John Barlow to Faraday   27 August 1854

Dresden | Aug 27, 1854

My dear Faraday

You must write to me once more, as soon as you can do so without suffering. I am sure that that letter to me must have been a painful effort - The fingers cannot do their work satisfactorily when the nerves from the neck are irritated by disease & violence... We are very anxious also to have another report of Mrs. Faraday. She could not have made progress during your painful illness. Then I should desire to know which of the Porters has been in trouble. One naturally thinks of Lacy, who, I fear is transmitting a dreadful constitution to his children... Of all the mysterious dispensations of Providence, the fertility of mad, consumptive, & scrophulous families is, to me, the most inexplicable. It is, to my mind, the most (apparently) exceptional arrangement in the system of this world... I hope that I need not tell you that if the immediate administration of a sovereign or two will remove any part of the trial, I beg that you will advance it for me.... Our journey thus far has been very prosperous. I forget whether I wrote to you from Salzburg or from Ischl. We enjoyed the last named place extremely. The scenery is lovely, and the residence there of the Emperor¹ & Empress² does not spoil it. I saw them, one day, walking home from the village church (where they go every day). She is prettier than the pictures of her: the expression of her countenance is very pleasing. I am told that she is very amiable & benevolent. From Ischl to Vienna over the lake of Gmunden & by the fall of the Traun to Linz - from Linz by Danube-Steamer to Vienna - at Vienna six days, & then here by Prague, where we remained three, & where your prompt letter just caught me. You perhaps heard that the cholera broke out in Munich soon after we left it. I was told that six people were lying dead in one day at the large hotel (the Bavaria). May Liebig & Hofmann & all our friends have escaped!... My accounts from England represent this disease to be more under control now, than on any of its former visitations. Lord Jocelyn’s³ death seems to have been, in great measure, the result of his own imprudence: Lord Beaumont’s⁴ appears hardly to have been a case of cholera, and the reports which I hear from the Westminster Hospital certainly indicate a very small proportion of deaths.... I quite fancy Schlagentweit’s face. He is just the man to be panic-struck: If I at all understand these brothers, neither of them would distinguish himself much if made to confront a danger of this kind.....

.......As far as I can understand the patois of the people, there seems every prospect of an abundant harvest, except in fruit, which is neither good nor plentiful...

The more I see of other countries, the less am I disposed to encourage that swaggering language which our countrymen indulge in when speaking about England...... Educated classes are, I imagine, much of the same calibre of morals every where: but I should guess that the educated bear a larger proportion to the uneducated all over central Europe than is the case in England.... Then, if one comes into details - of the English farmers, I have a very bad opinion - of the English (especially London) tradesmen I think very little better. The foreign shopkeeper perhaps takes advantage of you in his prices, but he does not send false bills, or parcels in which the goods you have paid for are not forthcoming. This has happened to me repeatedly from the most eminent of the (so called) respectable London Tradesmen. In England nothing would induce me to associate with what is called an “Evangelical clergyman” or with any one else who made a parade of religion, because I never knew any such who was not at heart an infidel, a debauchee, or a rogue or, at best, a tool of these characters. Now this does not seem to be the case in Roman Catholic Countries. The discipline of the confessional must restrain breaches of the moral law. Your Connection⁵ does the same thing by different machinery. Therefore I am always disposed to think well of and to confide in a member of it....

...I beg your pardon for this outbreak... Mrs. Faraday is however partly to blame for it.. She said that “I should think your form of worship ridiculous”. Now I cannot imagine any thing less possible to deride than the simplicity and earnestness of your ritual: and I am sure that it must pervade the daily life of those who are exercised by it...

And yet there is the same earnestness in those who are well disciplined by the Roman system. I attended High Mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna on the Birth-day of the Emperor. The ArchBishop⁶, assisted by a conclave of Bishops, officiated. There was the full Roman Pagent - Robes, incense, lights, music - Diplomatists, & statesmen, and officers in splendid uniforms, assembled in the most picturesque groupes to give effect to the spectacle. This was at the high altar.. at a side altar, very near this dazzling ceremony, a low mass was going on - perhaps fifty people were kneeling there. Not one of these raised his eyes or seemed at all conscious of what was going on so near him. In short, Priest & people did just what they would have done had they been alone in the Church.- No Protestant engaged in any of his services, would, as I am persuaded, be capable of such concentration - and yet these were people the majority of whom were in the humblest ranks.

...Don’t imagine that I am exalting R. Catholics further than the letter of my words expresses.- It is a religion which, it I know myself, I never could become attached to. Still I appreciate their accomplishment of their steadiness which it is so difficult to attain.

I will now release you... Do not think about all this effervescence: but tell me how you, Mrs. Faraday & Miss “Jenny” are... If I can say or do any thing for you in Berlin, tell me[.]

Ever yours | John Barlow