Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey by Joseph Cottle
page 76 of 568 (13%)
page 76 of 568 (13%)
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and friendship of more than forty years. Inadequate as is the present
offering, some satisfaction is felt at the opportunity presented of bestowing this small tribute to the memory of one whom I ever venerated, and, in so doing, of adding another attestation to the merits of so good and great a man. * * * * * The reader after this long digression, will have his attention directed once more, to Mr. Coleridge, who was left at Clevedon in the possession of domestic comfort, and with the hope, if not the prospect, of uninterrupted happiness. It could hardly be supposed, that in the element of so much excitement, the spirit of inspiration should remain slumbering. On my next seeing Mr. C. he read me, with more than his accustomed enthusiasm, those tenderly affectionate lines to his "Sara," beginning "My pensive Sara, thy soft cheek reclined." &c, Mr. Coleridge now began to console himself with the suspicion, not only that felicity might be found on this side the Atlantic, but that Clevedon concentrated the sum of all that Earth had to bestow. He was now even satisfied that the Susquehannah itself retired into shade before the superior attractions of his own native Severn. He had, in good truth, discovered the grand secret; the abode of happiness, after which all are so sedulously inquiring; and this accompanied with the cheering assurance, that, by a merely pleasurable intellectual exertion, he would be able to provide for his moderate expenses, and experience the tranquillizing joys of seclusion, while the whole country and Europe were convulsed with war and changes. |
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