Hence, though my
poetry has in general a hue of tenderness or passion over it, yet it
seldom exhibits unmixed and simple tenderness and passion. My
philosophical opinions are blended with or deduced from my feelings."
Wordsworth gave his feelings a new object and his philosophy a higher
aim. In April of the second year at Stowey, in the letter to his brother
already quoted, Coleridge wrote: "I have for some time past withdrawn
myself totally from the consideration of _immediate causes_, which are
infinitely complex and uncertain, to muse on fundamental and general
causes, the 'causae causarum.' I devote myself to such works as encroach
not on the anti-social passions--in poetry, to elevate the imagination
and set the affections in right tune by the beauty of the inanimate
impregnated as with a living soul by the presence of life--in prose to
the seeking with patience and a slow, very slow mind, 'Quid sumus, et
quidnam victuri gignimus,'--what our faculties are and what they are
capable of becoming." This last sentence is a sort of half-prophetic
summary of his life's work; but the poetry soon gave way to the prose,
and he never again so nearly realized his poetical ideal as he had
already done in "The Ancient Mariner."
Of his person and the impression he made upon people at this time there
are various contemporary accounts. To Thelwall, in November, 1796, he
sent the following description of himself: "... my face, unless when
animated by immediate eloquence, expresses great sloth, and great,
indeed almost idiotic good-nature.
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