THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF S. T. COLERIDGE. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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      If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that the most interesting passages in our most interesting poems are those in which the author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice of Cona never sounds so sweetly, as when it speaks of itself; and I should almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read the opening of the third book of ‘Paradise Lost’ without peculiar emotion. By a law of nature, he, who labours under a strong feeling, is impelled to seek for sympathy; but a poet’s feelings are all strong. — Quicquid amat valde amat. — Akenside therefore speaks with philosophical accuracy when he classes love and poetry as producing the same effects:

      ’Love and the wish of poets when their tongue

       Would teach to others’ bosoms, what so charms

       Their own.’

      ‘Pleasures of Imagination’.

      There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting; not that which leads to communicate our feelings to others, but that which would reduce the feelings of others; to an identity with our own.