To Thomas Archer Hirst   Dec. 2nd, 1849

Dec. 2^nd, 1849.

My Dearest Tom

The sadness of an autumn evening is brooding over my soul as my pen moves – but I wont be poetic, in fact I cant – during the week my brain has been wrapped up in the intanglements of my dissertation,¹ and of other similar matters and you know that under such circumstances a man’s gift of speech is often crippled – I will write and write on however, stating my thoughts as they occur and leaving it to your loving kindness to pardon my short comings – your last was a letter of exultation,² I saw that, and I foresaw the probable reaction, I saw it and dreaded it, and in a moment of weakness wrote as I did³ – I have often said, or half said since, ‘I ought not to have written so’ but a moments thought convinces me that I ought; for Tom must know at all hazards that I am a struggler – not a hopeless one thank God – like himself – I say that I marked your exultation and foresaw the probable reaction, how was this possible? simply because I have passed through the same ordeal myself and I know how sad it is to have the peachbloom of hope rudely brushed away – but let not Tom think that the bloom is gone for ever, that there is no balm in gilead and no physician there;⁴ – so Tom has released me from my responsibilities – does he imagine that I am therefore the less his? at the present moment I feel forcibly the terrible energy of paul’s⁵ words when he said ‘I could wish myself accursed from Christ for the sake of my brethren’⁶ – would that I could share your burden Tom – by Heaven I think I should prefer sinking under it myself to seeing you sinking – am I therefore more free than I was before? Think it not Tom – I did not mean that my letter should be an isolation between you and me – It is not good for man to be alone, the herd of elephants swims the river with their trunks knotted and the life of every man is intertwined with that of the human race – when I say that you must trust yourself, I intended my words to bear an interpretation that you have not yet given them –

Remember Tom I write incoherent, my lungs at the present moment are full of the fumes of Salpetrige Säure⁷ and my eyes are smarting from the same, I have been all day experimenting with a galvanic battery on the influence of magnetism on crystalline bodies, and you know as I said before how disjointed my expressions on the present subject must be – as I read your letter many experiences of my own and of others flashed upon me – how vividly Faust⁸ rose to my mind as you spoke of your fathers⁹ creed. Tired of the world he is about to quit it when the [easter] him¹⁰ breaks in upon him

‘Christ is arisen | Joy to the mortals’¹¹

The memories of his youth bend sweetly over his soul and he exclaims

O tönet fort ihr Süssen Himmelsglieder

Die Thräne quillt die Erde hat mich wieder.¹²

I remembered that Shakspeare wrote Hamlet and that to write Hamlet Shakespeare must have been Hamlet and I remembered an incident in my own life indicative of a state of feeling which you well know – I went to the polytechnic institution in London¹³ – at the end as usual were a series of dissolving views – one an old church before the dark portal of which a monk was prostrate on the paving stones. – Would to God I exclaimed that I could go and do likewise – amid my hearts sterility I felt that even superstition would be a relief – in later times I have applied this little experience to the solution of such men as Pusey¹⁴ – the religious barrenness of our age is intolerable to such men, and they turn with loving eyes to the traditions of other times hoping by them to revive the dying embers – I often think however that the salvation which Pusey finds in these traditions lies though all unconscious to himself in the effort that he makes to restore them, and that were his wishes in the matter fulfilled he would by no means find the same enjoyment in their realization as in the exertions which he made to realize them – This truth is common place – almost every body has experienced it – and where do these facts point? I interpret them as hinting that employment – action; as mans proper tendency, that in it alone is he to find health and strength bodily and spiritually – I turn to an old journal and find the following under the date, Tuesday 30^th January 1844 – I had received a letter from a pious young friend of mine¹⁵ whom I loved and love and who loved and loves me – ‘George’s letter as I predicted contains a lecture – poor fellow I sometimes wish to be like him for I feel the want of an anchor for my opinions – he begs of me not to trust altogether to my own reasoning and philosophy – surely the mind of man requires a firmer support than either philosophy or Reason can furnish and a higher principle of action than a love of morality – this latter is very good as regards the wellbeing of society, but the man who is moral merely for the sake of preserving an unblemished reputation in the eyes of the world takes low ground, fixes his principles upon a quicksand and is a stranger to the comfort drawn from the assurance that his actions are regarded and approved of by a higher authority than that of man – How often is Paul’s case ours notwithstanding! – ‘To will is present with me but to perform that which is good I find not¹⁶ – For the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do’¹⁷ A thousand times have I reasoned regarding this principle of distrust and the necessity of an exterior support exactly as you do – though I question whether I ever felt the matter so deeply as you for two years I would have given anything to have been a christian – and read books calculated to bring about this consummation – The reading of D^r Burnets account of the death of Rochester the infidel¹⁸ set me on my feet as a believing christian for some time – this want within myself was near driving me to join the methodists, expecting that their prayings and groanings and religious excitements would arrest the dryrot of my soul – all this have I gone through Tom, this has been the forge in which my present creed has been hammered into shape.

