To Thomas Carlyle   June 6th 1849

Marburg University Hesse Cassel¹ Germany | June 6^th 1849

Dear Sir

Many times during the last 5 years has the thought of writing to you suggested itself to me; I have often thought that a closer connexion than that which your books afford would be of great value to me, but I have been repelled, partly by the fear that you would consider me an intruder and partly by the conviction that I ought to be able to fight my way alone; these influences would probably continue to produce the same effect were myself alone concerned; but my object now in writing to you is to bring under your notice, altogether without his knowledge, a worthy and an able young man.

For the last four years in conversation and correspondence I have been a kind of mouthpiece, uttering to him in my own dialect what I had previously received from you. Four years ago he became an articled pupil in an engineers office in the North of England² where the writer worked as an assistant; we remained together about two years and since our seperation³ have corresponded frequently; his letters disclose the unfolding of a vigourous healthy mind; about 6 months ago, through some legal trickery, he lost his patrimony⁴ – he writes to me ‘I am rather glad than otherwise; I will work for my sustenance’:⁵ this, and what he says in the accompanying fragment of a letter⁶ received a few days ago, will throw a stronger light upon his character than any description of mine could possibly do.

Thomas Hirst is approaching 20 years of age – his physique is one of the finest I have ever seen – he is upwards of 6 feet in height and stout in proportion – his intellectual power is very great – his moral stage is best unfolded by what he says himself; it would be to me a sweet occupation to watch over his progress but this proceeds in so quick a ratio compared with mine, that a point must soon be reached where my 7 or 8 years longer experience will, as the Germans say, be vernichtet.⁷ In anticipation of this I would place him in your hands, a word of counsel and encouragement, even at long intervals, will be sufficient for him – I know how he will prize it.

I have lately visited Eisenach⁸ and Wittenberg,⁹ indeed the foregoing was sketched in pencil upon a hill summit with the Wartburg¹⁰ in sight – I should never have made the journey had I not read your Heroes & Hero Worship,¹¹ for I should have been readily drawn into the current of those who, unable to estimate men of Luther’s¹² calibre, mention them with a compassionating shrug. My young friend has also read the book and in a former letter mentions it as follows – he and another young charge of mine¹³ not yet ripe enough for your notice are studying chemistry together – ‘We spent ^d8 in naptha to distil water and then found that the great chemist outside carried on the same process in a wholesale way, and sold his article very cheap, What a magnificent chemist He is. If any one wishes to appreciate Him in that capacity let him go into His cellar kitchen, always taking care that mere names do not hide from him the wonder, admiration and awe which belong to Him. “We call that thunder of the black cloud electricity and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it? At bottom we do not yet know; we can never know at all.” I fancy I see you smile as you read this and learn that Tom has waded through a work of Carlyle’s at last – aye that I have, and I’ll soon swim through “Past and Present” – You will not consider it vanity when I tell you that Carlyles Hero Worship has done me a power of good. I feel a different being from what I was, I have got a glimpse of that religion that exists apart from logic, that can receive no assistance from logic, in fact that mysterious “heart business” you tried to drive into me. Formerly I was trying to see the truth there was in different creeds and could only see a huge jumble of useless forms, with no life, no meaning in them. I could not see, blind as I was that there was a religion apart from them; in short I was beginning to think religion a nonentity and parsons licensed jugglers’.¹⁴

He also mentions ‘Chartism’¹⁵– the effect he ascribes to it is I suppose similar to that experienced by all young men who take time to read it. It is pleasant to find ones own experiences thus flashed back and to find M^r Emersons assertion illustrated that ‘there is one mind common to all individual men’¹⁶

One reflection alone has emboldened me to draw so heavily upon your patience – for myself I ask nothing, though no one could prize your acquaintance more – for my young friend a word of counsel when you have time to give it – I have strong faith that he will one day prove himself worthy of your pains, that in his own circle he will be a valuable man – his address is

Thomas Hirst | Horton Street | Halifax | Yorkshire–

and my name is John Tyndall

Thomas Carlyle Esq^re | Chelsea, | London.

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/25-26

RI MS JT/1/T/147