John Tyndall to Faraday   27 August 1855

Queenwood near Stockbridge | 27th Aug. 1855

My dear Mr. Faraday,

The thought of you wandered across my mind this morning before I rose, and I said in my heart I will commence the day by writing to him. I thought of writing to you after that terrible thunderstorm which visited this neighbourhood¹, but I heard that it stretched over London also, consequently I infer over Sydenham and that you yourself were a witness of its grandeur. I dont think I have ever seen lightning so incessant and vivid. The evening was beautiful. I watched the grouping of the clouds in the west after the sun had sunk; it was magnificent, and eastward the moon, almost full, hung her shield at intervals in the blue space between the masses of cloud - all was calm towards 8 o’clock and summer lightning, as I thought it, played fitfully on the south west. As the evening advanced however the lightning drew nearer and rumbling thunder became audible, and towards 10 o’clock the spectacle was grand. I wandered with a friend² to a summit in the neighbourhood and watched the flashes along the horizon, these were reflected from the clouds above and an intense brilliancy shivered at intervals over the heavens and the earth. The yellow light of the gas in the windows of the house seemed utterly extinguished by the superior glare of the lightning. The flashes and peals drew nearer and as a matter of precaution my companion and myself withdrew from the height and sought shelter in the house; here we stood in a porch watching the fitful but almost incessant glare, a wild gust of wind rushed in upon us carrying heavy rain along with it and compelled us to close the door. Louder rolled the cannonade and one crash broke above us which almost seemed intended to shiver the building to atoms. About 120 boys were in bed at the time; I thought of the little fellows and went upstairs to comfort them if necessary. The younger ones were greatly terrified and some of them were crying bitterly; I talked cheerily to them and when the vivid gleams broke in upon them exclaimed “beautiful!” By degrees they also began to consider the flashes as things of beauty and not of terror, but some of them were greatly surprised to find that when they shut their eyes and covered their heads with the bedclothes they still saw the flashes. I waited with them until I could assure them that all danger was past, until there was no cloud near to give us even a taste of the returning stroke; but long after this the discharge continued along the eastern horizon, and like quivering red hot bars the flashes sped up and down. Francis who was down here on Sunday³ told me he noticed circular flashes, and was very confident of the reality of the fact: I myself noticed several times the clouds surrounded by a fiery rim intensely luminous, this I mentioned to Francis but he would not admit it as being the explanation of what he saw. You drew attention to the same source of error many years ago⁴.

The people here have contrived to make me very comfortable in a little lodge which stands at the entrance to the college lawn and which serves on Sundays as a meeting house for the few quaker youths in the establishment. I have planted my apparatus. The work goes on slowly, for it is terribly difficult[.] The greatest care is required to render the facts safe and when they are safe one does not know what to make of them. My strength oscillates as usual: when I give up work for a day and swing my limbs over the breezy downs I return with an amount of force which seems inexhaustable, but two days thought produces a wonderful diminution of my energy. I write at present upon the legs of the vigour which I acquired on Sunday last in the New Forest. Francis, the chemist here⁵, and I myself started early and wandered along bowery roads and through fine parks, until we found ourselves at noon knee deep in the fern of the forest⁶. Visited the stone which stands upon the spot where Rufus⁷ was shot by Walter Tyrrell⁸. The people though they generally bear the character of barbarians were extremely civil and intelligent: there was an admirable precision in their directions when they showed us our way. The same quality was exhibited by the children. It was really remarkable to observe the exactitude with which they described the twists turnings and landmarks along the forest tracks. The day was glorious; the sun smote the foliage and seemed to drip as liquid gold into the shaddows beneath, the breezes made music amid the branches and as the rust cleared gradually away from the inner man our hearts responded to the sound. I had left home a decrepit wretch but as I advanced I found my vigour rush upon me. Passed through sunny little hamlets and by brown thatched cottages around which roses and runners and laurels clustered till finally we reached Lyndhurst; it was 2 1/2 o’clock, and having breakfasted early we put up at an inn and fortified ourselves with the wholesome country fare. Thence to the nearest station, thence to Southampton, then to Dunbridge from which we had a walk of four miles. The full harvest moon sailed above us through the cloudless sky, frosting the beech leaves with silver, and near her was the evening star. The air was clear and bracing and we finally crossed our respective thresholds leaving a day behind us to which memory can scarcely furnish a parallel.

As Francis sat beside me at dinner on Saturday in the same room with the boys; a question buzzed though the little host whether that was Prof. Faraday! Francis said to me at the time that the prospect of such a number of fine little fellows would be a pleasure to you, and the thought then and there occurred to me that supposing you wished to change your scene for a day you might possibly turn your thoughts and steps hitherward. One sunny day upon the chalk would do you good, one calm night spent away from the turmoil of city life. I can promise you a good bedroom with linen sweet and white. The place is also remarkable as furnishing evidence how nature deals with those who do violence to her mental laws, that here as in physics she is inexorable. This place was the Harmony Hall of the socialists; but the memory of them is clean gone from the place. There is a gas-house here where the hydrocarbon principle is applied and that wonderful Bughead cannel is distilled for the illumination of the establishment, there is a new and singular washing machine - there are the boys and the playgrounds which would be pleasant to your eyes: there is a most remarkable avenue of yew trees adjacent gloomy and glorious at the same time - there is another of elm trees which might have suggested the pillared aisles of our Cathedrals, and there will be gladness in all our hearts and a welcome in every eye should you set your foot within the establishment.

I had a letter some days ago from Frankland in which he urges a promise I made to him some time ago to spend three days with him in the lake district: this I intend to do, and we then go together to Glasgow to the meeting of the Association. I shall probably leave this place about the 6th. and spend a day in London, so as to gather a few things together that may possibly interest the physical section. I have had a letter from Duboscq⁹ containing a list of apparatus for a course of lectures on optics concerning which I shall ask your counsel at a future day¹⁰. Now I think I have sufficiently afflicted you with this long and badly written scrawl. The bell has rung - it is 8 o’clock and the boys are moving to breakfast. Desiring my best wishes to Mrs. Faraday and Miss Barnard I say for the present goodbye.

affectionately yours | John Tyndall

Mr. Best¹¹ one of our members wrote to me when in town asking me to open certain proceedings of the Hants & Wilts educational union by a lecture - this I declined, and to day I have declined another invitation from the same gentleman and one also from Leeds. But lest he should think me unkind living so near Southampton I went over to the meeting on Wednesday last¹² - purposing simply to shew them the respect of my personal attendance they however induced me to say something - and indeed the proceedings were well conducted so that when called upon there seemed no reasonable objection to my saying a few words. I hear an account of the meeting has got into the papers so if you should see it what I have said will account for my appearance there¹³.