man would be
apt to call by the shorter name of a _sham_.

II. It diminishes the power of the talking performer himself. Seeming to
have more, the man has less. For a man is never thrown upon his mettle,
nor are his true resources made known even to himself, until to some
extent he finds himself resisted (or at least modified) by the reaction
of those around him. That day, says Homer, robs a man of half his value
which sees him made a slave. But to be an autocrat is as perilous as to
be a slave. And supposing Homer to have been introduced to Coleridge
(a supposition which a learned man at my elbow pronounces
intolerable--'It's an anachronism, sir, a base anachronism!' Well, but
one may _suppose_ anything, however base), Homer would have observed to
me, as we came away from the _soiree_, 'In my opinion, our splendid
friend S. T. C. would have been the better for a few kicks on the
shins. That day takes away half of a man's talking value which raises
him into an irresponsible dictator to his company.'

III. It diminishes a man's power in another way less obvious, but not
less certain. I had often occasion to remark how injurious it was to the
impression of Coleridge's finest displays where the minds of the hearers
had been long detained in a state of passiveness. To understand fully,
to sympathise deeply, it was essential that they should react. Absolute
inertia produced inevitable torpor. I am not supposing any indocility,
or unwillingness to listen. Generally it might be said that merely to
find themselves in that presence argued sufficiently in the hearers a
cheerful dedication of themselves to a dutiful patience.

The mistake, in short, is to suppose that the particular power of talk
Coleridge had was a _nuance_ or modification of what is meant by
conversational power; whereas it was the direct antithesis: it differed
diametrically. So much as he had of his own peculiar power, so much more
alien and remote was he from colloquial power. This remark should be
introduced by observing that Madame de Stael's obvious criticism passes
too little unvalued or unsearched either by herself or others. She
fancied it an accidental inclination or a caprice, or a sort of
self-will or discourtesy or inattention. No; it was a faculty in polar
opposition to the true faculty of conversation.

Coleridge was copious, and not without great right, upon the subject of
Art. It is a subject upon which we personally are very impatient, and