And do not think Tom that it is men of devotional feeling alone who are thus tormented – Byron perhaps suffered as much in this way as any man ever did – and I read that Tom Moore, the muse’s curled darling, who spent his youth in love, and his manhood in the breath of fame is impatient of life; Charles Lamb¹⁹ talks as follows –

By myself walking

To myself talking

When as I ruminate

On my untoward fate

Scarcely seem I

Alone sufficiently

Black thoughts continually

Clouding my privacy²⁰

x x x

Dreams of Antipodes

Night riding incubi

Troubling the fantasy

All dire illusions

Causing confusions

Figments heretical

Scruples fantastical

Doubts diabolical

Abaddon vexeth me

Maker perplexeth me

Lucifer teareth me!²¹

And for all such men as Charles Lamb and other men besides, you and me inclusive Tom, is there I believe a blessed truth in the following words of Carlyle –

‘Consider how even in the meanest sorts of labour the whole soul of man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like helldogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day worker as of every man: but he bends himself valiantly against his task and all is stilled – all these shrink murmuring far off into their caves’²²

I have already given you an extract from my old journal I will give you another it is dated the 30^th of Nov. 1849

‘Visited Faber²³ as the clock struck 6 – the moon pushes back the infant daylight and still holds sway in heaven – it is beautiful beyond description the frost as hard as flint underfoot and the air as clear as crystal all round – to protect me during the mornings I have a large amorphous catskin coat – a regular Esquimaux²⁴ article – it is pleasant to rise early – long experience of both enables me to decide between it and the pleasure of lying in bed – the former is infinitely preferable – if I had a son he should start early to his legs – yesterday morning hewed the last difficulty of my dissertation to pieces – I have pored rather long over this matter, but could have got on more speedily had I availed myself of assistance, but I sat down to the affair as my proper work, determined to do it myself through much entangled cogitation, by patient abiding when my way was dark as night, I became acquainted with my subject – by degrees difficulties began to crumble down, and now they are all conquered and my work is done – Let me here set my seal to the word Patience nothing is done without it, looking patiently into the darkest subject a thousand hidden beauties reveal themselves – I must tell this to Tom.’²⁵

No man knows the value of work as an educator, and as an administrator of happiness better than Emerson, still is there danger in rising from the perusal of his essays that an underestimate of the importance of action has been imbibed – I dwell upon this subject Tom because I believe nothing is more calculated to combat your present despondency than this very thing employment – What drives the fashionable world to theatres and thousands to vice and infamy – that very feeling which now preys upon your heart – and it would drive you to the same had you not sufficient iron virtue in your constitution to resist it – you see the matter is to direct this inherent activity, and let not your daily avocations Tom be rated too low – done in a right spirit they are as beautiful and exhilarating as any others – There is no stability on earth Tom – life is a flowing river, dam it up and it will create festering sedge marshes and unwholesome fens – let it flow out in honorable effort and it is beautiful as the figure I have used to express it – in a word Tom it will never do to sit for hours looking disconsolately inwards for by this manner of looking there is nothing found –

I am glad you have met M^r Hutchison and from your character of him I could squeeze his hand this instant with brotherly love – there seems to me something holy in that yearning which he has inspired in you for the creed of your fathers; but I think you will hardly find it satisfying, I think M^r Hutchison has not doubted after your fashion or rather believed after your fashion – I would not throw a dust particle in your way Tom, but if ever I spoke sincerely to mortal man it must be to you and I therefore state my belief that you will not find satisfaction in this change – try it my son, try it if you can, but do not despair if it also slips through your fingers – What are the experiences of those who have held this old religion? of the best and most celebrated among them? They have had their hours of exstasy like you and their hours of doubt and pain like you also – can you expect to find a city of refuge here? – as I write the hymns and prayer of my childhood rise before me hymns the spirit of which my later life has often reeochoed, for instance

{‘Oh for a closer walk with God

A calm & heavenly frame’}²⁶

{A poor wayfaring man I go

In restless wandering to and fro

Fightings without & fears within

Tempt my desponding soul to sin}²⁷

‘Could we but stand where Moses stood

And view the landscape o’er

Not Jordans streams nor deaths cold flood

Could fright us from the shore.’²⁸

‘Could we but stand’ make your own inference Tom, the man was not satisfied with his stand pünkt²⁹ –

