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Even the act of analytical introspection itself became destructive. “Meanwhile the habit of inward Brooding daily makes it harder to confess the Thing, I am, to any one – least of all to those, whom I most love & who most love me – & thereby introduces and fosters a habit of negative falsehood, & multiplies the Temptations to positive Insincerity.” Again for the first time, he acknowledged the need for professional help and made the first of innumerable resolutions to seek a medical cure, in this instance from his old friend Dr Beddoes of the Bristol Pneumatic Institute: “O God! let me bare my whole Heart to Dr B. or some other Medical Philosopher – if I could know there was no Relief; I might then resolve on something.”83
While Coleridge battled these mental coils, Poole brought him round to face other, practical duties. Coleridge’s patron Tom Wedgwood, upon whom half his annuity depended, had died during Coleridge’s absence in Malta. Tom’s brother, Josiah, had written asking for a memorial essay but Coleridge had simply failed to reply, leaving this letter too not merely unanswered but unopened for many weeks. Poole forced Coleridge to write a long, explanatory letter to Josiah from Stowey on 25 June, first smoothing the way with his own tactful missive.
“I admire and pity him more than ever,” he wrote to Josiah. “His information is much extended, the great qualities of his mind heightened and better disciplined; but alas: his health is weaker, and his great failing, procrastination, or the incapability of acting agreeably to his wish and will, much increased.”84 This was the nearest that the loyal Poole would get to opium.
Coleridge’s own explanation to Josiah mentioned “Ill-health, Despondency, domestic Distractions”, adding that he had indeed previously written a paper on Tom Wedgwood’s system of philosophy and “opinions in psychology” and had drawn at full “a portrait of my friend’s mind & character”, but this manuscript had been lost with his other Malta papers.85
As Sir James Mackintosh – now Josiah’s son-in-law – was editing Tom Wedgwood’s unpublished work, Coleridge did not offer to resurrect this paper from memory: “too great pain has baffled my attempts in going over again the detail of past times”. In the event Mackintosh did not fulfil his promise either, and it was left to Coleridge to insert a short but beautiful tribute to Tom in a footnote to The Friend in 1809. “He is gone, my Friend! my munificent Co-patron, and not less the Benefactor of my Intellect! – He who beyond all other men known to me, added a fine and ever-wakeful sense of Beauty to the most patient Accuracy in experimental Philosophy…”86
Coleridge particularly credited Tom with a “Theory of Perception” based on self-analytic notes of his own abnormal mental states and hallucinations, calmly and empirically pursued, “even during the wretched nights of sickness, in watching and instantly recording these experiences of the world within us…” Tom’s theory emphasized, in a new way, the subjective influence of memory and imagination on apparently inexplicable phenomena like ghosts and hallucinations. It was evidently of great importance to Coleridge, and his awkward protestations to Josiah – “O Sir! if you knew, what I suffer, and am this moment suffering, in thinking of him” – were heartfelt. Yet there was also a degree of calculation, since Coleridge “suspected & feared” his annuity would be discontinued.87
But Josiah Wedgwood, a large-minded man who had much experience of literary “hypochondria” was prepared to be mollified. “I was truly glad to hear from him,” he confided to Poole. “His letter removed all those feelings of anger which occasionally, but not permanently, existed in my mind towards him. I am very sorry for him.”88 It might also have calmed Coleridge to know that half the annuity was actually secured by the terms of Tom Wedgwood’s will, and in practice Josiah could not touch it; but this only became clear later.
Not even Tom Poole’s diplomacy could resolve the misunderstanding with George Coleridge. His letter of 6 April was still unopened at the end of June, when Coleridge was intending to go down to Ottery in less than a week, “from a sense of Duty as it affects myself, & from a promise made to Mrs Coleridge, as far as it affects her”.89 His folly in leaving it so long would be incredible if he had not openly admitted such procrastination to Josiah Wedgwood: “I have sunk under such a strange cowardice of Pain, that I have not unfrequently kept Letters from persons dear to me for weeks together unopened.”90 Southey would later observe that, in practical terms, this was perhaps the most damaging of all the symptoms of Coleridge’s opium addiction, leading to endless business confusions, personal affronts and family chaos for over a decade. But it is also a revealing one, for it suggests that Coleridge knew instinctively where “Pain” and censure would come from, and unconsciously sought to protect himself by refusing to conform to civilized norms of behaviour. If the real world promised to be too harsh, he simply ignored it as long as possible, and tried to live in the breathing space. One is tempted to believe that he knew very well that George’s letter would bring bad news. If so, Coleridge was not disappointed when he finally opened it in July.
George was overwhelmed with his own family difficulties – illness at the school, the frailty of their “poor aged mother”, the “hereditary” despondency of Mrs James Coleridge – and could not possibly receive them. “To come to Ottery for such a purpose would be to create a fresh expense for yourself and to load my feelings with what they could not bear without endangering my life – I pray you therefore do not do so.” He could not take on the children at the school, though he might be able to help financially. He thought Mrs Coleridge’s friends might make “a settlement”, but he strongly disapproved of the separation. (Later he would say it was “an irreligious act…which the New Testament forbids”.) He upbraided Coleridge in the old paternal tones of his Cambridge days: “For God’s sake strive to put on some fortitude and do nothing rashly.”91 The whole Ottery plan thus collapsed in a storm of mutual reproaches. Mrs Coleridge not unnaturally blamed her husband. Coleridge with far less reason blamed not only George but all his Ottery brothers. Coleridge’s anger was surprising and curiously refreshing to him. Though so largely unjustified, it left him free to dramatize himself as an outcast in a cruel world. Paradoxically, it made him feel better about himself, by embracing the worst that the respectable world could do to him. He wrote to Josiah Wade in a kind of satisfied fury at the ruin of his reputation and prospects. George had betrayed him.
His pride & notion of character took alarm and he made public to all my Brothers, & even to their Children, [my] most confidential Letter, & so cruelly that while I was ignorant of all this Brewing, Colonel Coleridge’s eldest son (a mere youth) had informed Mr King that he should not call on me (his Uncle) for that “The Family” had resolved not to receive me. These people are rioting in Wealth & without the least feeling add another £100 to my already most embarrassed circumstance…So that at the age of 35 I am to be penniless, resourceless, in heavy debt – my health & spirits absolutely broken down – & with scarce a friend in the world.92
Coleridge’s sustaining anger against George would rumble on for another two years, when after a further outburst (which George described as “your downright red hot letter”), it was abruptly dispelled. But from July 1807 he began to feel steadily stronger, to write and plan, and cultivate his circle of friends, both old and new. Mrs Coleridge had announced that she would return to Bristol, much to Coleridge’s relief, but first some social visits were to be paid in
