Life of Samuel Taylor ColeridgeW. Scott, 1887 - 154 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Allsop Ancient Mariner Biographia Literaria Bristol Calne Cambridge Charles Lamb Charles Lloyd Christ's Hospital Christabel Cole Coleridge appears Coleridge took Coleridge wrote Coleridge's Courier critics dark pillar debts Dorothy Wordsworth early earnings Edinburgh Edinburgh Review estrangement favourable genius Gillman Grasmere Greta Hall H. N. Coleridge Hazlitt Henry Nelson Coleridge Highgate honourable hope Keswick Kubla Khan lady lectures less letter literary living Lloyd London Lyrical Ballads Magazine mind Morning Post nature Nether Stowey never night opium pain Pantisocrasy pension period person Poems of S. T. C. poet poet's Poetical poetry pounds probably published Quincey reason Remorse returned Review ridge ridge's S. T. C. Edited Samuel Taylor Coleridge says Sibylline Leaves sister soul Southey Southey's spirits Stowey Street Stuart sufficient talk thought tions tour tragedy Unitarian Watchman Wedgewood wife Wordsworth Writing to Cottle written young Zapolya
Popular passages
Page 62 - ... instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour...
Page 23 - Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — /Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard...
Page 61 - In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in "Purchas's Pilgrimage": "Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto.
Page 148 - tis Death itself there dies. EPITAPH. STOP, Christian Passer-by ! — Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.— O, lift one thought in prayer for STC ; That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death ! Mercy for praise — to be forgiven for fame He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same ! 9th November, 1833 REMORSE.
Page 59 - When I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest these terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners. He has written near twelve hundred lines of blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to anything in our language which any way resembles it.
Page 24 - How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar— —while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy!...
Page 54 - Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon me and stupefied my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter. I am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit; much that calls for the exercise of patience and resignation ; but in storms like these, that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle way...
Page 61 - The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines ; if, that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of...
Page 60 - She is a woman indeed ! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty!
Page 146 - Brow and head were round, and of massive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration ; confused pain looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute ; expressive of weakness under possibility of strength.