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 reluctant 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 r6* 
