to confide to you embryo designs, which never may glow into life, or mock me by their failure.’
‘I have long had a suspicion that no mind can
systematize its knowledge, and carry on the concentrating
processes, without some fixed opinion on the subject of
metaphysics. But that indisposition, or even dread of
the study, which you may remember, has kept me
from meddling with it, till lately, in meditating on the
life of Goethe, I thought I must get some idea of the
history of philosophical opinion in Germany, that I
might be able to judge of the influence it exercised upon
his mind. I think I can comprehend him every other way,
and probably interpret him satisfactorily to others, — if I
can get the proper materials. When I was in Cambridge,
I got Fichte and Jacobi; I was much interrupted, but
some time and earnest thought I devoted. Fichte
could not understand at all; though the treatise which
I read was one intended to be popular, and which he
says must compel (bezwingen) to conviction. Jacobi I
could understand in details, but not in system. It
seemed to me that his mind must have been moulded
by some other mind, with which I ought to be
acquainted, in order to know him well, — perhaps
Spinoza’s. Since I came home, I have been consulting
Buhle’s and Tennemann’s histories of philosophy, and
dipping into Brown, Stewart, and that class of books.’
‘After I had cast the burden of my cares upon you, I
rested, and read Petrarch for a day or two. But that
could not last. I had begun to “take an account
of stock,” as Coleridge calls it, and was forced to
proceed. He says few persons ever did this faithfully,
