Hence Coleridge's thirst for the new lore of the German
philosophy, which seemed to him to supply a want in the Intellectualism
of his native country.
In spite of this, Coleridge knew that in being deserted by the poetic
spirit, he was leaving a high artistic realm for one of lesser glory;
and hence his letter to Godwin of 25th March 1801, and, later on, his
dirge over himself in "Dejection".
Coleridge, in choosing to follow Wordsworth to the Lake District in
preference to remaining at Nether Stowey with Poole, had experienced
some contrition, for Poole, after all, was a more profound appreciator
of his many-sidedness and the Cervantean vein of his character than
Wordsworth, who appreciated Coleridge only from that side of him which
resembled himself.
Tom Poole regretted, like others, that Coleridge had no permanent
calling, or could not fix upon an undertaking worthy of his powers.
Poole looked upon Coleridge's devotion to journalism while he was
engaged upon the "Morning Post" as a "turning aside of his powers from
higher ends" ("T. Poole and his Friends", ii, 2), and wished him to give
himself up to something more "permanently" useful to society ("T. Poole
and his Friends", ii, 3). The correspondence of Coleridge and Poole from
1800 onwards, often turns upon the subject ("T. Poole and his Friends",
ii, 66, 68, 122, 177, 187, 205, 226, 247); and Coleridge admitted a
"distracting manifoldness" in his objects and attainments ("T.
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