BIB_ID
190515
Accession number
MA 9787.44
Creator
Coleridge, John Duke Coleridge, Baron, 1820-1894.
Display Date
Ottery Saint Mary, England, 1888 April 10.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.7 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
Professor William Angus Knight was a professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.
Written from "Heath's Court, / Ottery S. Mary, / Devon." on stationery engraved with his crest and address.
Professor William Angus Knight was a professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.
Written from "Heath's Court, / Ottery S. Mary, / Devon." on stationery engraved with his crest and address.
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from William Angus Knight, 1908.
Summary
Acknowledging the return of his letters and bemoaning their condition; saying "...they are by no means exceptionally interesting & suppose I must have 100 such abyssed in the [illegible] of my cupboards & (in London) becoming gradually filthy with dust & smoke. I always determine to devote a certain number of hours in the week to going through my files of correspondence - but the natural man shrinks from the physical labour & the heart from the terrible depression which commune with past years & with the dead always (at least with me) produces. I am very sorry about the Wordsworth troubles - I have been looking forward eagerly to that Life - Perhaps I may even now read it here in the Long Vacation. As to my own paper I doubt if it will ever see the light - Macmillan [illegible] me & I was fool enough to give a sort of [illegible] promise of which I repented the moment it was given. Have you read Aingers Letters of Lamb. They are very well done indeed. I notice a certain asperity & a grudging praise towards Wordsworth not worthy of Lamb & to me rather unexpected or perhaps I should say [illegible]. Very different from Wordsworth's noble & lofty eulogy on Lamb after his death. Your 'gossip' about the Scottish University scheme is very interesting to me - But I am starting for London & have no time to enter on it;" inviting him to visit him & Lady Coleridge in London.
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