BIB_ID
211767
Accession number
MA 1855.7
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Place not specified, 1806 October 9.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 22.7 x 18.5 cm
Notes
This collection, MA 1855, is comprised of thirteen autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients, written from August 5, 1794 through March 1, 1832. The recipients include Derwent and Hartley Coleridge, William Hart Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Poole and Dorothy Wordsworth.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
George Fricker was the brother of Sara, Edith, Martha and Mary Fricker.
Address panel to "Mr. G. Fricker / No. 4 Castle Court / Budge Row."
Date of writing from postmark.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
George Fricker was the brother of Sara, Edith, Martha and Mary Fricker.
Address panel to "Mr. G. Fricker / No. 4 Castle Court / Budge Row."
Date of writing from postmark.
Provenance
Purchased from Joanna Langlais in 1957 as a gift of the Fellows with the special assistance of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Mr. Homer D. Crotty, Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Mr. Robert H. Taylor and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne. Formerly in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Thomas Burdett Money-Coutts, Baron Latymer.
Summary
Giving instructions for the shipment of his trunk to Keswick; explaining what he meant in an earlier letter on Christian faith; saying "I by no means gave that extract, as containing the whole of my Christian Faith; but as comprising such doctrines, as a clear head & honest Heart assisted by divine Grace might in part discover by self-examination and the light of natural conscience, & which efficiently and practically believed would prepare the way for the peculiar Doctrine of Christianity, namely, Salvation by the Cross of Christ. I meant these doctrines as the Skeleton, to which the death & Mediation of Christ with the supervention of the Holy Ghost were to add the Flesh, and Blood, Muscles, nerves, & vitality. - God of his goodness grant, that I may arrive at a more living Faith in these last, than I now feel. What I now feel is only a very strong presentiment of their Truth and Importance aided by a thorough conviction of the hollowness of all other Systems. Alas! my moral being is too untranquil, too deeply possessed by one lingering passion after an earthly good withheld - & probably withheld by divine goodness - from me, to be capable of being that, which it's own 'still small voice' tells me, even in my dreams, that it ought to be, yet of itse[lf] cannot be. Indeed, I am at times on the brink of obdurate despair - & am kept from it often by the wish of warning others. - I hope to converse with you shortly - if God spare my Life - I pray you, never talk of your obligations to me. Solemnly, I know of none. The Lambs are always happy to see you - & if you have indeed no other objection to visiting them often, besides that mentioned by you, that, my dear George, is alike unworthy of yourself, & of their kind & open nature. I am never ashamed to accept of that, which (circumstances reversed) I am conscious, I should find it my duty to give;" begging him, in a postscript, "...not to do any thing unless you hear from me again."
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