387. To Thomas Poole Address: Mr T. Poole | N. Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset. MS. British Museum. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 348. About one-third of pages a and 4 has been torn from the holograph; the passages in brackets have been supplied from a transcript made by Thomas Ward. Stamped: Keswick. Monday Night. [ 16 March 1801] [Endorsed March 16, 1801] My dear Friend The interval since my last Letter has been filled up by me in the most intense Study. If I do not greatly delude myself, I have not only completely extricated the notions of Time, and Space; but have overthrown the doctrine of Association, as taught by Hartley, and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern Infidelst -especially, the doctrine of Necessity. -- This I have done; but I trust, that I am about to do more -- namely, that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses, that is, to deduce them from one sense, & to state their growth, & the causes of their difference ----- & in this evolvement to solve the process of Life & Consciousness. ----- I -706- write this to you only; & I pray you, mention what I have written to no one. -- At Wordsworth's advice or rather fervent intreaty I have intermitted the pursuit -- the intensity of thought, & the multitude of minute experiments with Light & Figure, have made me so nervous & feverish, that I cannot sleep as long as I ought & have been used to do; & the Sleep, which I have, is made up of Ideas so connected, & so little different from the operations of Reason, that it does not afford me the due Refreshment. I shall therefore take a Week's respite; & make Christabel ready for the Press -- which I shall publish by itself -- in order to get rid of all my engagements with Longman -- My German Book I have suffered to remain suspended, chiefly because the thoughts which had employed my sleepless nights during my illness were imperious over me, & tho' Poverty was staring me in the face, yet I dared behold my Image miniatured in the pupil of her hollow eye, so steadily did I look her in the Face! -- for it seemed to me a Suicide of my very soul to divert my attention from Truths so important, which came to me almost as a Revelation / Likewise, I cannot express to you, dear Friend of my heart! -- the loathing, which I once or twice felt, when I attempted to write, merely for the Bookseller, without any sense of the moral utility of what I was writing. -- I shall therefore, as I said, immediately publish my CHRISTABEL, with two Essays annexed to it, on the Praeternatural -- and on Metre. This done I shall propose to Longman instead of my Travels (which tho' nearly done I am exceedingly anxious not to publish, because it brings me forward in a personal way, as a man who relates little adventures of himself to amuse people -- & thereby exposes me to sarcasm & the malignity of anonymous Critics, & is besides beneath me -- I say, beneath me / for to whom should a young man utter the pride of his Heart if not to the man whom he loves more than all others?) I shall propose to Longman to accept instead of these Travels a work on the originality & merits of Locke, Hobbes, & Hume / which work I mean as a Pioneer to my greater work, and as exhibiting a proof that I have not formed opinions without an attentive Perusal of the works of my Predecessors from Aristotle to Kant. -- I am confident, that I can prove that the Reputation of these three men has been wholly unmerited, & I have in [what I have already written traced the whole history of the causes that effected this reputation entirely to Wordsworth's satisfaction. You have seen, I hope, the lyrical Ballads -- In the divine Poem called Michael, by an infamous Blunder of the Printer near 20 lines are omitted in page 210, which makes it nearly unintelligible -- Wordsworth means to write to you & to send them together with a list of the numerous] Errata. The character of the Lyrical -707- Ballads is very great, & will increase daily. They have extolled them in the British Critic. 1 Ask Chester (to whom I shall write in a week or so concerning his German Books) for Greenough's Address -- & be so kind as to send it immediately. [Indeed, I hope for a long Letter from you -- your opinion of the L. B, the preface &c -- You know, I presume, that Davy is appointed Director of the Laboratory; and Professor at the Royal Institution? 2 -- I received a very affectionate Letter from him on the Occasion. Love to all -- We are all well, except perhaps myself -- Write! -- God love you & S T Coleridge]