Little Wizard

TC TO GEORGE STRACHEY

Chelsea: 3 March, 1844.

Dear Little Wizard, — I have received two numbers of your ingenious periodical, the second of them this morning, and have to return you my thanks and congratulations. I find it a very handsome enterprise this of yours, and cannot but think you have a fair augury both of pleasure and profit from the same. It will be new satisfaction to my little Wizard of the North to burn off his fireworks in this literary form; may he prosper with them, our present little Wizard, as he used to do when they consisted of chemical gases and such like! We all know with what dexterity he used to go off, ever at the right moment, and with what brilliancy to blaze, in that latter department—astonishing the minds of beholders. The like good speed attend him here. Need I wish him better?

With many kind wishes to my little wizard friend, and his periodical literature, and other honest achievements and improvements,

I remain (in good hopes of him)

Most sincerely his,

T. CARLYLE.

Thomas Carlyle obviously thought well of George Strachey.  In a letter dated March 3^rd, 1844, Carlyle refers to him as the Little Wizard, placing him in a standing similar to Sir Walter Scott; the Wizard of the North.