3

G3

Asleep and awake, I have dreamed of thee often and often,
dear Reader. But I felicitate myself on the probability that
thou first learnest of there being a person of my name; so
that, in case thou now first hear, too, of the great argument I
adduce,—first hear of it, I mean, as an argument, since as a fact,
and a persuasive one, it cannot be new to you thee,—I may have
the advantage of learning how a mind so sane as thine first
estimates its force, as it is per se, free from all [further ??] augmentation
or diminution, that the repute of its utterer the arguer might effect.