Edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske

39. To Mary Anne Dyson

Midsummer Day [24 June 1850³]

O that the sky of the Church was as clear as the sky above our heads, and how, as they always do, yesterday's Christian Year¹ seemed to chime in with the thoughts that must sadden one even in this most glorious weather, as we thought last night when the full moon was shining so gloriously in the midst of the sky, and the elm-tree making such a beautiful shadow on the field. What can I say but that I am very sorry for you, and for her, it is like seeing tower after tower in a fortress taken by some enemy, and every time the blow seems nearer home. I do think such things as these make one know the comfort of people's being dead and safe, so that one can give them one's whole heart without the fear of having to wrench it away again. ‘Death only binds us fast.’² When I say one's whole heart I mean one's heart of admiration, and that kind of half-historical love for living saints that we were talking of one evening, for I am thankful to say that no personal friend of my own, no one indeed whom I knew well, has gone, none indeed whom I knew so well as Miss Lockhart.³ There was a cousin indeed, but I had not seen him since he was a youth and I a child, and we feel most about him for the sake of his mother and of his wife, who holds firm, and as to his mother, nothing could ever shake her I am sure.⁴ After hearing of such a thing as this, it does seem indeed a warning to any woman not to put herself in the way of being shaken by personal influence, and yet what could one do if one's Mr. Keble went, meaning him as an example of one's Pope. I remember Mr. H[enry]. W[ilberforce]. saying he could fancy making a Pope of Archdeacon M[anning].⁵ ; is this what he is doing ? And then why is Rome better because England is worse? that is the great wonder.⁶

40. To Mary Anne Dyson

MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life 177-8
Otterbourne

August 22, 1850

[No salutation]

Do you really mean that you are thinking of a rival magazine? I have a great notion it would be a very good thing, and you would make Mary Coleridge write, and keep her from being sentimental. Also mamma goes into it so vehemently that she desires it to be observed that it might be printed very well and cheaply by the man at Winchester who did Shiverydown, a communication which I consider as premature.¹ Did you ever see such a dreadful little note as she has perpetrated to go in this letter? Pray tell the fellow-slave that I am going to Plymouth, and ask if she would like to have a chapter on flowers from thence.² I send Edith a promised ear of mummy wheat, enough to sow the whole garden I should think.³ I am glad the curate has got his holiday, I hope it will cheer him up. Our new school-master comes just as we go, which is I think a pity. Amabel is at this moment in the midst of comforting Guy about his doom; he has just begun to establish an influence over Charles and to develop a soul in her, both very unconsciously. I don't think I have thanked you for the reflections on Emmeline; thanks to both drivers, she wants an infinity of smoothings down. We are reading the Seven Lamps of Architecture, some part very pretty, other by writing fine very nonsensical, other very powerful, and the beginnings of chapters only fit to be in German[.]⁴

Your most affectionate

C. M. Y.

41. To Mary Anne Dyson

MS location unknown, printed in Coleridge, Life, 178 - 181.
20 October [1850]
My dear Marianne

