Hence the passage in the above letter on
Baptism.
Davy now occupied a large part of Coleridge's attention. On 9th October
he wrote:
LETTER 96. To DAVY
Thursday night, October 9, 1800.
My dear Davy,
I was right glad, glad with a "stagger" of the heart, to see your
writing again. Many a moment have I had all my France and England
curiosity suspended and lost, looking in the advertisement front column
of the "Morning Post Gazetteer", for "Mr. Davy's Galvanic habitudes of
charcoal. ..." Upon my soul, I believe there is not a letter in those
words round which a world of imagery does not circumvolve; your room,
the garden, the cold bath, the moonlight rocks, Barristed, Moore, and
simple-looking Frere, and dreams of wonderful things attached to your
name--and Skiddaw, and Glaramara, and Eagle Crag, and you, and
Wordsworth, and me, on the top of them! I pray you do write to me
immediately, and tell me what you mean by the possibility of your
assuming a new occupation; [1] have you been successful to the extent of
your expectations in your late chemical inquiries?
In your poem,[2] "impressive" is used for "impressible" or passive, is
it not? If so, it is not English; life "diffusive" likewise is not
English. The last stanza introduces "confusion" into my mind, and
despondency--and has besides been so often said by the materialists,
etc.
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