379. To Dorothy Wordsworth Address: Mr Clarkson| Euse hill by Pooley Bridge | near | Penrith for | Miss Wordsworth MS. Lord Latymer Hitherto unpublwhed Stamped: Keswick. Monday, Feb. 9. 1801 My dearest Rotha The Hack, Mr Calvert was so kind as to borrow for me, carried me home as pleasantly as the extreme Soreness of my whole frame admitted. I was indeed in the language of Shakespere, not a Man but a Bruise -- I went to bed immediately, & rose on Sunday quite restored. -- If I do not hear from you any thing to the contrary, I shall walk half way to Grasmere, on Friday Morning -- leaving Keswick at ten o'clock precisely -- in the hopes of meeting Sara 3 -- ____________________ 1 Meditatio Tertia. 2 Aeneid, x. 770-1. 3 Sara Hutchinson had arrived on 18 Nov. 1800 for a visit to the Wordsworths lasting for several months. Journals, i. 78. -672- partly to prevent the necessity of William's walking so far, just as he will have begun to tranquillize, & partly to remove from Mrs Coleridge's mind all uncertainty as to the time of her coming, which if it depended on William's mood of Body, might (unless he went to the injury of his health) be a week, or a fortnight hence ---But if Sara should have been so fatigued, as not to be able to take so long a walk without discomfort, on Friday / I shall walk on to Grasmere, & return with her the next day -- all this however to be understood with the usual Deo Volente of Health & Weather. The Small Pox is in Keswick -- & we are anxious, and eddy-minded about Derwent -- / I had a very long conversation with Hartley about Life, Reality, Pictures, & Thinking, this evening. He sate on my knee for half an hour at least, & was exceedingly serious. I wish to God, you had been with us. Much as you would desire to believe me, I cannot expect that I could communicate to you all that Mrs C. & I felt from his answers -- they were so very sensible, accurate, & well worded. I am convinced, that we are under great obligations to Mr Jackson, who, I have no doubt, takes every opportunity of making him observe the differences of Things: for he pointed out without difficulty that there might be five Hartleys, Real Hartley, Shadow Hartley, Picture Hartley, Looking Glass Hartley, and Echo Hartley / and as to the difference between his Shadow & the Reflection in the Looking Glass, he said, the Shadow was black, and he could not see his eyes in it. One thing, he said, was very curious -- I asked him what he did when he thought of any thing -he answered -- I look at it, and then go to sleep. To sleep? -- said I -you mean, that you shut your eyes. Yes, he replied -- I shut my eyes, & put my hands so (covering his eyes) and go to sleep -- then I WAKE again, and away I run. ---- That of shutting his eyes, & covering them was a Recipe I had given him some time ago / but the notion of that state of mind being Sleep is very striking, & he meant more, I suspect, than that People when asleep have their eyes shut-indeed I know it from the tone & leap up of Voice with which he uttered the word 'WAKE.' To morrow I am to exert my genius in making a paper-balloon / the idea of carrying up a bit of lighted Candle into the clouds makes him almost insane with Pleasure. As I have given you Hartley's Metaphysics I will now give you a literal Translation of page 49 of the celebrated Fichte's Uber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre [ 1794] -- if any of you, or if either your Host or Hostess, have any propensity to Doubts, it will cure them for ever / for the object of the author is to attain absolute certainty. So read it aloud. (N.B. the 'I' means poor Gilbert's I -- das 'Ich' -- ) ---- 'Suppose, that A in the proposition -673- A = A stands not for the I, but for something or other different, then from this proposition you may deduce the condition under which it may be affirmed, that it is established, and how we are authorized to conclude, that If A is established, then it is established. Namely: the Proposition, A = A, holds good originally only of the I: it is abstracted from the Proposition in the Science of absolute Knowlege, I am I -- the substance therefore or sum total of every Thing, to which it may be legitimately applied, must lie in the I, and be comprehended under it. No A therefore can be aught else than something established in the I, and now therefore the Proposition may stand thus: What is established in the I, is established -- if therefore A is established in the I, then it is established (that is to say in so far as it is established, whether as only possible, or as real, or necessary) and then the Proposition is true without possibility of contradiction, if the I is to be I. -Farther, if the I be established, because it is established, then all, that is established in the I, is established because it is established; and provided only, that A is indeed a something established in the I, then it is established, if it is established; and the second Question likewise is solved.' ---- Here's a numerous Establishment for you / nothing in Touchstone ever equalled this -- it is not even surpassed by Creech's account of Space in his notes to Lueretius. 1 -- Remember me & my wife kindly to Mr & Mrs Clarkson 2 -- & give a kiss for me to dear little Tom -- God love him! -- I gave H. pictures, nuts, & mince pie, all as a Present from Tommy. -Heaven bless you, my dear friends! S. T. C. --