From Thomas Archer Hirst   Jan 20th 1859¹

Rome. Jan 30^th 1859

My dear John.

Your last letter² arrived just at a time when a kindly word was very acceptable to me—it was at one of those transient moments when a slight indisposition or mental fatigue begets a tendency to take a gloomy view of things in general. I learnt from your letter that to you at least the horizon was brightening and thus some reflected light could not fail to reach me too. I shut up my books and set out for my daily walk the better to chew the cud of the good news your letter contained and thus ruminating my spirits rose even to cheerfulness. I recalled with a smile our last words at Saas³ when I asked to be kept informed of certain affairs and you with resolution apparently fixed replied that ‘all was finished’ to which I being very incredulous on that point pleaded to be informed of the end of it. That same end will very probably be what I always suspected and what I ardently hope for. At all events matters are proceeding slowly and well to my hearts content if my sincere wishes can help the ‘finis’⁴ to which I alluded at Saas will not tarry long.

I look every week at the ‘Atheneum’⁵ for some account of proceedings at the Royal Institution. Your long vacation is just finished and you are about commencing to amuse and instruct once more your fashionable audience. My solitary life has of course a great influence on my imagination but I must say I feel an internal shudder when I read that you were to give twelve lectures on the Law of Gravitation⁶ I imagined myself sentenced to talk for twelve successive nights to your audience on the Law of Gravitation and the task appears so formidable that to me transportation for twelve years would be preferable. At the same time I have no fear whatever of your passing even successfully through the terrible ordeal and I should very much like to be one of your hearers You have certainly deviated widely from the ordinary routine of Physical lectures wherein the said Law of Gravitation usually presents little interest and is regarded as one of the branches most barren in interesting experiments. I am sure you will prove that it is not so and I should greatly like to see how you will do this. Forbes I see has spoken once more on the subject of regelation⁷ I found his article⁸ little instructive, it bears the traces of a man labouring under hopeless indisposition. Poor man the vigor which animates his former memoirs seem all departed, all replaced by discontent and lassitude—such at least was the impression produced upon me by his short article. Tell me in your next what you have been working upon, principally since you left Switzerland; how does the book on Switzerland progress?⁹

And now I must say a word about myself and first about my health. You will be glad to hear that it is long since I enjoyed such good health with such an amount of sedentary work. I do not know whether it is that I am learning to treat myself more prudently or whether it is that the climate and diet of Rome are suitable to me, but such is the fact—it is long since I passed through a winter so well. The bowels do their part very creditably and—though they threaten to rebel occasionally I have hitherto succeeded by natural means, without medicine of any description—to wax them again into good humour. Now and then I have to put down my pen and walk for a couple of days much to the astonishment of my Italian friends, whose temperaments differ so widely from mine and from those of all other northern barbarians. I will venture to say there are few Romans who, during their whole lives, have scampered so much over the wide Campagna¹⁰ as I have done during the last three months, and my scamperings are of infinite service to me. As is natural my work succeeds in the same proportion as my health is good. I am just putting the finishing strokes to a memoir¹¹ (in French) which will appear shortly in Tortolini’s journal¹² If I can judge it will be as solid a piece of work as I have yet produced. The subject is purely geometrical and not extensive, but well laboured. Mathematicians will find nothing brilliant in it—no wide flashes illuminating vast fields, such as they continually meet with in the productions of Cayley,¹³ Sylvester and others. Such brilliances are not in me and I must content myself with more modest gifts, with less extensive fields in fact with a little garden which I can well dig and in my plodding way render capable of producing some fruit though only a few flowers.

I know very few people here either English or Italian. The uniformity of my week is broken only by a visit which good Tortolini always pays me on a Thursday Evening and which I return generally on a Sunday He is a simple kindly soul who ardently loves his mathematics and never tires talking about them. There is little depth or ‘resistance’ in him in this respect he reminds me greatly of Knoblauch¹⁴ In mathematics he flies like a busy bee from flower to flower and buzzes contentedly if he finds even a minimum of honey in them. A man destitute of guile, incapable of inveterate hate or of deep love and as often happens generous enough of the love and friendship of which he is capable. Above all he is incapable of silently manifesting respect and esteem, for his part he is convinced that the expression of these feelings is inseparable from their existence This being the man you will at once know how to interpret the following lines I found written on the fly leaf of a volume of his researches which he presented to me the other day. You will easily be able to translate ‘Al mio carissimo (superlative) Amico Sig^r Dottor, T.A. Hirst in occasione del suo viaggio in Roma—in attestato di sincera Stima ed Affetto¹⁵—Barnaba Tortolini’ It is needless to say that the lines taken even at their precise value gave me pleasure

A week has passed by since I wrote the above. I thought by keeping my letter a while to increase its length but I find I must let it go. I enclose an account sent to me by Williams and Norgate¹⁶ which I will ask you to pay for me and in so doing, please draw their attention to the question they put at the foot of the note and to my answer there written. It is Saturday night and I am a little weary of holding the pen; tomorrow I must devote religiously to exercise in the open air hence the necessity for finishing abruptly my letter.

You know of course that the Prince of Wales¹⁷ is here, he lives very near to me but I have never seen nor probably ever shall. The knowledge of his movements will reach me through English papers.

The old king of Prussia¹⁸ is here too. I did see him today, poor old fellow he is a sad wreck of a man. This reminds me to tell you that I have read Carlyles life of Frederick the Great¹⁹ i.e. as much of it as is at present published It is an admirable piece of work and has been a source of great pleasure and relaxation to me.

With best wishes Dear John Yours affectionately Tom

RI MS JT/1/H/243