BIB_ID
416235
Accession number
MA 1856.37
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1832 April 7.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.7 x 19.7 cm
Notes
Date and place of writing taken from the postmark. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
This collection, MA 1856, is comprised of 48 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Joseph Henry Green and 2 autograph manuscripts, written between 1817 and 1834. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1856.1-50).
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 as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with seal and postmarks: "J.H. Green, Esqre / &c &c / Lincoln's Inn Fields."
This collection, MA 1856, is comprised of 48 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Joseph Henry Green and 2 autograph manuscripts, written between 1817 and 1834. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1856.1-50).
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 as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with seal and postmarks: "J.H. Green, Esqre / &c &c / Lincoln's Inn Fields."
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
Saying that he does not wish his feelings to influence Green's judgment and he will merely place before him the facts, which are as follows: "Partly from Mr Gillman's odd aversion to allow any sick person in his own house; partly, that he has been himself so unwell & wretched in his sensations, that his necessitated Duties leave him exhausted; & partly, that he has made up his mind, that a man with such a pulse & such a tongue, cannot be dangerously ill; -- I have not seen him, tho' I have passed my days in moaning & groaning, for the last 5 or 6 days. In fact, I should almost imagine that every one in the House thought it a lost case -- but I will make no complaints -- Mayhap, it would be folly so to do"; saying that he has felt no cravings and describing in detail his diet and the medicines he is taking: "I take in the course of the 24 hours two grains of Acetate of Morphium, with a small portion of the Tincture of Cardamom, & some of Battley's Liquor Cinchonae with Port Wine -- so that in three days I probably take near two Bottles of Port Wine. Whether this is more or less than adequate to the abstraction of the Ounce of Laudanum I cannot say -- I mean, the difference between the Pint of Wine taken while I took the Laudanum & Brandy, and the Pint & 1/2 I take now without it --"; describing how ill and weak he feels and the specific symptoms he experiences (gas, mucus, difficulty in breathing); adding that he thinks he is in danger of "a dysentery or other epidemic complaint"; writing "This at least is certain -- It is now 5 weeks since I have taken Laudanum -- but tho' thank God! much quieter, I am daily weaker & weaker"; asking if, without offending Mr. Gillman, Green could consult another physician "in whose Judgement you have any confidence"; writing in a postscript that he has re-opened the letter to describe one additional symptom: "namely, that while my complexion seems clearer, my eyes are weak, suffused, in short to use a hateful expression, have a sort of sottish wetness & weakness in them which shocks me while I am shaving."
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