The Death of Coleridge
When I heard of the death of
Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed to me that he long
had been on the confines of the next world,--that he had a hunger
for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But since, I
feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit
haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on
men or books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him.
He was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a
Grecian (or in the first form) at Christ's Hospital,
where I was deputy Grecian, and the same subordination and
deference to him I have preserved through a life-long acquaintance.
Great in his writings, he was greatest in his conversation. In him
was disproved that old maxim that we should allow every one his
share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease till
far midnight, yet who ever would interrupt him,--who would obstruct
that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? He
had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read
the abstruser parts of his Friend would complain
that his words did not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were
identical. But he had a tone in oral delivery, which seemed to
convey sense to those who were otherwise imperfect recipients. He
was my
fifty-years-old friend without a dissention. Never saw I his
likeness, nor probably the world can see again. I seemed to love
the house he died at more passionately than when he lived. I love
the faithful
Gilmans more than while they exercised their virtues towards
him living. What was his mansion is consecrated to me a chapel.
--Charles
Lamb,
1834