…2 prove to him that the echoes of ancient melodies still warble in my heart and that amid the tag rag and bobtail of worldly interests and occupations the feelings of my youth still bloom with undimmed radiance. Full of the thought I seized my stick and sallied out amid the pine forests which clothe our rugged hills. Here I wandered alone until night fell.
‘And the broad moon rose circling into sight’.3 During the ramble I must say that I thought less of you than of myself, the mysterious workings of my own spirit, my relations to the scenes around me, to the torrent, the crag, the mountain’s head – all was mystery; to one truth however did my spirit cling – that goodness love and blessedness is the sustaining principle of all …
I never witnessed a more enchanting scene than I enjoyed last night, the sun had gone down as I stood upon the summit of an extinct volcano, with the walls of a ruined fortress round me, on the right were the crimson traces of sunset empurpling the mountains, on the left shone the full moon burnishing the surface of a river which stretched amid the meadows far away.
……….
(I heard) a melancholy account of the sufferings of the poor people in Leighlin – arranged that twelve of them should spend Christmas day comfortably.
RI MS JT/5/13a
LT Transcript Only
[10 December 1848]: Louisa Tyndall annotation: ‘Dec 11/48’. However, 11 December was a Monday, so this letter has tentatively been dated to Sunday, 10 December 1848.
…: this extremely fragmentary letter appears in Louisa Tyndall’s unpublished biography of her husband. Louisa Tyndall introduced the letter as follows: ‘1848. | One Sunday Tyndall determined to write to an old friend [Ginty] to’ (LT, ‘Biography’, vol. 1, p. 18).
‘And the broad moon rose circling into sight’: Lord Byron, Don Juan, II.clxxxv.4.
Please cite as “Tyndall0367,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0367