To Thomas Archer Hirst¹

My Dear Tom –

Bring all that you have belonging to me to Manchester on Saturday and leave them with Ginty – Do you know where he lives? When you come down from the station turn to your right, pass under the railway bridge and walk straight forward till you come to Broughton toll bar – about 100 yards beyond the bar Howard Street branches off to the right – N^o 9 is Gintys abode² –

If you could conveniently spend Sunday in Manchester I should rather like it and I would meet you there;³ I can promise you a hearty welcome from Ginty but perhaps it would suit us both best to have a cozy chop together at Wovendens⁴ or somewhere else; this point is easily settled if we agree to meet – Say the word then shall we meet or shall we not? if the affirmative then I promise to be in Manchester sometime on Saturday – you have nothing to do if you arrive before me but to sit quietly down at Gintys – they will give you Pickwick or Holts poems⁵ to amuse you – Tell M^rs Ginty that I said she was to take good care of you and to treat you tenderly – she will do this – I’ll vouch for her.

We can talk over many little matters when we meet which it would be a bore to write about. If you can conveniently manage it therefore I wish you would remain over Sunday – tell me your mind by return for if you cannot remain there I have no business in Manchester.

I dont think I shall spend any time at Queenwood – I should certainly like to take a run down from London stop there a night and come away next day – this time would be sufficient to see the place and to talk over business matters. We shall perhaps be able to manage it together.⁶

I am already busy with my investigation, that is busy in my brain, for every step ought to be verified by experiment – looking at the matter thoroughly I hope to be able to cram as much into the coming half year as any other chap of my age and opportunity in these Kingdoms – I have a fair field before me on the very outskirts of science looking from the known out upon the unknown and carving a track through the latter for myself. I shall endeavour to make my half year a profitable one and I believe I shall succeed. It is the strong conviction that abiding results will flow from the coming 6 months, backed by another conviction that our union for this time will be of mutual advantage to us in other respects that induces me accept a certain moral pressure which my present position imposes on me – My philosophy cannot entirely dissipate this, for the position is new to me – Reason however tell me that the pressure will be transitory and the advantages flowing from it permanent.

I dont know whether I mentioned to you before that I have been favoured with a letter 18 pages long from the Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow,⁷ my opponent in Edinburgh – He is working at the same subject, in fact every body will be having a trial at it as they see that a new field of speculation and experiment is opened. But it takes long preliminary discipline before a man can get thoroughly into such a subject and in this respect I am a certain distance ahead, which advantage by the favour of the immortals I intend to maintain –

I dont know exactly when the Semester begins – I shall know in a few days – One thing however I know that neither of us shall need profitable employment even should we arrive too soon. If business matters detain you until after the first of October in England I am content. I am anxious ere we leave to visit the Polytechnic Institution in London, and should like us to do it together.

Last saturday night at 9 oC I called at Ginty’s house in Manchester, he was at the house a friend whither I went to seek him – I thought he and his friend were indulging in a social chat together, but on entering the room where they sat they formed a small fractional part of the company present – the table was loaded with brandy and whiskey bottles and the room crammed with tobacco smoke – I sat me down and remained there for nearly 3 hours. the⁸

Bid your friends farewell for me also. I feel a certain identity of fate and doom with them which induces me to make this request. – If Smith and January be finally sent to the devil where am I to go? certainly to share the same infernal hospitality – Well there’s comfort in the prospective sympathy of such companions – tell January not to forget his Meerschaum!⁹ –

Commend me to the kind remembrance of Hutchinson, Roby and Booth –

truly thine | Tyndall –

RI MS JT/1/T/1013