I know there are many others more to the point but I cannot remember them –

Sunday morning – I have just had a dash of frosty water over my lank physiology – I have reread my last paragraph commencing with ‘No man knows &c’ I have mentioned the fashionable world being driven to theatres, but here you may misinterpret me and that gravely, you may think that my advice merely furnishes you with a subterfuge to enable you to fly from yourself – undoubtedly in the example that I have cited, in the extravagances of gaming fox hunting &c men find subterfuges to cheat their taskmaster into repose, I dont harp on this string Tom, I lay bare my motive when I say that I believe it to be a law of your nature against which it is useless to fight and conformity to which will draw a thousand satisfactions in its train – I do not urge you to employment for the sake of any results you ever will or ever can accomplish tho’ these have also a neccessary place – I urge you to it as the most practical act of worship, the best heart purifier that man possesses – and here I imagine we may solve the apparent inconsistency of Emerson when he sneers at action – he is often the apologist of those who retire in disgust from the field of worldly enterprise, and no wonder that in defending them he should often treat the important things of the world with ridicule – men of the world regard their achievements as important, they mistake the true office of action and work for the result alone and if they can get the result without working many do not work at all; and this view corresponds I fancy with another expression of his which I half remember – in speaking of sugar he says the negros have got all the profit. I receive the commodity merely – they the education. – I think there is a great deal of sap in this sentence Tom. You talk of sins as black as Hell Tom³⁰ – I would not treat them with willful levity but I cannot help saying that I care nothing about them; I am not going to judge of you by any act or any ten or twenty acts you ever performed – If men were measured by their acts what paltry maggots the best of us would appear – I measure you not by your performances but by your tendencies – ‘This fair exterior we shew the world covers sins as black as hell’³¹ – Shall I take this categorical proposition as it stands? Cannot I indulge in an inference of the following shape – that this proposition instead of being received as the statement of a fact merely proves the purity and rigour of that tribunal by which those sins are judged – Dick Charlesworth³² would commit all your sins ten times over without any feeling of remorse – There is no necessity whatever of bringing all the passages of your life to light – nay it might be very impertinent to do so, and still less necessity that you should feel miserable about them.

I have often felt angry with myself when not able to enjoy the beauty of a starlight night, deeming it a kind of duty that I should be entranced – I have gone out among the fields with this feeling that I ought to be delighted and have returned without profit. I have gone out with a thought in my heart, with a problem in my head, it might be mathematical it might be philosophical, it might be an endeavour to solve some obscurity in Emerson or Fichte, and I have strolled along busily engaged with my subject and as I raised my head from the ground and looked among the woods I might fancy angels peeping from the branches or the stars of heaven stooping down to talk to me – but to go out with my eyes open saying in my heart ‘I must enjoy this’, has ever been a futile job with me – This action and this reward appear to be something like complementary colors – dont you think that Emerson has taken the same wild goose journeys when he is able to say of the moonshine – ‘go out to look at it and it is gone’? ³³

There are foolish people in the world to whom if I wrote this long letter they would thank me for the trouble I had taken on their account – what are their thanks to me compared with the sweet and salutary exercise of my own thoughts in writing it – my dear Tom be of good heart your fate is not the black and cheerless thing which your last letter³⁴ would lead one to suppose –

I could continue writing but I think I have written enough – buckle on your armour then my son and test the blessedness of work – do not expect too much, angel visits are always gratuitous they do not come at our invitations; they are not to be run after, nay they like us best when we appear most independent of them –

Thus far Tom I have repeated no mans words – I testify that which I have known and speak of that which my own eyes have seen.

Tell Hutchinson that I would share my breakfast with him – With regard to the money³⁵ Tom I shall not call upon you till February or March and perhaps not even then, but put a little by as I may be truly hard up at the time mentioned and 15 or 20 pounds might prove a deliverance from many inconveniences

Jemmy³⁶ perhaps thinks me too hard and has got tired of my maxims – why did not the little fellow drop me a line? – hard as I am however I have still a soft little dewdrop of affection for Jemmy.

