the fate of a woman who marries a man of genius; but a man of genius of
the coldly selfish and exacting type of the Chelsea philosopher would
probably be a less severe burden to a woman of housewifely instincts
than the weak, unmethodical, irresolute, shiftless being that Coleridge
had by this time become. After the arrival of the Southeys, Mrs.
Coleridge would indeed have been more than human if she had not looked
with an envious eye upon the contrast between her sister Edith's lot
and her own. For this would give her the added pang of perceiving that
she was specially unlucky in the matter, and that men of genius could
("if they chose," as she would probably, though not perhaps quite
justly have put it) make very good husbands indeed. If one poet could
finish his poems, and pay his tradesmen's bills, and work steadily for
the publishers in his own house without the necessity of periodical
flittings to various parts of the United Kingdom or the Continent, why,
so could another. With such reflections as these Mrs. Coleridge's mind
was no doubt sadly busy during the early years of her residence at the
Lakes, and, since their causes did not diminish but rather increased in
intensity as time went on, the estrangement between them--or rather, to
do Coleridge justice, her estrangement from her husband--had, by 1806,
no doubt become complete. The fatal habit which even up to this time
seems to have been unknown to most of his friends could hardly have
been a secret to his wife, and his four or five years of slavery to it
may well have worn out her patience.

This single cause indeed, namely, Coleridge's addiction to opium, is
quite sufficient, through the humiliations, discomfort, and privations,
pecuniary and otherwise, for which the vice was no doubt mediately or
immediately responsible, to account for the unhappy issue of a union
which undoubtedly was one of love to begin with, and which seems to
have retained that character for at least six years of its course.