To whom shall
a young man utter "his pride", if not to a young man whom he loves?
I beg you, therefore, my dear Davy, to write to me a long letter when
you are at leisure, informing me:--Firstly, What books it will be well
for me and Calvert to purchase. Secondly, Directions for a convenient
little laboratory. Thirdly, To what amount apparatus would run in
expense, and whether or no you would be so good as to superintend its
making at Bristol. Fourthly, Give me your advice how to "begin". And,
fifthly, and lastly, and mostly, do send a "drop" of hope to my parched
tongue, that you will, if you can, come and visit me in the spring.
Indeed, indeed, you ought to see this country, this beautiful country,
and then the joy you would send into me!
The shape of this paper will convince you with what eagerness I began
this letter; I really did not see that it was not a sheet.
I have been 'thinking' vigorously during my illness, so that I cannot
say that my long, long wakeful nights have been all lost to me. The
subject of my meditations has been the relations of thoughts to
things--in the language of Hume, of ideas to impressions. I may be truly
described in the words of Descartes: I have been "res cogitans, id est,
dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, volens,
nolens, imaginans etiam, et sentiens.
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