Remember Tom Adam and Eve were placed in Eden, not for the purpose of gathering nosegays, and inhaling the perfume of gilliflowers³⁷ but ‘to dress it and to keep it’–³⁸ The Israelites in the desert ate angels food,³⁹ but they had to gather it – and it fell in atoms not larger than a grain of coriander seed – they once got an abundant mess of quails without labour but a tremendous purging was the consequence – I often think of the last verse of the last chapter of John. ‘And there are also many other things that Jesus did the which if they should be written every one I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written’⁴⁰ – Here is a picture of a life of action

With regard to keeping our grosser nature in abeyance I think the life of man consists in something more than this this is at best a negation and I believe that human life has a positive element in it – you sometimes strengthen an adversary by rating his prowess too highly – and a danger is often exaggerated by dwelling too much upon it – It is a question whether on the whole it would not have been better had you been left destitute as you anticipated – my poverty appears before me in a far more tangible shape at present than it did a year ago, but I am not a whit unhappier now than then; I know struggles await me, but I know also that struggles rightly interpreted, rightly wrought out, are rich blessings and therefore I fear them not – I have accustomed myself to look at dark possibilities so that if they come they shall not take me unawares – you offer me money – yet you would do me a far greater service by selling a manuscript for me – a shilling thus earned would be worth half a crown borrowed – I sometimes feel thankful to the Gods for this poverty inasmuch as by it I am allotted my share of healthy effort – it marries me to my work.

This ‘self capability’ Tom is a thing which wrongly interpreted may be wrought into the sorriest caricature imaginable you are no self subsistent point in space, shut out from all exterior relations – you are a man, or a big boy rather, with an intellect and a heart both of which imply like verbs active objects acted upon – you have intellect I say and the cold beautiful nature around you as its field of exercise – you have a heart, and moral feelings – the human race your own neighbourhood, your friend – your flower garden, the midnight stars and the sailing moon are all its legitimate objects –

I have blotted this out because I was wandering into theory, and theory is not suitable at present – something plainly tangibly practical is what you want & I perhaps have stepped aside from this in one or two cases when I ought to have kept it constantly in view

I will not close this letter yet as my mood is too intellectual and the white snow on the housetops and the stiff walls of the castle on the hilltop tend to render this mood predominant – I have a Southampton letter⁴¹ to reply to in which the theory of Newton as to planetary motion is virulently attacked I will turn to my thoughts to this for the present, nothing doubting that the wave of love and sympathy will in due time return to my soul – not long ago I should have regarded this as a painful defect – I now begin to discern that it is part of a law and bow to it accordingly – nor must you therefore infer that my love is impulsive, a thing of fits and starts, not to be trusted – it is within me now as certainly as the moment I finished the reading of your letter, and any act I should have ever done at love’s prompting I would do now – feelings sometimes retire from expression for the purpose as it were of collecting strength for a fresh avowal – you see Tom in the illustrations furnished by his present moods what manner of man your friend John Tyndall is, and the chances are that these moods only shadow forth the experiences of John’s friend Tom. There is tranquility in the recognition of a fact and the ability to allot to each its proper place – when therefore my intellect predominates and my heart seeks repose I will by no means call myself cold and fret myself accordingly. I recognize a harmony in the working of both principles and give place in due season to each – when writers endeavour to carry the expressions of one mood into another their untruth reveals itself at once – and in this way I could write a very noisy but a very false letter if I pleased.

Do you imagine Tom that a poet finds that bliss in the visual contemplation of nature which his expressions would lead you to imagine? not at all Tom. What he sees becomes his property, and he builds starcastles and weaves rainbow draperies from the materials furnished by nature; in this action of the poet consists his blessedness, and as a kind of repayment to nature for furnishing him with such rich materials he is wont to give her all the praise – but he is the true artizan of his own delights – nature gives the blocks but he builds and harmonises –

A thought sometimes flashes on me Tom in the course of my work that I should like to communicate to you and I had begun to make hasty memoranda of such & intended to send them to you all broken and incoherent as they were whenever I should write to you – your letter however called for a special reply and I therefore refrain from sending any of my fragmentary cogitations at present. how glad I shall be to see you in Halifax, and to see Jimmy and to sit with you both for 3 long hours before that bright phenomonon so long invisible to me an English fire and mingle our little experiences together into a fricassee of thought ten times richer than Giblet soup – I should be tempted to propose a deputity to Miss – I declare I forget her name – Saxton,⁴² is it not, of the Upper George⁴³ for a bottle of her best port I should not care whether at my expense or yours, and to propose further that we should get tipsy every one – now dont open your great eyes in wonder – I positively am of opinion that all this could be nicely managed, and that the recording angel instead of knitting his brow and setting down a black mark in the judgment book would indulge in a good natured chuckle at our audacity – I further believe Tom that a time is in store for each of us when our yoke shall be easy and our burden light, when like free men we can handle implements which would now be perilous as edged tools to children

