MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life 160

My Dear M. A.
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 Year² 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.’³ 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.⁴ 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.⁵ 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. W. saying he could fancy making a Pope of Archdeacon M.⁶ ; is this what he is doing ? And then why is Rome better because England is worse? that is the great wonder.⁷