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he had felt the powerOf nature, and already was preparedBy his intense conceptions to receiveDeeply the lesson deep of love, which heWhom Nature, by whatever means, has taughtTo feel intensely, cannot but receive. (113-118)The Pedlar’s development is following clear stages here. Nature has impressed his mind withphantasiae that he has assented to, but only with her help. And by referring new impressions to thosepreviously received, he has built up ‘intense conceptions’ – true representations of things, notions(ennoia) that will prepare him for the next stage, which is also under the tutelage of Nature. ‘Ere hisninth summer’ the young Pedlar is sent out into the hills as a shepherd, where he is then touched bythe ‘unutterable love’ he feels for the beauty of Nature, and in his ‘gladness and deep joy’– emotionalstates that are appetitive and excessive – he loses himself in nature:his spirit drankThe spectacle. Sensation, soul and formAll melted into him. They swallowed upHis animal being; in them did he liveAnd by them did he live. They were his life. (129-133, my emphasis)This ecstatic state is considered to be evidence of election, of:a visitation from the living God,He did not feel the God; he felt his works;Thought was not. In enjoyment it expired.Such hour by prayer and praise was unprofanedHe neither prayed, nor offered thanks of praiseHis mind was a thanksgiving to the powerThat made him. It was blessedness and love. (135-141 my emphasis)It would be customary for such experiences, such ‘transports of delight’ to be seen ascelebrations of great gladness and joy: gaudio exultare or effusa laetitia. But in the understanding ofthe Stoic teachings, these excessive states are disturbances of the mind, and Wordsworth writes ofthem here, quite deliberately, as appetites of the youthful mind. They are sublime and wonderfulstates of being, and they affirm the power of Nature. The Pedlar feels his faith in the divinity withoutneed for any sight of an actual entity. Nor does he conceive of ‘God’ as some being who requires tobe praised. Even though he had, early on, reverenced the teachings of the Bible and acknowledged its‘written promise’, he feels no need for such scriptural authority, since the inscriptions in the book ofnature appeared more real than the records of revealed religion: ‘But in the mountains did he feel hisfaith / There did he see the writing’ (149-50).Although these enthusiastic emotional experiences are contrary to Stoic conceptions ofwisdom, Wordsworth does not judge them; the Pedlar’s experience is ‘age appropriate’. And it isexactly the same sequence of events that is later set out in the description of his own youth in ThePrelude, where he is also offering an impartial, phenomenological description of the growth of his266