The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-24
Reminiscence OF Coleridge and Words
worth.

worth.
Our meal concluded, once more tried to
ascertain the names of the new corners. But
my hostess evaded the question and withdrew
to her boudoir, and l was compelled to
adjourn to the saloon, that might despatch
my letters before was interrupted. l had
scarcely entered the room, and was trying to
improve O bad sketch had made the day
before, when an old gentleman entered,
with large quarto volume beneath his
arm, whom 1 at once concluded to be one
of the anonymous gentry about whose
personality there had been so much
mystery. AS he entered rose and bowed.
Whether he was conscious of my well-inten-
toned civility cannot say, but at all events
he did not return my salutation. He ap-
peared preoccupied with his own cogitations.
/ began to conjecture what manner of man
he was. His general appearance would have
led me to suppose him a dissenting minister.
His hair was long, white, and neglected; his
complexion was florid, his features we're
square, his eyes watery and hazy, his brow
broad and massive his build uncouth, his
department grave and abstracted. He wore
a white starchless neckcloth tied in limp
bow, and was dressed in shabby suit of
dusky black. His breeches were nnbut-
toned at the knee, his sturdy limbs we're
encased in stockings of lavender-colored
worsted, his feet were thrust into
heel. In this ungainly attire he paced up
and down, and down and up, and round and
round q saloon sixty feet square, with head
bent forward and shoulders STOPPING, alb
sentIy musing, and muttering to himself,
and occasionally clutchipg to his side his
ponderous tome, as if he feared it might be
taken from him. 1 confess my young spirit
chafed under the wearing quarterback
monotony of his promenade, and, stung by
tha in Xph lUnQrad
presence, was about to leave him in undis-
puted possession of the field, when l was
diverted from my purpose by the entrance
of another gentleman, whose kindly smile,
and courteous recognition of my bow, en-
couraged me to keep my ground, and pro
missed me some compensation for the slight
put upon me by his precursor. He was
dressed in a brown holland blouse; he held in
his left hand an alpenstock Con the top of
which he had placed the broad-brimmed
''wide-awake" he had Just taken Off, and in
his right sprig of apple blossom overgrown
with lichen. His cheeks were glowing with
the effects of recent exercise. So noiseless
had been his entry, that the peripatetic
| philosopher, whose back was turned to him
at first, was unaware of his presence.
But no sooner did he discover it than he
shuffied up to him, grasped him by both
hands, and backed him bodily into a neigh
boring armchair. Having secured him
| safely there, he made assurance doubly
sure" by hanging over him, SO as to bar his
escape while he delivered his testimony on
the fallacy of certain of Bishop Berkeley s
! propositions, in detecting which, he said, he
had opened up rich vein of original rehec-
tion. Not content with cursory criticism, he
| plunged profoundly into metaphysical
| lecture, which, but for the opportune intru-
sion of our fair hostess and her young lady
friend might have lasted until dinner time.
1t was then, for the first time, learned who
| the party consisted of; and l was introduced
to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Words
worth, and his daughter Dora.
/ must say never saw any manifestation
of small jealousy between Coleridge and
! Wordsworth, which, considering the vanity
possessed by each, L thought uncommonly to
the credit of both. 1 am sure they enter
tanned a thorough respect for each others in
tellectual endowments. Coleridge appeared
to me living refutation of Bacons axiom,
''that q full man is never a ready man, mol
the ready man the full one, for he was both
full man and ready man. Wordsworth
was a single-minded man, with less i'm.
agination than Coleridge, but with more
harmonious judgment and better ba
lanced principles. Coleridge, conscious
of his transcendent powers, rioted in
a license of tongue which no man could tame
Wordsworth, though he could discourse most
eloquent music, was never unwilling to si
still in Coleridges presence, yet could be as
happy in prattling with a child as in com
muning with sage. If Wordsworth conde
scended to converse with me, he spoke to me
as if were his equal in mind, and made me
proud and pleased in consequence. If Cole
ridge held me by the button for lack of tittel
audience, he had talent for making me fee
his wisdom and my own stupidity, SO that
was miserable and humiliated by the sense Of
it.-Mem0ir Of @. AZ. Young, Irdgediaaa, b.
his son.