John Tyndall to Faraday   15 February 1853

Queenwood, 15th, Feb, 1853.

Dear Prof Faraday

I never calculated on my expenses being paid, but am perfectly content to abide by your usual practice on such occasions - My travelling expenses are the only ones worth naming and they amounted to about thirty shillings - This sum I shall be equally contented to receive or not to receive.

When a man feels deeply on any point I believe as a general rule he will not talk much about it. I once heard the silence of Goethe¹ for a year during which he was in love with a girl in Frankfort accounted for in this way, and I have always thought the hypothesis a probable one. Friday night² is to me what his sweetheart was to Goethe - I shall never forget it but cannot well write about it. The memory of it I trust will serve to keep me more loyally to my task, to assure me when I doubt, to strengthen me when I falter and to establish my faith in a sentiment which I have met somewhere in your own writings, that the patient and conscientious investigator of natural truth is ever sure of his reward[.]

Believe me dear Professor | Most sincerely Yours | John Tyndall