Books of the Day

The Gift of the Gab

Coleridge the Talker. A Series of Contemporary Descriptions and Comments. Edited by Richard W. Armour and Raymond F. Howes. (Oxford University Press. 24s.)

Au. contemporary witnesses agree that Coleridge was a great talker, perhaps the greatest talker that ever lived ; and since he died critics and biographers have never ceased to regret that he lacked a Boswell. This is rather unfair to his nephew and son- in-law, Henry Nelson Coleridge, who for twelve years faithfully recorded the matter, if not the manner, of the great man's dis-

courses ; and actually, in his Preface to the volume of Table Talk which preserves this record, he gave what is the best appreciation of the manner, and sharply distinguishes it from Johnson's. Johnson's talk was the display of a personality; it avoided the

abstract exposition of principles and relied on anecdote and fact ; it was a gladiatorial exhibition of power. But Coleridge, though he had his witty moments, did not " converse " in this sense at all ; he was a teacher, sometimes a preacher, and his element was " discourse."

" Throughout a long-drawn summer's day would this man talk to you in low, equable, but clear and musical tones, concerning things human and divinemarshalling all history, harmonizing all experiment, probing the depths of your consciousness, and revealing visions of glory and of terror to the imagination ; but pouring withal such floods of light upon the mind, that you might, for a season, like Paul, become blind in the very act of conversion. And this he would do, without so much as one allusion to himself, without a word of reflec- tion on others, save when any given fact fell naturally in the way of, his discourse,—without one anecdote that was not proof and illustra- tion of a previous position ;—gratifying no passion, indulging no caprice, but, with a calm mastery over your soul, leading you onward and onward for ever through a thousand windings, yet with no pause, to some magnificent point in which, as in a focus, all the parti- coloured rays of his discourse should converge in light."

H. N. admits that there were some whom Coleridge tired, and some whom he sent to sleep. But it was a unique experience, quite beyond the range of a Boswell. Coleridge was rather a Socrates who has lacked his Plato, and no verbatim recording could possibly transmit a method of self-expression and communication which was essentially oral. But if Coleridge had no intelligent disciples, he had many attentive listeners, and their evidence, in the form of excerpts from letters, memoirs, journals, autobio- graphies and other writings, are all brought together in this one substantial and absorbing volume.

Though the editors have exhumed some very interesting and out-of-the-way records of visits to Coleridge, the best are still the well-known sketches of those who knew him well—Hazlitt and De Quincey. Hazlitt in particular was an inspired reporter : he had an eye for the significant detail. " Phillips held the cribbage-peg that was to mark his game, suspended in his hand ; and the

whist table was silent for a moment "—the egregious Mr. Holcroft (" What do you mean by a sensation, Sir? What do you mean by an idea?") had ventured to reprove the great man. Crabb Robinson's accounts of his meetings with Coleridge are not so well known as Hazlitt's, but they were frequent, and he too is a

vivid and reliable reporter, and by no means uncritical:

" Coleridge kept me on the stretch of attention and admiration from half-past three till twelve o'clock. On politics, metaphysics, and poetry, more especially on the Regency, Kant, and Shakespeare, he was aston- ishingly eloquent. But I have made one remark on him—though be practises all sorts of delightful tricks and shows admirable skill in riding his hobbies, yet he may be easily unsaddled. I was surprised to find how easy it is to obtain from him concessions which lead to gross inconsistencies. Though an admirable disclaimer and speech-maker, he has neither the readiness nor the acuteness required by a colloquial disputant, so that with a sense of inferiority which makes me feel humble in his presence I do not feel in the least afraid of him."

But for sheer disenchantment we must turn to Carlyle's famous

passage in the Life of Sterling. This cocky young man from the North was not to be intimidated. Like Holcroft, he wanted a

few definitions ; he wanted a logical process of thought and a definite conclusion ; and he liked to do some of the talking himself. His antipathy was perhaps primarily physical. "He is

a kind good soul, full of religion and affection and poetry and animal magnetism. His cardinal sin is that he wants will. He has no resolution. He shrinks from pain or labour in any of its shapes. His very attitude bespeaks this. He never straightens his knee-joints. He stoops with his fat ill-shapen shoulders, and in walking he does not tread, but shovel and slide. . . . He is also always busied to keep, by strong and frequent inhalations, the water of his mouth from overflowing, and his eyes have a look of anxious impotence." This is from a letter, but the more polished account in the Life of Sterling is not more flattering. " To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether you consent or not, can in the long run be exhilarating to no creature; however eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is descending."

Yet for all Carlyle's deflatory prickings, Coleridge remains a great figure. There is a good case for regarding him as potentially the greatest intellect, certainly of his own time, that England has produced in the allied realms of poetry and philosophy; and yet his life was a tragic failure, and his work a vast chaos. When we consider the psychological problem which he presents the con- viction grows that it was in some way connected with his garrulity. A man who talks so much will never write well or consistently. An endless flow of speech dissipates that energy which is required for the concentrated act of writing. For a good writer writes, in a very literal sense, with the tip of his pen. Through that narrow channel thoughts flow from the brain in an ordered sequence. If, however, they have been previously divulged in conversation, then they are like glowing coals that

turn to ashes when scattered in the wind. HERBERT READ.