Perhaps, instead of heart I
should have said Taste; but, when I think of 'The Brothers', of 'Ruth',
and of 'Michael', I recur to the expression and am enforced to say
heart. If I die, and the booksellers will give you anything for ray
life, be sure to say, "Wordsworth descended on him like the [Greek:
Gnothi seauton] from heaven; by showing to him what true poetry was, he
made him know that he himself was no Poet."
In your next letter you will, perhaps, give me some hints respecting
your prose plans.
God bless you, and
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Greta Hall, Keswick.
P.S.--What is a fair price--what might an author of reputation fairly
ask from a bookseller, for one edition, of a thousand copies, of a
five-shilling book?
[I congratulate you on the settlement of Davy in London. I hope that his
enchanting manners will not draw too many idlers about him, to harass
and vex his mornings.]
[Footnote: 1 This tragedy was entitled Abbas.]
PART II
THE PERMANENT
I will write for "The Permanent", or not at all." (Letter to Sir G.
Beaumont, "Coleorton Memorials", ii, 162.) "Woe is me! that at 46 I am
under the necessity of appearing as a lecturer, and obliged to regard
every hour given to "The Permanent", whether as poet or philosopher, an
hour stolen from others as well as from my own maintenance." (Letter to
Mudford, Brandl's "Life of Coleridge", p.
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