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own mind. Young men do not act with wisdom; they pursue sensation and experiences that arefocussed on self-love before they are capable of objectifying those experiences and learning to loveothers. The Pedlar’s ecstatic experiences are fortunately mediated by the fact that his heart was‘lowly’, and although his being became ‘sublime and comprehensive’ with the knowledge heacquired (157), he was also ‘meek in gratitude’. And, by meditating on his experiences,he acquiredWisdom which works through patience; thence he learnedIn many a calmer hour of sober thoughtTo look on nature with an humble heartSelf-questioned where it did not understand,And with a superstitious eye of love. (161-166)Wordsworth then touches on the Pedlar’s lack of formal education beyond his early schooldays, in order to account for his learning:Small need had he of books; for many a taleTraditionary round the mountains hung,And many a legend peopling the dark woodsNourished Imagination in her growthAnd gave the mind that apprehensive powerBy which she is made quick to recogniseThe moral properties and scope of things. ( 167- 73)A natural mind, in a natural setting, can learn from local tales, the feelings that nourishImagination in her growth. And this process is again referred to using Stoic terminology, as the mindexercises its ‘apprehensive power’, grasping at further impressions that are built up and understoodwithin a particular moral context. But then, seemingly as an afterthought, Wordsworth was alsoconcerned that some books were available to the Pedlar, to give his mind a greater ‘scope of things’.Those relating to the humanities are provided from the Vicar’s library, while others – relating tomathematics, geometry and the sciences – ‘the schoolmaster supplied’. The Pedlar’s learning istherefore far more comprehensive than would be expected from a youth who spent his days as ashepherd, and he gains a good knowledge also of ‘The purer elements of truth involv’d / In lines andnumbers’.There then follows a further transition, one that takes place ‘before his twentieth year waspassed’ (221). Strong emotional states return with vehemence, but this time they are not the lighthearted,positive experiences of gladness and joy experienced at the end of his boyhood days; theyhave greater force, are more disturbing, and cannot be displaced by meditation. This time he was‘o’er powered / By Nature and his mind became disturbed’ (223-4). And just as later, in Book X ofThe Prelude, Wordsworth describes himself turning to Mathematics to try and still his mind, so toodoes the Pedlar. Turning to Newton’s Optics (rather than to Euclid’s Elements) he attempted to use‘his intellect…and the stillness of abstracted thought’ to seek repose. But it was ‘in vain [that] he267