– The pharisees⁴⁴ called Him a gluttonnous man and a winebibber,⁴⁵ the time advances when we shall practically know how high was his liberty compared with that of the Baptist who dared not venture beyond locusts and wild honey⁴⁶ –

A wealthy man can afford to wear a bad coat, and Jesus Christ on a similar principal could afford to eat and drink –

There are times Tom when a man is disposed to see something humorous in the solemnest things, when even grief and sorrow put on such comic faces that one does not know whether to laugh or to let it alone – I verily believe I have dropped upon me one of these moments this evening – I often do in fact, and if I spoke my feelings outright, you would deem me a blasphemous cur,⁴⁷ in which you would be totally wrong as blasphemy or irreverence is a thousand miles from my thoughts – I [verily] believe a man might pray to God and laugh at the same time, but if you have never got into one of these moods you will see no way of pardoning me –

So Ada⁴⁸ calls to see you – well I should not blush to kiss my little girl ten times over were she here beside me – I just fancy her here at my elbow on the sopha,⁴⁹ I declare I think I should treat her as a sugar plum and eat her up in the extravagance of my love – I look around these four bare silent walls, upon that black surly looking stove, I look at myself here half buried in papers

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and all alone, and just imagine the change that Ada’s presence would make in all these things!

I have mentioned ‘Faber’⁵⁰ in a former extract. I will continue the extract, as it will furnish you with a bit of biography, ‘a young man of high parts but totally devoid of energy. Without external pushing he would turn into a morsel of the poorest animalism⁵¹ and spend his time eating, smoking, and sleeping. I have known him now nearly a year, attended the same lectures and worked in the same laboratory. He has not perhaps during that time derived 5 shillings worth of benefit. I thought him an admirable mathematician when I came to Marburg, he talked so glibly of the Differential and Integral calculus; but now I see his utter shallowness in this as well as on most vicious trait – a wish to appear a man of genius without making the trouble to earn the reputation – a nature given to self puffery,⁵² and by this he has signalized himself in the University. I have got hold of him, but how long the gripe will continue I know not; bad habits are not uprooted in a day. He now starts at 5 o’clock every morning, shews me his lamp in the window to testify that he is at his post, and works well in the laboratory all day. People laugh at the idea of his continuing thus, but we will try in spite of this laughter. Skill is doubtless necessary in the treatment of such a case; but by skill alone such a case was never cured. Hence the faithless laughter of those who know of no higher influence. Shall I attempt to cure a patient by advice? ridiculous! I must endeavour to weave his life into my own. My chief influence must be a silent one, he must feel me without hearing me and to accomplish this what is necessary?’⁵³

The answer to this question Tom has some bearing on this matter of self-capability, and I have therefore made an extract. I said that your life is intertwined with that of the human race, and so is mine Tom, and in an especial manner with yours; you often speak of my influence over you, but forget altogether of your influence on me. Now Tom, properly speaking, both are in equilibrium. And Faber reacts upon me too, though in a less degree. In fact I have stated in my journal that the terms Debtor and creditor are abolished between us.⁵⁴ This interaction of individuals is one of the sublimest laws of human nature and we must be careful lest a wrong headed self-capability shut us out from its participation. I thank the gods, not for rendering me independent of Tom, but for meeting one of the necessities of my nature by giving me such a friend. If ever man was independent of these influences, it was he whose birthday now approaches, yet what says he? Look to that inimitable prayer in the 17^th chapter of John – in the 19^th verse he says, ‘And for their sakes I sanctify myself’.⁵⁵ There was action and reaction even here, communicativeness and receptivity – no rejoicing in isolation. It would seem as if the disciples were as a necessary to the nature of Christ as he to their natures. They were undoubtedly a means to his improvement.

And now I must close Tom – I shall wait patiently and hopefully for your next letter. Always write your heart to me my son and I will try to do the same. Let us endeavour to be friends Tom in as high a sense as any pair of fellows as ever lived. I find this feeling growing within me – will time perfect it? How pleasant it will be to realize, in our own actual lives, that principle which every body deems either fabulous or perished out of the world. I am not too anxious for the consummation. If I feel it growing within me, I’m content. It will be no hothouse plant, no Jonah’s gourd,⁵⁶ when perfected. Isolation! aye – If the gods have a blessing in store for me, may they grant it by making our lives one. But where is this imagination of mine leading me? Shall I say into a land of impossibilities? What say you?

This letter has drawn me into a third morning, and now, amid the silence of the world, I bid you goodbye.

John Tyndall

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Portions of letter are LT Transcript Only