Coleridge’s Religious Thought: the Search for a Medium

Abstract

In August 1802 Coleridge embarked on a short walking-holiday in the mountains of the Lake District, taking writing-materials so that he could make entries in his notebooks and write letters to Sara Hutchinson. The tour came to its climax when he found himself on the slopes of Scafell, from the summit of which he wrote a letter describing the splendour of the scene, at once beautiful and awesome. While there was a marvellous view back over Derwentwater, almost to his own house, he was more immediately impressed by the drop beneath him: ‘But O! what a look down just under my Feet! The frightfullest Cove that might ever be seen/huge perpendicular Precipices, and one Sheep upon it’s only Ledge, that surely must be crag!’ (CL, II, 840). Next day he wrote again to Sara, this time about his descent from the mountain-which, he had to admit, had been irresponsible, particularly for one with a wife and children and ‘a Concern’. He had moved away from the edge of the precipice, but had not looked round for a beaten track:

The first place I came to, that was not direct Rock, I slipped down, & went on for a while with tolerable ease-but now I came (it was midway down) to a smooth perpendicular Rock about 7 feet high-this was nothing — I put my hands on the Ledge, & dropped down/in a few yards came just such another/I dropped that too/and yet another, seemed not higher — I would not stand for a trifle/so I dropped that too/but the stretching of the muscle[s] of my hands & arms, & the jolt of the Fall on my Feet, put my whole Limbs in a Tremble, and I paused, & looking down, saw that I had little else to encounter but a succession of these little Precipices-it was in truth a Path that in a very hard Rain is, no doubt, the channel of a most splendid Waterfall. — So I began to suspect that I ought not to go on/but then unfortunately tho’ I could with ease drop down a smooth Rock 7 feet high, I could not climb it/so go on I must/and on I went/the next 3 drops were not half a Foot, at least not a foot more than my own height/but every Drop increased the Palsy of my Limbs — I shook all over, Heaven known without the least influence of Fear/and now I had only two more to drop down/to return was impossible-but of these two the first was tremendous/it was twice my own height, & the Ledge at the bottom was so exceedingly narrow, that if I dropt down upon it I must of necessity have fallen backwards & of course killed myself. My Limbs were all in a tremble — I lay upon my Back to rest myself, & was beginning according to my Custom to laugh at myself for a Madman, when the sight of the Crags above me on each side, & the impetuous Clouds just over them, posting so luridly & so rapidly northward overawed me/I lay in a state of almost prophetic Trance & Delight — & blessed God aloud, for the powers of Reason & the Will, which remaining no Danger can overpower us! O God, I exclaimed aloud -how calm, how blessed am I now/I know not how to proceed, how to return/but I am calm & fearless & confident/if this Reality were a Dream, if I were asleep, what agonies had I suffered! what screams! — When the Reason & the Will are away, what remain to us but Darkness & Dimness & a bewildering Shame, and Pain that is utterly Lord over us, or fantastic Pleasure, that draws the Soul along swimming through the air in many shapes, even as a Flight of Starlings in a Wind.