is distinction (which I have
explained at length elsewhere, for the benefit of the curious) and John
Chester listened; not from any interest in the subject, but because he was
astonished that I should be able to suggest any thing to Coleridge that he
did not already know. We returned on the third morning, and Coleridge
remarked the silent cottage-smoke curling up the valleys where, a few
evenings before, we had seen the lights gleaming through the dark.

In a day or two after we arrived at Stowey we set out, I on my return
home, and he for Germany. It was a Sunday morning, and he was to preach
that day for Dr. Toulmin of Taunton. I asked him if he had prepared any
thing for the occasion? He said he had not even thought of the text, but
should as soon as we parted. I did not go to hear him,--this was a
fault,--but we met in the evening at Bridgewater. The next day we had a
long day's walk to Bristol, and sat down, I recollect, by a well-side on
the road, to cool ourselves and satisfy our thirst, when Coleridge
repeated to me some descriptive lines from his tragedy of Remorse; which I
must say became his mouth and that occasion better than they, some years
after, did Mr. Elliston's and the Drury-lane boards,--

"Oh memory! shield me from the world's poor strife,
And give those scenes thine everlasting life."

I saw no more of him for a year or two, during which period he had been
wandering in the Hartz Forest in Germany; and his return was cometary,
meteorous, unlike his setting out. It was not till some time after that I
knew his friends Lamb and Southey. The last always appears to me (as I
first saw him) with a common-place book under his arm, and the first with
a _bon-mot_ in his mouth. It was at Godwin's that I met him with Holcroft
and Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which was the best--_Man
as he was, or man as he is to be_. "Give me," says Lamb, "man as he is
_not_ to be." This saying was the beginning of a friendship between us,
which I believe still continues.--Enough of this for the present.

"But there is matter for another rhyme,
And I to this may add a second tale."

XVIII

ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS

The soul of conversation is sympathy.--Authors should converse chiefly
with authors, and their talk should be of books. "When Greek meets Greek,
then comes the tug of war." There is nothing so pedantic as pretending not
to be pedantic. No man can get above his pursuit i