A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1840
Sydney Smith to Sarah Austin?, 23 January 1840
Combe Florey, Jan. 23rd,
1840.
Dear, fair, wise,
Your little note gave me great pleasure, for I am always
mightily refreshed when the best of my fellow-creatures seem to remember and
care for me. To you, who give routs where every gentleman is a Locke or a Newton, and every lady a Somerville or a Corinne,
the printed nonsense you have sent me must appear extraordinary; but to me, in
the country, it is daily-bread nonsense, and of everlasting occurrence.
The birds, presuming on a few fine days, are beginning to
make young birds, and the roots to make young flowers. Very rash! as rash as
John Russell with his Privilege
quarrel.
I have not read Carlyle, though I have got him on my list. I am rather curious
about him.
I will come and see you as soon as I come to town; in the
meantime, believe me your sincere and affectionate friend,
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Scottish essayist and man of letters; he translated Goethe's
Wilhelm
Meister (1824) and published
Sartor Resartus
(1833-34).
John Locke (1632-1704)
English philosopher; author of
Essay concerning Human
Understanding (1690) and
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(1695).
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
English scientist and president of the Royal Society; author of
Philosophae naturalis principia mathematica (1687).
John Russell, first earl Russell (1792-1878)
English statesman, son of John Russell sixth duke of Bedford (1766-1839); he was author
of
Essay on the English Constitution (1821) and
Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe (1824) and was Prime Minister (1865-66).
Mary Somerville [née Fairfax] (1780-1872)
Mathematician and science writer, daughter of Admiral William George Fairfax (1739-1813)
and friend of Ada Byron; she spent her later years in Italy. She was twice married.
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817)
French woman of letters; author of the novel
Corinne, ou L'Italie
(1807) and
De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she
spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.