240 Mr. Leslie Stephen [March 9, 



it is suggested, wbicli gave liiin relief in his sufferings at Keswick, 

 and overpowered his will before he had recognised its nature. Tlie 

 truth is, as can be abundantly proved by his letters at the time, that 

 he was taking laudanum in large quantities in 1796, that is when he 

 was just twenty-four, under the pressure of illness, but certainly 

 ■well knowing what he was taking. It was at Keswick, not that he 

 first indulged, but that he first became aware of his almost hopeless 

 enslavement. 



After reading many painfully conclusive proofs of this j^assion, 

 I confess that I think it less remarkable that his demoralisation in 

 this respect seemed to be complete about 1814, than that he suc- 

 ceeded, under Gillman's care, in so far breaking off the habit as to 

 make a certain salvage from the wreck. I simply take note of these 

 facts, and leave anybody who pleases to do the moralising ; but I am 

 forced to add a few words upon another topic, to which his apologists 

 have resorted in order to extenuate the opium-eating. Briefly, it 

 has been attempted to save his character by abusing his wife. 

 Undoubtedly, as the recently published Coleortou papers prove, 

 there was a complete want of sympathy. The same documents 

 show that it was not, as had been generally supposed, a case of 

 gradual drifting a2)art. Proposals for a regular separation had been 

 made by the time of Coleridge's return from Malta. Coleridge's 

 apologists have said that Mrs. Coleridge was one of lago's women, 

 born " to suckle fools and chronicle small beer," and quite unable to 

 apx)reciate Kantian metaphysics, or even ' Christabel.' A very 

 doubtful legend has been put about, that she once said, " Get oop, 

 Coleridge " (a remark for which one can conceive a sufficient justifi- 

 cation), and no man can be expected to care for a woman who says 

 *' Get oop," or for her children. From letters of hers which I have 

 seen, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Coleridge must really have 

 been a very sensible woman, who worked hard to educate her own 

 childi'cn, and the children of her sister, Mrs. Southey, in French and 

 Italian, and who could express herself in remarkably good English. 

 She was no doubt inappreciative of a genius which could not be set 

 to bread-winning. And moreover, when a man has an ecstatic 

 admiration for another woman, it is nut likely to make his relations 

 to his wife more pleasant. To speak of all this as a moral excuse 

 for Coleridge is to my mind unmanly. If a man of genius con- 

 descends to marry a woman, and be the father of her children, he 

 must incur responsibilities. The fact that he leaves her, as Cole- 

 ridge did, his small fixed income, the balance of her expenses to be 

 made up by his brother-in-law and other connections, is so far to his 

 credit, but does not excuse him for a neglect of those duties, not to 

 be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence, which a husband and 

 father owes to an innocent woman and three small children. Cole- 

 ridge's position was no doubt difficult, but the mode in which he 

 solved the difficulty is a proof that opium-eating is inconsistent with 

 certain homely duties. 



