently become conscious of my presence.”94
After some difficulty in “recovering his position amongst daylight realities”, Coleridge turned all his “gracious” attentions on the young traveller, invited him in for drinks, sat him down, urged him to stay for dinner, and began talking about the difference between the philosophies of David Hartley and Immanuel Kant, and continued easily for three hours. De Quincey was simply dazzled, just as young Hazlitt had been ten years before on hearing him preach. His description, elaborated like Hazlitt’s many years after, shows Coleridge overwhelming the young Oxford student (De Quincey was in his third year at Worcester College) like an irresistible force of nature. The dinner arrangement being settled, “Coleridge, like some great river, the Oreallana or the St Lawrence, that, having been checked and fretted by rocks or thwarting islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters and its mighty music swept at once, as if returning to his natural business, into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly the most novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing the most spacious fields of thought by transitions the most just and logical, that it was possible to conceive.”
This display continued until abruptly interrupted by a woman’s entrance. “Coleridge paused…in a frigid tone he said, while