Your letter has so made me overflow that in spite of Sunday evening I cannot help beginning to write after finishing my task of the 7th Command[ment]⁵. You see one part is founded on a saying come down to me, I don't know how, 'that nice men are men of nasty ideas.' I don't know how far all this ought to be administered, or whether innocence should be let alone, innocence of thought I mean. I like a bit very much in the C[hristian]. R[emembrancer]. review of the Prelude about harm not being done by the things children read in books. ¹ If I had thought of it I would have sent the Listeners² in the parcel for Mrs. Dyson's Sunday evening selections; at present I believe I return to my old recommendation of the dear old Pilgrim's Progress, where I am sure they could learn nothing but good. I have nothing better at this moment to suggest than Marco Visconte³, unless you were to give them some good book of travels, such as Franklin' Voyages⁴, which I used to read for ever. Or perhaps Palgrave's Merchant and Friar⁵ would do; there is a great deal I do like exceedingly in it, and only one thing I don't, and that is not important, namely some unpleasant philosophising over a dissected eye, which I think has a bad tendency, but I do not perceive that wiser people think so. As to Mr. B⁶ , there were reports of the worse danger, and he did not act wisely certainly in having Mr. Maskell⁷ staying with him just as all knew he was going to secede, but he seemed quite steady as far as could be guessed by his ways when we saw him, and his whole soul seemed in the Church restoration, not like a man who meant to abandon it; he took such pleasure in showing all that was doing and telling of the further schemes, and with the belief of early death about him which he has expressed I cannot think that he would remain in our Church if he doubted her really. He has been very unwell, and does not take care of himself, so my uncle has ordered him abroad, and the Warden⁸ has just been to see about him; we heard to-day that it is to the Nile that he is to go, and choosing that instead of Italy seems like a very good sign. He is certainly more like a man in a book than like the rest of the world. What you say about Archdeacon M[anning]. seems almost too terrible to be possible, but I must tell you a curious thing. Five or six years ago Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt⁹ took us to a great Agricultural meeting at Goodwood, and papa sat next the Archdeacon and had a great deal of talk; but what struck papa was this, that Archdeacon M. first said to him that he hoped not to be called on to speak, and then put himself forward and showed that he wanted to do so. Papa said of it at the time that it showed a want of simplicity, it was so unlike what Mr. Keble would have done; and he never had full confidence in him after that. How strange it is that the goodness and holiness of life that one would have thought would secure people only seems to lay them open to assaults of the faith, like Eustace in the Combatants, which you really ought to read. ¹ I suppose Miss Martineau is the Socinian specimen of pretty writing that you mean; I read a beauty that I am sure was hers the other day, about a heroic lady in a parish with a deadly fever; there was such a pretty piece about the clergyman and his wife going about fearlessly for themselves, only now and then a terror striking them for each other.² And there is Mary Barton.³
I think what you say about hero-worship exemplifies the difference between looking at a man as a saint or hero and as a Pope, in which latter case I think it is really making him infallible, and putting trust into something visible, giving our eyes up to him, so that if the light in him becomes darkness, he leads us into the ditch. Alas, how well I recollect Mr. H[enry]. Wilberforce on your lawn saying he could fancy making a Pope of Archdeacon M[anning]. I dare say you have read those letters of Dr. Pusey's⁴ which the Coleridges have about the danger of the craving to be guided. It must be the difference between looking up to a tree and clinging to it; in the case of saint-worship, the tree's fall seems to carry away half of you and leave you scarcely knowing where you are, in the other case you go with it.
I like the notion of the Mag[azine]. exceedingly, and when the landmarks are done would devote the best part of my energies to it, and put in the Cameos, and work up the Catechism papers into Conversations, but I have my fears, for I believe a new Mag. is an immense risk, and I think it is very doubtful whether the Mozleys would choose to start one in opposition to Masters.⁵ Besides, who will guard us from the universal fate of good Mags. of growing stupid as soon as they get into circulation. However, it is my will, but not my poverty,⁶ and it would be a very pleasant thing if it can but be done. I don't think though that I shall venture on a letter to the fellow-slave⁷ just yet, till I know a little better how far she is in earnest; tell her to write to me, or better still if she would but come and stay. Do send her when she comes to you. Is her history of France going on? I wish any one could tell us what the cost of starting a Mag. would be. I advise you to set up a blackboard in your infant school; my eyes were opened to its uses by Duke⁸. I don't think I would make our Mag. much of a poor people's concern, more for young ladies and calves; perhaps started in that way it would not seem so like an opposition. I have got a book about the Reign of Terror which mamma hates the sight of, but which has some beautiful stories in it.¹ Do you know Tales of the Peerage and Peasantry?² One of the stories in it about Lady Nithsdale would be excellent for Calfdom. I am going to give Laura and Amy a sensible friend, a Mary Ross, about 25, daughter to the clergyman in the next parish, very clever, reading and school-keeping, without a mother, taking long walks rather independently and caring little for dress, quite feminine, however, and very nice.³ Charles delights in her, but Philip cannot abide her, because of her superiority in reality; he fancies it is for want of feminine grace. Amy is intensely fond of her, and she watches the two girls as they come to be on an equality with her with a motherly sort of interest. It is at her house that Guy made the outburst that led to the explanation with Amy. Penny Club awaits me. Good-bye.
Your devoted slave,

C. M. Y.

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