From James Craven   29th Nov 1849

Halifax, 29th Nov. 1849

My dear Tyndall,

My last letter¹ was really so meagre and so scant that I am sure you would have deemed me shabby were I to have renewed a similar one in return for your two very kind letters² and especially the last. It was in accordance with this idea that I resolved to defer this pleasure – for such really it is – until a time and fitting opportunity arrived, and now I sit down with the intent of giving you a full benefit which will most likely tire you.

The sentiments contained in my last letter were not very pleasing to you as is very evident. You ask did I think that the achievement of a paper on Geology was the end and object of all my existence? You seem herein to have misunderstood my letter – for I said on looking back on my past life – on the 2 or 3 years of my apprenticeship – I felt dissatisfied with the result. You say too ‘There is one mind common to all individual men’³ and you actually laughed at the ridiculous truth of the adage as you read my letter. I certainly cannot for the life of me make out what you are aiming at by the quotation at all – unless you mean to give your disapprobation to an occasional review of the past which is in part borne out by stating that had I immediately engrossed my attention on the mountains of the moon, on the completion of the Essay, the ennui would have disappeared. I certainly agree with this – to be engaged is to be happy, at least I find it so – but to question the policy of inspecting the course one has been pursuing – an idea which has the stamp of being natural – is certainly rather a difficult matter. Pray have you never found yourself sitting before a waning fire, with a faint glimmering light, or better still no light at all, silently meditating on the present – looking forward to the future and stealing away again into the past? If you have not I have and many an hour at time and time have I wiled away in this quiet manner. Probably however you call this ‘dreaming’. Nevertheless it is very pleasant though perhaps on this score it is avoided by Stoics, poets and philosophers. To be brief however I think I have misinterpreted your meaning – as peaceful quiet contemplation cannot but be dear to us all, and especially so to those who are of a meditative turn. I have lately been subject to that most enviable state – the life of Do-nothing & Co. I will explain: – My brother’s⁴ majority⁵ happening on the 30th of Oct. I determined to pay him a visit at his lodgings in town for the proper celebration thereof. A kind old lady⁶ – a friend of ours who is wealthy – invited us to go to Brighton⁷ and in compliance with her wishes I remained with her for 10 days. Now during the whole of this period I enjoyed everything which one could wish for. I had but to mention my desire and it was satisfied (if in the reach of money). Consequently you would naturally suppose this together with the company of Madame and a mademoiselle should make me comfortable and happy enough. But no, though the change at first was certainly agreeable and pleasant I soon found it pall on me, until eventually I was positively glad to return to actual work again. Having made this experiment of the happiness which riches can afford I would certainly not give an iota for it and I can assure you that no one sits down to Emerson and other works with more pleasure than I do at present, so that on the whole I may say I have reaped a great benefit – tho’ be it distinctly understood that my passion for such reading does not reach to such an extent that I am at all neglectful in my own personal concerns (for I think my bump of selfishness must be very large⁸) though perhaps not so keen as when I wrote you before. I find in fact, if I may so speak, that there is a mysterious law at work declaring that to be happy I must be supplied with books of various kinds to suit the fancy of the moment – and that without these time flags and passes drearily on its way. I have endeavoured to combat this but generally without effect for it appears to have become a habit having been so long and invariably practised. Stay! but what am I talking of? Certainly it is some outlandish egotistical blarney or other. So we will ‘shift’ the scenes – though what I have written tends to establish your doctrine of a ‘great reader is like a great smoker’.⁹

