Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
Letter to William Sotheby (13 July 1802).
Letters
Context: Metaphisics is a word that you, my dear Sir! are no great friend to / but yet you will agree, that a great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician. He may not have it in logical coherence, in his Brain & Tongue; but he must have it by Tact / for all sounds, & all forms of human nature he must have the ear of a wild Arab listening in the silent Desart, the eye of a North American Indian tracing the footsteps of an Enemy upon the Leaves that strew the Forest —; the Touch of a Blind Man feeling the face of a darling Child.
