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, without being dissatisfied with the result,
and lowering their estimate of their supposed riches. With
me it has ended in the most humiliating sense of poverty; and
only just enough pride is left to keep your poor friend off
the parish. As it is, I have already asked items of several
besides yourself; but, though they have all given what they
had, it has by no means answered my purpose; and I have laid
their gifts aside, with my other hoards, which gleamed so
fairy bright, and are now, in the hour of trial, turned into
mere slate-stones.
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