GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



her in the memoirs of his family wearing the lace cap that in 

 those days even the youngest matron wore dropped her work, 

 and came forward to receive him. So great was the poet's tact 

 and savoir-faire that there seems to have been neither constraint 

 nor awkwardness on either side. They met as old friends rather 

 than as strangers ; Dr. Gillman says, " Coleridge took his seat ; 

 his manner, his appearance, and above all, his conversation, were 

 captivating ; we listened with delight." So much at ease were 

 hosts and guests, that, on the first pause, the visitor before men- 

 tioned, who had not been there long, rose to go, under the im- 

 pression that he was witnessing the reunion of long-parted friends. 



Such a successful meeting between total strangers with none 

 present to introduce them and bring forward topics of common 

 interest would even under ordinary circumstances, speak well 

 for the native courtesy of the hosts, and the utter freedom from 

 self-consciousness of the newcomer : it was nothing less than 

 wonderful when we remember what were the actual conditions 

 under which it took place, and the deep emotions that (under- 

 lying their calm exterior) must have been stirring in the breasts 

 of at least two of the actors in the silently-tragical drama : but 

 the poet had come in his life to the parting of the ways, had made 

 a stern and heroic resolve ; and the physician was a man of subtle 

 sympathy and insight. He beheld in his new patient a dis- 

 appointed and saddened man of genius ; whose magnificent 

 poetry and prose works, had met with small success ; who, conscious 

 of his own powers paralysed as they were by slavery to the drug 

 after receiving an unprofessional and cruel opinion warning 

 him that to discontinue it would be fatal, yet at the same time 

 telling him the consequences of persistence in its use had braced 

 himself to come to him to cure him. 



In a pathetic letter written next day, Coleridge urges the doctor 

 to watch him closely, for though he could not bring himself to 

 speak an untruth, he might be tempted to act one. " Not sixty 

 hours," he said, " have yet passed without my taking laudanum 

 . . . for the first week I shall not, must not, be permitted to 

 leave your house unless with you. Delicately or indelicately, this 

 must be done, and both the servants and assistants must receive 

 absolute command from you. The stimulus of conversation 

 suspends the terror that haunts my mind, but when I am alone, 



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