From Thomas Archer Hirst   Feb 8th/ 52

Marburg | Feb 8^th/ 52

My dear John

We have not yet I am glad to say, seen each other and I am beginning to hope that our next interview will be in England where you will remain.¹ I delayed writing sooner, on account of the probability that I might have a chance of speaking what I had to say I scarcely know where to begin however for I have forgotten where I left off. I will start with the most important topic however, my health, and tell you that it would be difficult to find a stronger and healthier student; to pills and Senna² thank God I am a complete stranger, and although my bowels have in their time undergone what would have ruined 99 out of a hundred I’ll back them now against your own. Brown bread I can digest when necessary and as for veal, though it is as insipid to me as ever I am no longer frightened at it. Impatient as I was when suffering, the chapter on food which can be seen in my life history has been an instructive one. I started with a radically false theory of what, and how much, to eat, drink, and avoid, with a theory of abstinence that defeated itself and engendered the very evil it would avoid, namely the encumbrance of sensual appetite on mental activity. At present I venture to say I eat twice as much and think twice as little about eating as formerly. Formerly I thought it a duty daily to walk my health out, and in grudging it the trouble robbed not only myself of the enjoyment of walking but deprived my health of the very object of the walks, for both are mysteriously connected. – Now my health makes less claim on me in this respect and has learned to be satisfied with the exercise that other circumstances and objects require.

But I will cry halt or I shall waste my paper and time on a subject you have studied enough yourself. – Work goes on with me very well and unless I mistake very much my future path in science lies open before me; namely mathematics and the mathematical part of physics. I find I can throw my interest more completely into such work, and therefore I will stick to it; for strange as it may appear I take far more interest in a beautiful theory and calculation than in a beautiful experiment. It gratifies me to see the latter confirm the former, but I am willing to let others undertake it. Another fact also suggests to me that the former is my task, namely it is far more suggestive to me. In Physics proper I can march straight ahead on the beaten track well enough but I notice few or no by-paths worth following. In mathematics on the contrary I long to turn aside, and come in contact oftener with thickets that promise to repay looking into. I have promised as you may recollect to be in England next April, but if possible I will obtain longer leave of absence and in the next vacation sit down and attempt a dissertation. I would have done it before but I have a notion my time is better occupied as it is, in traversing new fields, to me, and gathering materials for future use, than if I were to sit down and employ those I have – I know well enough this latter is by far the most important object, but at the same time, it is also true, that a certain position is necessary to be first attained in order that you may not employ yourself altogether on things already investigated, and well known. One subject Stegmann has suggested to me and which I shall very probably choose it inasmuch as having a little time last Christmas to look round the matter, I found it promising. Namely to investigate the analogy between certain theorems in Conic Sections, and the corresponding Solid Bodies. To give an example, to see how far the beautiful relations existing between conjugate and principal diameters in the Ellipse are true for the Ellipsoid, when instead of two, three dimensions are present. One Sunday a few weeks ago I read for the first time your Dissertation³ and was all the more pleased with it when I remembered that exactly a year before it had appeared to me a mere assemblage of incomprehensible hieroglyphics. It was a very interesting little dissertation indeed. As far as I know at present, I shall, after remaining in England a month, return to Paris for a time and there hear Cauchy and Regnault. I would have liked to have spent a Session in Göttingen or Berlin, but I do not exactly see my way clear thereto at present. Perhaps I may do that after the Paris residence in order that the latest impression before returning to England more permanently may be a German one. The French language will be necessary for me but in the German I take far more pleasure. Wrightson⁴ is still working away at the Laboratory but I believe not nearer any result than at the beginning of last Semester. He has attained an immense notoriety for explosions, [scarcly] a week passes without a sand bath or some other chemical utensil being shattered in a thousand pieces, and the foundations of the old laboratory built by the Holy S^t Elizabeth⁵ being shaken. The fellow is actually to be pitied he is industrious, and anxious to do something but positively cannot; apart too from actual incapacity I believe the secret of his failure is to be traced to his temper. He has the will to learn and the perseverance after a fashion, but it is an ill tempered dogged perseverance, he is never on good terms with his subject, instead of approaching it as a friend who can and will reveal much to him if he earn and deserve it, he regards it as an enemy who out of spite holds the result above his head exactly out of his reach. He considers himself as a Tantalus,⁶ & snatches impatiently at the fruit above his head and curses the Gods that he cannot grasp it. What is worse for him however he is not exactly as others in similar circumstances often are, he is conscious of his incapacity, inwardly ashamed of it & consequently far from happy. He is so terribly afraid of being thought ignorant that he⁷ gives his opinion on all topics, forgetting that he thereby but too often palpably manifests it. On a Sunday Evening I go through a part of the Theory of Equations with him, Davy and Dickinson, and have often an opportunity of seeing truly curious traits of character.

RI MS JT/1/H/165