From Thomas Archer Hirst   July 12th 1850¹

Halifax | July 12^th 1850

My dear Tyndall –

I have just returned from my lads at the Improvement Society,² and as I generally do, I can yet feel its healthy, refreshing influence; since then I have had a stroll on the moor³ with my eldest lad, & been listening to his rude & stubborn speculations on things in general. He is an eccentric lad, with some eccentric & crude notions, at the bottom of all which however is a sturdy individuality and a brave self-reliance. The rascal has some poetry in him too, and some faint notion of what we should call religion but he has not any suspicion of its being such. He carries a copy of Burns⁴ in his pocket generally and has been known to get up at 2 AM and disappear until noon on to Beacon Hill⁵ & so forth, at which spots he has been found asleep mesmerized by the scenery perhaps though what is the best & shews a good deal of this to be genuine, he seldom talks about it, for he is too blunt to put up with affectation, & no doubt bears it a great hatred. When I meet such fellows I am always impatient to see them develop themselves at a quicker rate than they seem to be doing, and have accordingly to keep crying patience to myself, for I well know Nature does not like hurrying: still when I see capacities so valuable for making a fine man, I grudge old Nature the time she needs to manufacture them. I liked your long spasmodic letter⁶ very well, why did you consider to burn it you rascal, did you fear my criticism or think that anything you had to say would not be welcomed? But in truth some such sly notion affects us all many a time, I have found it I know. A certain fear of compromising or detracting from an opinion you consider that others possess towards you: a certain hesitation at saying or writing what you may consider commonplace, to one who you know could appreciate something better. But as we do not expect others always to be talking brilliantly neither should we always attempt, nay what is more we should never attempt it, for it is by the commonplaces and not by the brilliances that we shall all be judged. Just as it is not by a few notions (good or bad) but by the generality that we must be estimated and estimate. You have read Emerson well, I have not, & what you say shews this. There is only one remark (& that you scratched out intending me not to see); which I could have wished unwritten because it is useless. ‘Don’t think too much of the first part of this letter’. Why John? Do you anticipate harm thereby? and if so to whom? Yourself or me? – Now I shall think just what I like about them, and to punish you I shall think much of them, so much namely, that they are plain John Tyndall’s ideas on the matter; that the superfine John may have some more elaborate ones in his cranium does not matter to me until they get out. I shall please myself whether I give him credit for them or not. You say⁷ truly ‘Emerson cannot be an unhappy man. Nature can’t play him any tricks’ yet for all that I can’t envy him yet I see something beautiful in such a state but it is a cold beauty; too impassible for my taste of 20 years growth. There is something grand about such a balanced man but I sigh sometimes when I think it must be purchased at the price of these impulsive ecstacies. Nevertheless I feel myself journeying

<Handwritten letter ends; hereafter LT Transcript Only>

in that direction, and at every step I sigh for the beautiful unrealities I must bid adieu to. I see Emerson, Carlyle and yourself (perhaps more besides if I looked carefully) all on the road before me there at different distances; and I find I must follow also. Why is it, Tyndall? Is it because a love of the Infinite is gradually absorbing and seemingly drowning the finite: a love for the Ideal Whole to which the Actual Part must succumb?

Leave all to love

Yet hear me yet

……………….

……………….

Keep thee to-day

To-morrow for ever

Free as an Arab

Of thy Beloved.⁸

Is this possible to Man? You say⁹ ‘it is politic’, and that may be true when at the same time the freedom may be assumed only, not real. But the freedom meant seems to me as if purchased at the sacrifice of Love. True it is a wiser love, but I could not yet part with the embodiment in Human Shape without sadness. A thought strikes me Emerson could not either; but despite the sadness he would do it. So would I. - - The sadness would add to its value. I should like to hear your personal illustration of this, so when you get old enough don’t forget to tell me. The sorrow of Emerson and his conquering it, or the result of it, is evidenced in the Threnody.¹⁰ I have been reading to-day a sad but beautiful poem of Longfellow’s, ‘Evangeline’.¹¹ The metre, ‘Hexameter’, he has moulded to his purpose beautifully; despite its unwieldiness in English I confess to like it, or rather his use of it. There is a certain musical plaintiveness throughout, like AEolian harp melody made articulate. I cannot pick out any that shall represent the poem, for it is the whole that you admire, but the concluding lines I give you on the small slip enclosed. Evangeline the heroine has been banished with her father, betrothed, and his father, from their native land in Acadia (it is founded on fact). Her father dies before their embarkation, her betrothed is put into a different ship and they are landed at different parts of the American coast; when there, homeless and friendless, she sets out on her weary pilgrimage to find him, often escapes him narrowly, and thus through her sad pilgrimage you are carried until she gets reconciled to her failures, turns a Sister of Mercy,¹² and loses her own afflictions by trying to soothe those of others. At last in an Infirmary she sees her betrothed, now old and dying in a fever; he dies without speaking to her on her bosom. (Turn over)¹³

Come early on the 25th. | T.A. Hirst.

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,

All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!

And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, ‘Father I thank thee’.¹⁴

Mr J. Tyndall | Spring Bank, Over Darwen, Lancs.¹⁵

RI MS JT/1/H/149

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/91–92