It is long since I told you that I had begun Wallace, and that foreign studies had cast him into the shade. The same causes still obstruct my progress You will perhaps be surprised that I am even now no farther advanced than the 'circle of curvature'. I have found his demonstrations circuitous but generally rigorous.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'What I deplore is that laziness and dissipation of mind to which I am still subject. At present I am quieting my conscience with the thought that I shall study very diligently this winter. Heaven grant it be so! for without increasing in knowledge what profits it to live? Yet the commencement has been inauspicious. Three weeks ago I began to read Wallace's "Fluxions" in the Encyclopaedia, and had proceeded a little way, when the "Quarterly Review", some problems in a very silly Literary and Statistical Magazine of which the the schoolmasters are supporters, Madm de Sta?l's "Germany", etc. etc., have suspended my operations these ten days. After all I am afraid that this winter will pass as others have done before it - unmarked by improvement; and what is to hinder the next, & its followers till the end of the short season allotted me to do so likewise?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'Soon after my arrival here, I fell to Wallace's fluxions, with might and main. I would study, I thought, with great vehemence, every night - and the two hours at noon, which I have to dispose of, I would devote to the reading of history and other lighter matters - But alas! two hours I found to be insufficien[t] - by degrees poor Wallace was encroached upon - and is now all but finally discarded. His introduction, it must be confessed, is ponderous & repulsive. His horror of the binomial theorem leads him into strange bye-paths. But he demonstartes [sic] with great rigour.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
