From James Craven   June 4th 1850

Horton Street June 4^th 1850

Dear Tyndall.

Tom has just allowed me the use of this half page¹ tho’ really the slip is so very small that to a long winded monster like myself I do not know how or where to begin however as a commencement let me thank you for the long letter² you favoured me with – I am glad that your opinion of me has not sunk very materially indeed I may say that however dissatisfied I was at one time it has decreased to a large extent by the encouraging letter you wrote me.

Tyndall I can well understand the result which you wish to bring about which my own inner man tells me is the more noble & proper career for me,³ I feel this still small voice⁴ continually hinting that there is a screw loose & that I am not pursuing the track which is most in accordance with the majority of my faculties & if I come to ask myself, as I often do what subject or thing to engage myself in I feel at a loss remembering well the multifarious schemes & things I had commenced aforetime with but one result of mortification & dissappointment. The strength of mind & will to serve & continue in the course allotted & marked out for myself is in spite of long opposition seen to grow more and more feeble until now after the repeated experiments made I shrink from any similar undertaking. ‘Contentment is great gain’⁵ says the wise man & a happy mortal I add is he that is naturally of a free & easy disposition – with no aspirations of beyond the enjoyment of time present, & who can cosily sit under his own Porch & within the shade of his own Fig tree and the enjoyment of social ‘comforts’ <&> blessings, and enjoy the favor & affection of all around him – These are persons I am sure that <I> thus live well without a distressing thought to mar or hurt the quiet of their lives & though you may look on them with silent disdain be assured that there are few very few that can afford to compare the real happiness they have with them. –

Its as well the paper is done for I see your’e laughing fit to split those doctor’s sides of yours so that afterall Tom’s curse proves a blessing.

John Tyndall James Craven

RI MS JT/1/H/146