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as ‘madness’ if he can also demonstrate logical thinking, and express feelings that are held inmoderation. His ability to contain his emotions is ‘stoical’ to a certain degree, and is premised on anatural capacity he has inherited from growing up among the positive influences of ‘Nature’, andthrough establishing a virtuous relationship with the world of men.It is these lines, which conclude the character study of the Pedlar, that are later used in ThePrelude to form the more extended passage in Book III, when Wordsworth, shortly after arriving atCambridge from his native mountains, relates how he considered himself to be ‘a chosen son’endowed with ‘holy powers / And faculties’ with which he intended to work changes there ‘by theforce of [his] own mind’:I was a Freeman; in the purest senseWas free, and to majestic ends was strong.I do not speak of learning, moral truth,Or understanding; ’twas enough for meTo know that I was otherwise endowed. (III 89-93, my emphasis)As he turned ‘the mind in upon itself’ in moments of meditation he describes himself feelingIncumbences more awful, visitingsOf the Upholder, of the tranquil soulWhich underneath all passions lives secureA steadfast life. But peace, it is enoughTo notice that I was ascending nowTo such community with highest truth’ (III 115-120) 29The lines following this introductory passage are made up from those quoted above, which hadconcluded the description of the Pedlar’s character in ‘The Ruined Cottage’. At the beginning of hisCambridge years, Wordsworth describes his own state of mind as one still in communion with Natureand highest truth. But while it was experienced, at the time, as a ‘glorious’ state of existence, it islater recognised to have been a state of limitation, not one of freedom. A state thought to be virtuousin youth is later seen as vicious according to the philosophy of the Stoics. As a mature adult,Wordsworth understands that the ‘purest sense’, in which he thought he was free then, was one thatdid not speak of ‘learning, moral truth or understanding’ – the things a liberal education was intendedto provide. But, at the time, he had idealised that state of mind, identifying with the bardic traditionand hoping to become something of a Druid.In The Prelude, Wordsworth then acknowledges that this glorification of Nature’s influenceand his sense of participation in the divine mind was actually a vice, since it only concerned whatwent on within his own mind and, as such, was out of touch with the world of humanity. He is likethe youthful Edwin in The Minstrel – consumed with self-love and singing his own songs – having29 Wordsworth echoes Southey’s use of the phrase ‘th’ Incumbent Deity’ from Joan of Arc here. In his PrefaceSouthey had raised the question as to whether Joan was genuinely inspired, or mad. Wordsworthremembered a passage about Joan’s ‘burthened breast heaving beneath th’incumbent deity’, well enough toquote it to Coleridge in April 1797, in a discussion of Southey’s lack of imagination (CL I 320).271