THE GROVE, HIGHGATE 



the horrors I have suffered from laudanum, the degradation, the 

 blighted utility, almost overwhelm me. If, as I feel for the first 

 time ... I should leave you restored to my moral and bodily 

 health, it is not myself only that will love and honour you ; every 

 friend I have (and thank God ! in spite of this wretched vice, I 

 have many and warm ones who were friends of my youth, and 

 have never deserted me) will thank you with reverence." 



One is reluetant to bring this touching letter, well known as it 

 is to the eyes of any who may never, as yet, have read it. For 

 instinctively we feel that the writer would have shrunk from 

 such publicity : but the hero belongs to posterity, and posterity 

 claims the right to know all about him even to the smallest detail 

 of his appearance : whether he wore his hair long or short and 

 whether the buttons of his coat were black or brown and he 

 pays heavily for his posthumous honours in the blazoning forth 

 in exaggerated form for the special behoof of a scandal-loving 

 world, of all his failings and peccadilloes. Therefore, if in the 

 house of genius, as in the case of Thomas Carlyle, with whom 

 my next chapter is concerned there should be a certain cup- 

 board, that, according to report, conceals a ghastly skeleton- 

 it is just" as well that it should at last be unlocked ; because, ten 

 chances to one, as in the Chelsea house, when we let in the air 

 and the light, and the cobwebs are all swept away, it will be found 

 to contain nothing more damning than a bundle of old letters- 

 breathing of love and regret, of longing, and of exaggerated self- 

 blame ; all of which appear in the epistle in which the suffering 

 Coleridge appeals to the physician for help and rescue ; and to which 

 Dr. Gillman appends a footnote : " Vice is too strong an expression. 

 It was not idleness or sensuous indulgence that led Coleridge to 

 contract this habit. No ! it was latent disease." 



The Lancet, commenting on Coleridge after the autopsy which 

 followed his death, remarked " that this intellectual giant suffered 

 more than the world was aware of, and it can be understood that 

 his indolence as well as his opium habit had a physical basis. It 

 can only add to the marvel with which his achievements are justly 

 regarded, that one so physically disabled, should have made 

 such extensive and profound contributions to philosophy and 

 literature. It is one more instance of the triumphs of mind 

 over body." 



243 16* 



