Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
Written from "7 Lifton Place / Leeds."
The year of writing is not given, however, Carpenter refers to Knight's return from his travels in Switzerland and his impending confrontation with the Presbytery which would appear to date it to 1873. However, an earlier letter in the collection (MA 9256.33), with an implied year of writing as 1873, is also dated September 7th. Carpenter also says that he is writing on a Sunday night. September 7th was a Sunday in 1873.
Discussing Knight's descriptions of his travels in the Alps and expressing his pleasure that Knight is safely home "...armed with fresh vigour for the conflict, which in some way or another is inevitable before you...let me beseech you not to hesitate in securing at all costs a position in which you may speak your mind fully without the smallest responsibility except to your own self and truth & God. It seems to me that the time is ripe for such words in Scotland as you can utter: and you can get a better hearing, so it is the more incumbent on you. Even in my limited experience here I have come across sad cases of the mischief wrought by the frightful bigotries of so-called Evangelical Xty: you must know them far better than I: - nay, they lie in your path & (as you once told me) in your own family. But then, there are hundreds, nay thousands, whom you may assist to deliver: & to whom your word & example may give the power to win & use the liberty they dimly dream of but cannot grasp;" relating the work he is doing on the next volume of Ewald's History, his father's work on his book on Mental Physiology, the upcoming 200th Anniversary celebration of Mill Hill Chapel and a public lecture series in which he will participate in November.