August 4, 1833
Scott and Coleridge
Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious, opposites in this;—that every old ruin, hill, river, or tree called up in his mind a host of historical or biographical associations,—just as a bright pan of brass, when beaten, is said to attract the swarming bees;—whereas, for myself, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson, I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more interest in it than in any other plain of similar features. Yet I receive as much pleasure in reading the account of the battle, in Herodotus, as any one can. Charles Lamb wrote an essay [1] on a man who lived in past time:—I thought of adding another to it on one who lived not in time at all, past, present, or future,—but beside or collaterally.
Notes
1 I know not when or where; but are not all the writings of this exquisite genius the effusions of one whose spirit lived in past time? The place which Lamb holds, and will continue to hold, in English literature, seems less liable to interruption than that of any other writer of our day.—ED.