Men cannot long retain their faith in the Heaven "above" the
blue sky, but a Heaven they will have, and he who reasons best on the
side of the universal wish will be the most popular philosopher. As to
your first objection, that you are a logician, let me say that your
habits are analytic, but that you have not read enough of travels,
voyages, and biography--especially men's lives of themselves--and you
have too soon submitted your notions to other men's censures in
conversation. A man should nurse his opinions in privacy and
self-fondness for a long time, and seek for sympathy and love, not for
detection or censure. Dismiss, my dear fellow, your theory of Collision
of Ideas, and take up that of Mutual Propulsion. I wish to write more,
and state to you a lucrative job, which would, I think, be eminently
serviceable to your own mind, and which you would have every opportunity
of doing here. I now express a serious wish that you would come and look
out for a house. Did Stuart remit you L10. on my account?
S. T. COLERIDGE.
I would gladly write any verses, but to a prologue or epilogue I am
absolutely incompetent.
Coleridge was a tremendous walker and hill climber. The following letter
narrates a curious adventure in a storm among the mountains.
LETTER 98. TO DAVY
October 18, 1800.
My dear Davy,
Our mountains northward end in the mountain Carrock--one huge, steep,
enormous bulk of stones, desolately variegated with the heath plant; at
its foot runs the river Calder, and a narrow vale between it and the
mountain Bowscale, so narrow, that in its greatest width it is not more
than a furlong.
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