Chapter XLIV: Letter 162: To Cottle

Friday, 27th May, 1814.

My dear Cottle,

Gladness be with you, for your convalescence, and equally so, at the hope, which has sustained and tranquillized you through your imminent peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state; yet I too am grateful; yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity, unfathomable by words, my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such as is the soul of man.

I have had more than a glimpse of what is meant by death and outer darkness, and the worm that dieth not--and that all the _hell_ of the reprobate, is no more inconsistent with the love of God, than the blindness of one who has occasioned loathsome and guilty diseases to eat out his eyes, is inconsistent with the light of the sun. But the consolations, at least, the sensible sweetness of hope, I do not possess. On the contrary, the temptation which I have constantly to fight up against, is a fear, that if _annihilation_ and the _possibility_ of _heaven_, were offered to my choice, I should choose the former.

That is, perhaps, in part, a constitutional idiosyncracy, for when a mere boy, I wrote these lines:

Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Babes, children, youths and men,
Night following night, for three-score years and ten.[85]

And in my early manhood, in lines descriptive of a gloomy solitude, I disguised my own sensations in the following words:

Here wisdom might abide, and here remorse!
Here too, the woe-worn man, who weak in soul,
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of _unconscious life_,
In tree, or wild-flower. Gentle lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to BE,
He would far rather not be that he is;
But would be something that he knows not of,
In woods, or waters, or among the rocks.[86]

My main comfort, therefore, consists in what the divines call the faith of adherence, and no spiritual effort appears to benefit me so much as the one earnest, importunate, and often, for hours, momently repeated prayer: "I believe, Lord help my unbelief! Give me faith, but as a mustard seed, and I shall remove this mountain! Faith, faith, faith! I believe, O give me faith! O, for my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my Redeemer."

In all this I justify God, for I was accustomed to oppose the preaching of the terrors of the gospel, and to represent it as debasing virtue, by the admixture of slaving selfishness.

I now see that what is spiritual, can only be spiritually apprehended. Comprehended it cannot.

Mr. Eden gave you a too flattering account of me. It is true, I am restored, as much beyond my expectations almost, as my deserts; but I am exceedingly weak. I need for myself, solace and refocillation of animal spirits, instead of being in a condition of offering it to others. Yet, as soon as I may see you, I will call on you.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. It is no small gratification to me, that I have seen and conversed with Mrs. Hannah More. She is, indisputably, the first literary female I ever met with. In part, no doubt, because she is a Christian. Make my best respects when you write.[87]

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"Mr. Josiah Wade," says Cottle, "presented to me the following mournful and touching letter, addressed to him by Mr. Coleridge in the year 1814, which, whilst it relieved my mind from so onerous a burden, fully corroborated all that I had presumed, and all that I had affirmed. Mr. W. handed this letter to me that it might be made public, in conformity with his departed friend's injunction."