Fragment of an autograph letter : London, to William Angus Knight, [1872] November 24.

Expressing his hope that the "weariness and worry of the late proceedings of your Presbytery" are behind him; discussing, in detail and at length, a passage from a letter to Dr. Martineau from John James Tayler, written in 1865, on "free inquiry" and asserting that of "...the power of Unitarianism to produce the finest type of spiritual life no further instance need be quoted than Mr. J. J. Tayler, whose beautiful letters reveal with singular simplicity a character of the rarest integrity in which the severer lives of the Puritanism of an older day were softened by the ripest scholarship, the most genial affections and the tenderest grace: while the whole was lifted by continuous aspiration into a region of purity at which his pupils used to gaze with far off wonder as something unattainable for common minds;" relating news of Martineau's improving health and the impact of his retirement from the pulpit; saying he {Carpenter] is back in London to consult with a physician about the loss of his voice "...owing this time to a weakness of heart which troubled me much as a boy but wh. I hoped I had outgrown;" saying his congregation suggested he go away for six months "...that I might return wholly free from apprehension about the future;" saying he will be leaving for Egypt for three or four months with hopes of returning "...both fitter & worthier for any tasks and privileges. Certainly no congregation was ever more considerate or indulgent; and I quiet my conscience with my father's comforting remark to me this morning that I was more reduced than he had expected! Except that even conversation is an effort, I feel like an impostor, & nothing pleases me better than to find that the least exertion leaves me speechless! Mr. Huxley's enumeration of the conditions of human happiness - 'a good digestion & no conscience' has its elements of truth after all. I am going with an uncle in whose companionship I shall have great delight."