I have got Emerson’s Essays.¹⁰ I often read the one on Self Reliance,¹¹ it is one of which I felt in need being as you are aware too much given to place reliance in others than in myself. Emerson of all the writers I ever read impresses you with ideas of your own dignity and importance. All his Essays lead you to entertain nobler views of the objects and aim of your existence, while the most noble and the most glorious ideas are poured forth in every sentence. I often think when reading him how often the self-same thoughts which he has transcribed here occurred to me – but yet the many and various points from which he takes his survey – the association of ideas which he possesses – make him the Man. I wish I had known you had not his Poems, I would have sent them you instead of Dr Millingen¹² – however perhaps you will be aware that he wrote one on the death of his son¹³ – a most touching and heartrending one it is – fully showing the agony of his mind at the time it occurred. Thus we see that in Philosopher, Poet, or whatever else you like, this same Death produces a feeling of sorrow – nay even (as Combe¹⁴ has it) the clergyman who knows that his friend is removed to ‘a heavenly and better place’ laments his absence from this ‘vale of sorrow’.¹⁵ After all there is something so solemn, so searching and appealing to one’s inmost self by the death of a dear friend that forces upon us – Well can I remember a faint indistinct whitey face which often comes across me even in my gayest moments – it is the one of my own poor mother¹⁶ as she lay immediately before being conveyed to the earth – to that to which she was about to return – and often in my own undertakings do I imagine her fair face in the distance beckoning me on in the path of virtue and uprightness. Oh yes – surely there is something in all this – though a mystery conceals it. You asked me in a late letter¹⁷ if I ever thought on these subjects, and what would be my ideas were I certain of its approach? I must say I am too much inclined to regard these matters as questions for discussion rather than for actual practice. One sees so much dishonesty in this all important matter Religion that one looks on its propagators with distrust. Another flagrant instance has just occurred in this little town, viz. Mr Obrey¹⁸ the minister at Harrison Road Chapel who has mulcted his creditors to some £4000,¹⁹ and when one sees so much of this hypocrisy going about – prevalent alike among Churchmen, Roman Catholics and Dissenters, no wonder we begin to question and discuss rather than to practise. On the question of Belief I have in former letters given you a tolerable dose – viz. that matters which one is required to be perfectly acquainted with are merely points of history and therefore by no train or system of reasoning can their truth be arrived at – or if so of the foolishness and absurdity of such a belief as an all important necessary to salvation, etc. etc. together with the proposition that matter of fact people like myself cannot be satisfied with anything less on a subject of the highest importance than to arrive at a result plainly and logically. No doubt you laugh at this. I believe myself it is impracticable in this case, else why our different sects? and opinions? Notwithstanding all this I feel daily a certain consciousness of the depth and intensity of this subject creep over me – the Bible seems more noble and glorious than it was wont – when used as the Latin and French task and the school book. The ideas which it conveys in every word – the proverbs and advice which it throws out – all suggest as you have stated the Divine Authorship. Seeing then that my tendency is, at present, in favour of arriving at a more just and definite idea on these matters, I leave off paying any very particular notice to them, trusting that by observation and experience I may eventually be able to clear up many of those passages which at present are obscure. At present my belief is – in an inward and instinctive idea common to all, which if followed up to, notwithstanding all the allurements cast in our way, we shall be all right. I am not one of those who in the wayward frolicsome child see the creature of the Evil One, but on the contrary I perceive him gifted with an inward idea more pure, more holy (because free from worldly cunning and worldly desires) than he can be at any other period of his existence.

I think now by this time you will be almost tired of the subject – perhaps of me too – but I must and will fill up the sheet, though the matters may be rather desultory. As a matter of course then the weather must be introductory – so you must know that our hills are crowned with snow – our ponds are slightly frozen over and everything around represents the misty, dark and chill November. Yet amidst all this I am glad to say we find plenty of work – in fact we are extremely busy what with Assize,²⁰ Arbitration and other cases – as usual we are out on the most wintry days and not on the pleasant ones; however this system having been renewed for such a length of time I am almost indifferent on the matter. By the bye, in a late letter²¹ you intimate that you fancy²² I have merely been playing the Surveyor all this time – what could be the reason of your supposition I know not – certain it is whether play or work I would not hesitate to take in hand any survey of ordinary difficulty notwithstanding my general hesitation and non-self-reliance. I cannot see that being diffident to the merits of the profession because so devoid of interest and of a general requirement that you should arrive at such a conclusion – besides, you must remember that the idea of change was occasioned by the thought of altering a certain course of action – which change was in some measure by the additional excitement to counterbalance the thing given up. Such was merely an epitome of my thoughts; at the moment – suffice it that they do not occupy any place with me now, though certainly occasionally a twitch as to the ways and doings of the present lot of hosts of Surveyors has occurred and which as yet I have failed to answer. For my own part however I look forward without much uneasiness to the future, confident that by application and attention I can at least at any time command a tolerable practice here. Meanwhile I look forward to the time when my articles will be out and as to what course I shall then pursue will depend much on circumstances.

I have read up to Article III which is the latest published of your production of the ‘Sisters of the Rhine’,²³ and certainly I have been very much pleased with it. Methinks that truths and ideas conveyed in this style are much more palatable than when drawn up and moulded by a heap of dry reasoning, and trust that some day or other I may have the pleasure of reading a similar but a more extended work of yours. I am afraid on the whole this has not been such a very agreeable letter as usual. Were I to reindite it I would alter it in many places. However you will probably make all allowances and round off some of the sharp edges of it. And now I conclude with my very, very best wishes for yourself, trusting you may continue in the enjoyment of good health – In all of which John, Tom and Father²⁴ etc. all unite, – and hoping a speedy return to Yorkshire,

Believe me, | A sincere and grateful friend, | James Craven.

P.S. I have no news to communicate whatever. Halifax is extremely dull – at least I find it so after London and Brighton. However time passes swiftly over which shows I am not very very miserable.

We are at present in want of a room for a laboratory in consequence of which our studies in this respect are rather curtailed. This defect however we trust to overcome shortly when we shall resume with renewed vigour.

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3534-3538

LT Transcript Only