To Thomas Archer Hirst   Friday

Friday – I don’t know the date!¹

My dear Tom

Here I am at length in the heavenly region of Hammonds Hotel St Martins Court, Saint Martins Land Covent Garden London, that is to say in the third story up near the stars. I left Marburg on Wednesday week, and through that propensity to lying common to the whole race of German carriers² I was held 3 days upon the road. It was guaranteed to me that my luggage should be in Frankfort on Thursday evening, it was not delivered until Friday at noon and the steam vessel was then away. Thus half a week was lost. I should have been satisfied could I have spent the time in Bonn and thus been able to visit Drachenfells³ and that neighbourhood but I found this attendant with so much risk to the safety of the luggage that I was compelled to give it up. In Frankfort I spent half my spare time, in Rotterdam and Leyden the other half I visited the picture gallery the Ariadne,⁴ and the theatre at Frankfort. The latter was a milk and water affair.⁵ The second is a delightful piece of sculpture. The lady is represented sitting on a tiger’s back, her attitude is difficult for the artist but he has reduced it to one of perfect ease and flexibility. The light admitted into the small chamber which contains the statue passes through a net screen, and thus a rosy freshness is thrown upon the white marble. It is a beautiful achievement, and you must see it when you go to Frankfort. The painting which pleased me best was that of Huss defending himself before the Cardinals.⁶ There he stands in the midst of foes which a few days afterwards burnt the life out of him. His intellect seems keenly awake. There is neither hope nor fear in his countenance, the latter is thin and pale, and you can see the veins traversing his emaciated hands. a face here and there among the audience has a gleam of benignity if not of approval in it, but the majority wear the expression of deadly hatred.

We had a beautiful passage from Rotterdam. The sun and blue heaven by day, and the moon and stars by night. We reached the custom house on Wednesday evening – it is now Friday morning. I went to Putney yesterday to see Frankland, and he came yesterday evening and remained with me till 10 o’clock. I have a little business here in London which will probably detain me two or three days, and afterwards I steer northward. Should you wish to say any thing to me you will have time if you reply promptly. Did the magnetic investigation reach you?⁷ and did you send it punctually away?

Yesterday in moping through the Strand, religiously resolved not to spend a penny on any of the temptations there exhibited, I passed Chapman’s window,⁸ there dangling from a string hung No 6 Carlyle’s Latter day pamphlets,⁹ price one shilling, by a kind of instinct my finger ends found their way into the sanctum of my breeches pocket and in half a minute I was a shilling poorer. I moped through the crowd gulping down a mouthful at intervals and finally reached Trafalgar Square. then seating myself upon the basin’s edge, right under the shadow of the Nelson Column, and chewed through the pamphlet from beginning to end. The matter afforded me an hour’s delectable employment, and in some places, I laughed like a horse, for instance where he asks ‘Peter do you know why the age of miracles is past? Because you are become an enchanted human ass (I grieve to say it)’ and again. ‘You will carry it, you, by your rating and your eloquencey and your babbling and the adamantine basis of the Universe shall bend to your third reading, and the paltry bit of engrossed sheepskin and dog-latin. What will become of you?’¹⁰ On the whole there is nothing new in this pamphlet, its merit is that, the breath of life is in every line of it.

You made a remark in your last about Geo. Sand. I know nothing about the woman.¹¹ I have read a good deal of reviews and opinions concerning her, in the people’s journal¹² and elsewhere and mostly laudatory; but I would not give three straws for all the liquorish syrup,¹³ expended by those her admirers, and until I have an opportunity of judging her myself I must consider Carlyle’s opinion of the matter, and not yours, as the most probable one. ‘Gross libels’ are they – ‘Caliban is just as unfit to judge as Carlyle’ is he? hard words my dear disciple – but there is danger in throwing up your unfettered arms and asserting your independence of Carlyle that it is merely for the love of the thing and not as a matter of necessity that you do so. I have seen this spirit very well in Carlyle’s disciples. January Searle tells us that Carlyle’s books are not healthy books. D^r Lees attributes his earnestness to dyspepsia and the habit of smoking, and Thomas Hirst regrets his temper. Admirable all, very cool, very philosophic, most laudably independent! Until however I see better grounds for each and all these opinions I must be excused attaching very little value to them – they are so many swags and tassels with which the said disciples delight to adorn themselves. Carlyle doubtless smiles good humouredly on these turkey cock bristlings¹⁴ well knowing that they have no deep cause. On the whole those utterances of Caliban¹⁵ please me better than most that I have seen. They are evidently the transcript of his very soul and he appears in no way anxious to conceal the fact of Carlyle’s chosen captive influence upon him; quite untroubled, he, as to what the world thinks about the surrender of his independence, the prostration of his own individuality before the man whom he recognises as his captain.

But I must stop. I shall soon see you. You ask me, will I accept another £20.¹⁶ I answer ‘not if I can avoid it’, which latter is probable. I am glad you paid Jimmy, because Jimmy is not yet a fool; he will reason as a prudent man, and would perhaps be subject to a periodic qualm in his hours of reflection; again I repeat I will soon see you, but wont promise to stop long with you. I have another asylum in the north.¹⁷

J. Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/T/1015

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/88–89