From Thomas Archer Hirst   Monday evening | Octr 16th 1849

Halifax Monday Evening | Oct^r 16^th 1849.

My dear Tyndall –

As Jemmy¹ is writing to you,² I will just send a word in the same package. And first of all I thank you sincerely for your two last Preston Chronicles. You have succeeded very well in the passage from Faust³ & it is a splendid passage most assuredly. I have since seen a translation by Hayward⁴ in Prose and I tell you honestly your translation of the passage alluded to is by far the better of the two. You have managed to convey the idea with greater clearness & vividness. Of the poetry, I can say that of all the readers of the Preston Chronicle, it had the most significance for me. You have many of my own thoughts there Tyndall, thoughts that I never expressed even to myself or knew I possessed until you told me, whether this is owing to our common soul or whether you may have remembered me during their composition I don’t know, but I find it suits me [also] – These thoughts however with which I can sympathise are detached & after reading it over carefully I find myself unable to grasp the idea in its entirety. I dare say you will smile at my request but I should like you to give me a kind of commentary on it & try if by another mode of expression you can cause a brighter gleam to shine through that thick skull Tom Hirst’s – that ‘dummer Mensch’⁵ Perhaps this analytical process of your own poem will not be exactly pleasant but between us of course there is no ceremony. I have read (hurriedly) Fichte’s Characteristics of the Present Age,⁶ a book I believe I never thanked you for but what matter, you know that I felt so if I did not express it. I prize it much & the fly leaf⁷ of it the most of all – I found his philosophy though very attractive & interesting from its logical correctness & conciseness, somewhat strange to me & in order that I might better understand the Book in question I purchased his ‘Vocation of Man’⁸ which may be called more elementary. I am just in the middle of it now & trying if possible to understand thoroughly his metaphysical philosophy. Those questions on External objects, their properties &c being only matters of our own conciousness & sensation, all this I find startling & still attracting in the extreme. Its seemingly paradoxical assertions I am forced to admit & I begin to feel that my relation to the world & every other person is about to undergo some change Already I fancy my me is rising in the scale of importance & objective Nature becoming more plastic to its power. If it will but lead me to that eminence; if it will but convince me of the Godlike properties of my own Soul. Oh how shall I be rewarded! That dimly imaginative state will at last become a reality. Beauty & Truth I shall discover are in fact in me not out of me. The dictates of conscience will be followed with cheerfulness – Duty will at last be synonymous with desire – and I may realize that grand object, to walk the Earth a Man!

‘Ah! Tom’, I hear you say, ‘your going to be dissapointed you are too enthusiastic’. I am afraid so John – in fact it is just half an hour since I wrote the above lines, I have cooled down & can tell you if it was not written it never would be. but if you will be kind enough to get into a fit of excitement yourself you will oblidge me, for then you wont laugh. on the contrary if you descend from the excited platform among the cold hearers as I have just done why you’ll recommend a gag for the future to be applied when the same symptoms of this complaint make their appearance. I am so cozy now in my little lodgings. nobody troubles me & few seek me, for amongst my former jovial companions I am little missed, & every night after my work I shut myself up without regret for

When I am safe in my sylvan (?) home

I laugh at the pride of Greece & Rome⁹

Then Sundays, they are delicious days, so quiet, so peaceful aye and sometimes I think Holy for with my Bible before me which I love to read now, I read ‘Ye must be born again’¹⁰ & hope & fancy that my regeneration may be even now effecting, for ‘The Wind bloweth where it resteth & thou hearest the Sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. So also is every one that is born of the Spirit’¹¹ –

God Bless you Tyndall, I am in one of those rare moments just now, when you feel at peace with yourself & with everybody, a brief moment of perhaps as pure happiness as we can hope often to realise – You have felt the same many a time. ‘Nicht wahr’?¹² I could go on writing for hours; but then the postage, & besides I have said enough about myself. there are others in the world to whom we ought to lend a helping hand, among these Jemmy.¹³ Since our talk together I have thought more about him and have had some anxiety. After mature consideration I feel convinced now is a crisis in his existence. You wrote to him about his diet¹⁴ & he read me part of the letter, we may have done him some injustice on that point. perhaps its influence over him is not so great as we thought, at any rate he seems to think your remarks however good in themselves have none or very little application to him. A short time ago he was rather low spirited it appears he had been reviewing his own life, he thought of the many resolves he had made that had fallen to the ground, the number of books he had read & the little benefit he had received, and the poor little fellow was prostrate before such accumulated failures – Now this is a symptom which may lead to two very opposite results & the conclusion of it is what makes me anxious There is danger in his path. I feel great responsibility devolves on me, & I hope to let my actions be the results of this conviction – If he have but perseverance enough, if we can only excite him to a renewed effort the symptom is encouraging. But if on the contrary this cannot be done, if it leads to despair & finally carelessness you will fear with me for the result. For you know how superficial has been his training, as well as his tendency to little sensualities. We have had some earnest talk on the matter I have tried to encourage him by shewing him how we have all had to battle with the same fears & despondencies. I have tried to apply a stimulus to furnish him with an object that should act as an incentive and to rendering this object more permanent by placing it in himself. I have avoided pointing out any course of study as yet, it would be premature for him to make new resolves at present. This indifference he has for such studies this sense of deprivation from other pleasures must first be banished. He must love it for its own sake & find interest instead of effort in every step. I have at last persuaded him to read one chapter I thought appropriate in Emerson We have read part of it together ‘Man Thinking’¹⁵ & I have translated it into more popular phraseology. I think it will be of some service. I have thus spoken at length in order that your letters may bear upon this situation. nothing of course must be said of [these] remarks but if you have any suggestions for my guidance tell me. I have received no answer to that little d–d¹⁶ question of ours – G.S. Phillips spent last Sunday with me. I find him a kind warm hearted friend –

Adieu, my dear Tyndall. yours affectionately – Tom Hirst

Remember me to Messrs Frankland and Knoll. Tell the former I have not yet received his dissertation – What have you been engaged with since your Examination Have you decided on the subject for your dissertation? Whats is it? We are just setting up our Laboratory in M^rs Wrights kitchen but have done nothing yet – Have you had a trip yet, you must do so before you begin another session –

M^r Tyndall | Care of Professor Bunsen | Marburg | Hesse Cassel | Germany

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/44-47

RI MS JT/1/H/139