250 Mr, Leslie StepJien on S. T. Coleridge. [March 9, 



systematic characters, Coleridge must take a very low place. But 

 when we think what philosophical systems have so far been ; what 

 flimsy and air-built bubbles in the eyes of the next generation ; 

 how often we desire, even in the case of the greatest men, that the 

 one vital idea (there is seldom so much as one !) could be preserved, 

 and the pretentious structure in which it is involved permitted once 

 for all to burst ; we may think that another criterion is admissible ; 

 that a man's work may be judged by the stimulus given to reflection, 

 even if given in so intricate a muddle and such fragmentary utter- 

 ances that its disciples themselves are hopelessly unable to present it 

 in an orderly form. Upon that ground, Coleridge's rank will be a 

 very high one, although, when all is said, the history, both of the 

 man and the thinker, will always be a sad one — the saddest in some 

 sense that we can read, for it is the history of early promise blighted 

 and vast powers all but running hopelessly to waste. 



[L. S.] 



