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 divine; marshalling
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 reflection on others, save when any given act
fell naturally in the way of his discourse,--without one anecdote that was
not proof and illustration 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 party-coloured
rays of his discourse should converge in light. In all this he was, in
truth, your teacher and guide; but in a little while you might forget that
he was other than a fellow student and the companion of your way,--so
playful was his manner, so simple his language, so affectionate the glance
of his pleasant eye!
There were, indeed, some whom Coleridge tired, and some whom he sent
asleep.
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