Roscrea, Jan. 12th 1841.
Dear John
I did not receive your kind letter of the 5th1 until this evening being from home last week which may account for not answering yours sooner and strive to refute the charge of neglect which you have brought against me. Too long did I allow that fault to take hold of me and was and is determined that it never shall again If my memory does not fail me twice have I written to you2 since I received yours of the I dont know when,3 I expected that I had nothing to do but lay my hand upon it but when I went to search it had fled I know not whither. However Jack my old Trout,4 I was just beginning to get a little uneasy at not hearing from you as I really did write twice since I received your last. But I attributed it to a change of quarters and perhaps was waiting to give Bill a description of them or perhaps – what was more likely to my imagination – that you had got into some love affair and I was expecting in your next epistle that I would read of the charms of your fair one and painted in those glowing colours which you are so well able to use without your ever going to Blarney.5 Not that I would ever give you credit for the smallest particle of that accomplishment for I know my old friend’s sincerity too well to think that time or place would make any change in him.
When reading of your visit to that far famed castle,6 I wished almost to be along with you but the recollections of how I spent that day forbids me. I had the good fortune to be left in undisturbed possession of the being whom I love and although I can appreciate the delight and rapture I would have felt at viewing the ruins as well as the society of the companion of other days, which is only second to the society of my own one, I believe if both were within my choice I would select that which I possess. She7 now joins me in congratulating you upon your sport and good appetite on your return and is obliged for the kind forbearance you have used towards me for her sake
I remain your old friend and now all but married man | William Wright
RI MS JT/1/11/3888
LT Transcript Only
your kind letter of the 5th: letter missing.
twice have I written to you: unless one or more recent letters from William Wright are missing, he is here referring to letters 0021 and 0025
yours of the I dont know when: letter missing.
my old Trout: comrade.
Blarney: Kissing the Blarney Stone, located at Blarney Castle, County Cork, is said to endow a person with the power of eloquence, especially the ability to charm the fair sex.
that far famed castle: Blarney Castle, which Tyndall visited on Christmas day; see letter 0031.
She: Sarah Maria Neale who married Wright on 7 February 1841.
Please cite as “Tyndall0034,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on