To Thomas Archer Hirst   Saturday night May 17th 1851¹

Saturday night May 17^th 1851.

My Dear Tom

It is 11 oC and I ought to be going to bed instead of sitting down to write to you – well another week has closed down upon my Berlin life – I have been a pretty good boy this week, did not sleep very long in the morning and have stuck steadfast to my work until 7 and 8 in the evening – then home and busied myself with a report for the Phil. Mag.² I find Tom that hard work resembles teetotalism – it is easier for a drinker to abstain altogether than to half abstain – and the more I work the easier and pleasanter I find my work – at the tag end of a day for example during which I have worked well I find it easier to work an hour longer than at the tag end of a day in which I have worked ill – it puts one in mind of the parable of the 10 talents – ‘To him that hath to him shall be given, and from him that hath not from him shall be taken even that which he hath’³ – I dont know whether you will understand me still I wont bother myself with further explanation – last tuesday eveng I came home at 7½ full of a project for a nights employment – I found an invitation from Prof. Mitscherlich before me – I was in no humour to accept, still he is a great man and I hesitated – I sat down finally and wrote a note declining the invitation⁴ – I had no seal or my sealing wax was astray – I sent the note to my hostesses daughter begging of her to seal it for me. She stuck a wafer under it I have since learned and I doubt not stamped it with her thimble – thus the document reached the Hofrath⁵ and formed likely a subject of speculation for him his wife and daughters – I felt annoyed, for I am sensitive on all these points – I would avoid above many things the imputation of being vulgar, it is a feeling which I remember existed strong in me when a boy, next day I felt in duty bound to pay the professor a visit – but why am I ranting thus? why merely to give you [another] one of those phases of character upon which you like to ponder – I know that you can see through the cobweb of an apparently trivial incident and detect the meaning beneath it – Well I disliked the idea of going in very much – but I felt that I ought to do so – At length I said to myself why do you suffer this feeling of annoyance to take hold of you, why do you shirk like a coward a task which you know to be your duty? – why not go forward and prove by the independence of your presence that you are not a vulgar man – My feeling [thus] reasoning became a kind of subdued counterpart to that of Teufelsdrock in the Rue de l’Enfer⁶ – I felt eased in a moment from my annoyance and cried pshaw! at my previous cowardice – It was all myself – the thing assumed an importance merely because I permitted it to assume it, and the importance vanished the moment I was lord of myself. Rock crystal I believe Tom has surfaces of different texture. some are attacked by acid. others not – a man seems to be a kind of Rock crystal and he has surfaces which if he turns against the canker of the world the tooth of the latter will shew its blunt edge and base temper. Good – I have now done.

Thank you for your letter⁷ – it was a sweet and precious one to me. of course boy the world’s a school for the individual – but hang me if you draw me just now into your philosophic meshes – I cant afford it – and my eyesight in this direction is too dim just now to interest you with its revelations – still I cannot drive away that idea of the human race being an integral whole in the carrying forward of which the individual has perfect freedom within a certain circuit – the amplitude to which he can swing being never sufficient to disturb the higher designs which have respect to the race – Faraday says to me – ‘nothing is so good as an experiment which whilst it sets an error right &c.’⁸ Cui bono? I exclaim – what good? Is it this paltry result that you dignify thus? – By heaven if it be to transact tricks of this kind that man is placed here life is not worth living for. Then creeps in that soothing whisper – ‘Know my son that thou art a link on which higher destinies hang. Know that thou in the faithful discharge of thy duty to day art forwarding the ulterior designs of the author of the universe – thou throbbest with his life and thy life must be given for the throb’⁹ but I’m roaming again –

Your remarks on January¹⁰ are just – I liked the article well though it revealed to me nothing which I did not already know – but there is a certain satisfaction in finding that January understands the matter so well. there is sometimes a looseness in his phraseology which I accustomed as I am to strict ‘induction’ would rather see banished – still I fully suscribe to those utterances of his which are apparently most illogical – January has had a very rich experience richer than most men, [so] it will be a pity if he now suffers himself through lazy inanity to become a castaway from nature.

The rust of intellect you say is about that article of mine¹¹ – now whether is the ‘rust’ my rust or your rust – it is a matter of contact so to speak – if the rust be in you it is practically all the same and your judgment has simply referred it to the wrong surface – I tell you boy I’m a very affectionate fellow and no ‘old weasel’¹² – I’m sure I could love like a brick if occasion offered.

In a month I shall be leaving Berlin – Shortly afterwards I shall see Dickson personally – write me an account of your symptoms¹³ in the mean time –

A few days ago I received a most kind letter from Francis¹⁴ – he is one of the best fellows I know – He has obtained for me the office of Berlin correspondent to the literary Gazette¹⁵ – to send articles and write Reviews at 10/6 a column – I wont undertake it for I cant – no time to spare – He has also proposed to Van Voorst the publisher¹⁶ that I should write a treatise on physics for him, and the latter seems to like the idea – He is to see me in Ipswich¹⁷ on the subject. I dont know whether I will undertake it – it costs so much time – He has sent copies of my memoir¹⁸ to Wheatstone. Sabine and many others – on the whole his bearing towards me is most good natured.

I ask your pardon for this rigmarole – no I dont! – I forgot you and dropped into a silly conventionality. It is now midnight – good luck to you Tom. May your sleep be sound to night and – oh that my prayer could affect those bowels! I would wrestle with all heaven for the blessing¹⁹ – Kind love to some of the ladies of the Kränzchen²⁰ – you may make the selection yourself –

Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/T/540