But "am I entitled," he asks uneasily, "have I a
_right_ to do this I Can I do it without moral degradation? And
lastly, can it be done without loss of character in the eyes of my
acquaintances and of my friends' acquaintances?"
I cannot take upon myself to answer these painful questions. The reply
to be given to them must depend upon the judgment which each individual
student of this remarkable but unhappy career may pass upon it as a
whole; and, while it would be too much to expect that that judgment
should be entirely favourable, one may at least believe that a fair
allowance for those inveterate weaknesses of physical constitution
which so largely aggravated, if they did not wholly generate, the fatal
infirmities of Coleridge's moral nature, must materially mitigate the
harshness of its terms.
The story of Coleridge's closing years is soon told. It is mainly a
record of days spent in meditation and discourse, in which character it
will be treated of more fully in a subsequent chapter. His literary
productions during the last fourteen years of his life were few in
number, and but one of them of any great importance. In 1821 he had
offered himself as an occasional contributor to _Blackwood's
Magazine_, but a series of papers promised by him to that periodical
were uncompleted, and his only two contributions (in October 1821 and
January 1822) are of no particular note.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244