Huddersfield, | April 16th 1852
My dear John,
About our Bristol visit Heinrich will have told you all, I have now a few moments to spare and will commence my letter by describing my route since then. On Wednesday evening arrived at Wovenden’s Manchester.2 I made the journey very short by reading your two memoirs on ‘Diamagnetism’ and the ‘Polarity of Bismuth.’3 It will be sufficient praise to you to tell you I never understood two memoirs as well. They possess one inestimable property which can result but from one thing, a thorough knowledge of what you are writing about in all its minutiae, – that property is a mathematical precision and clearness in reasoning, laying brick on brick with good mortar between until the building is complete. If I understand one part aright: Before the poles of a magnet the attraction and repulsion varies with the distance differently for different bodies; for instance soft iron and carbonate of iron; have you examined this further, or do you think any relation exists between the chemical constitution of the body and this variation? What suggested this to me, I was considering, in that little experiment where on your torsion balance you had a piece of zinc on one end and Bismith on the other, if it could be mathematically shewn where by increasing the strength of the stream the balance would come to rest. You have proved clearly enough that it could not remain still.
If, with equal strength of current and equal distances of the Zinc and Bismuth from the ends of the magnet, the repulsion of the one varied differently to the attraction of the other at those several distances, it would bring another element into calculation which would render it a difficult perhaps but certainly an interesting mathematical problem.
But I will go on with my journey. I spent Thursday morning with Dr Frankland who shewed me round his beautifully arranged laboratory4 and was as kind as ever. He told me, which you can retail to Debus, that Kolbe, after leaving Marburg for England, changed his mind in Braunschweig,5 and went no further. I believe now he is not expected even. Huddersfield being the most convenient place to Manchester I went there next to surprise January. It was 4 p.m., he was at home, I was shewn into the sitting room and soon he came down to me; he stopped however in the middle of the room (I with my back to the fire very quietly looking at him) made one of the most comically astonished faces I ever saw, as he stood there for almost a minute speechless. Soon however his bowels began to shake. I knew what was coming. ‘Why, Tom, what the devil are you doing here?’ he shouted at last as he ran to me and pitched into me furiously with his fists. I could stand it no longer and, nearly killed with laughing, I ran away from him, he after me racing me round the table crying ‘You damned rascal, what do you mean!’ At last he caught me and with both hands nearly shook my arm off and then sat down in astonished exhaustment, to cool; he then got up once more steadily to shake my hand, and in his usual tone said ‘Good Lord, Tom, but I’m glad to see you lad’. I knew then he was sane. When I was undressing that night I found to my surprise that a belt-purse I had carried the previous day round my waist, containing upwards of £40, was missing. I knew that the evening before I had pulled it off and put it under my pillow at Wovenden’s, and consequently if not stolen it must still be there. There were two possibilities against my finding it again – a dishonest chambermaid, or a dishonest sleeper in the same bed this evening. There was nothing to be done that night, however, and I slept calmly till morning, dreaming that I had found it again, which however on waking I found to be a dream merely. I returned to Manchester, asked to see Mr Wovenden quietly, a sharp thin-faced woman looked at me very searchingly. ‘Were you here on Wednesday evening, sir?’ ‘Yes, in No. 35’, said I. The colour began to mount into her face. ‘Well, sir, you deserve your head knocking off’. ‘Thank you, Ma’am’, I returned. ‘I see you know my errand already and that all is safe’. She handed me the purse, correct to a penny. ‘Yes, sir, but it would not have been if we had not had an honest chambermaid’. ‘Well, tell the honest chambermaid I should like to see her’. A young handsome, timid girl appeared; she looked half frightened as if she was guilty in finding the purse. I put half-a-sovereign in her hand. ‘There’s something for your honesty my girl, and if there were not so many people about I’d give you a kiss in the bargain’. She smiled at me as if she would have preferred the kiss to the half sovereign, but I had not pluck enough to give her it, so I let her go. Now, there’s an incident for you.
Sunday morning
I am at Brighouse6 and have just risen from my knees, I will not say from praying for I merely listened to my orthodox uncle praying. I had told him previously I was going to consecrate this day by seeing some old friends at Halifax,7 and he put in a significant clause about Sabbath-breaking into his prayer. I am now by myself, they are all gone to Chapel;8 I wait until the train at 12 and join January to go to little Booth’s at the Bird Cage.9 They do not know that I am here yet. January has written to tell the old fellows to meet him there and I expect to give them no small surprise. I will leave the report until to-morrow. I received your letter10 yesterday at Huddersfield, and shall have a word to say to you about it. With my lecture11 which you will send to Halifax send me a prospectus of Queenwood College
The train will not be here yet for twenty minutes so I will give you a little translation of a song you will know; some verses are bad I know, but in the original there are some faulty I know, your musical ear is getting out of tune, however, and I don’t care for you.
Gretchen’s Song at the Spinning Wheel.12
My peace is gone
My heart is sore;
I shall find it never
And nevermore.13
Him not to have
‘Tis but a grave,
The world to me
Is misery.
Distracted grows
My poor, poor head,
My poorer thoughts
Bewildered.
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore,
I shall find it never
And nevermore.
My looks but for him
From window they roam,
I go but for him
From my home.
His noble figure,
His stately pace,
His commanding eye,
The smile on his face,
And his flowing speech
Enchantment is,
His hand’s soft pressure
And ah! his kiss!
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore,
I shall find it never
And nevermore.
My bosom heaves
Towards him, towards him,
Ah, could I but clasp
And cling to him!
And kiss him oft
As I could wish,
E’en on his kisses
I would perish!
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/191–192
LT Transcript Only
16[–18] April 1852: although begun on the 16th, the last part of the letter was written two days later, on Sunday the 18th.
Wovenden’s Manchester: a lodging house run by the Wovendens (see letter 0442).
your two memoirs ... of Bismuth’: both papers were published in the Phil. Mag. (see letters 0498, n. 6 and 0525, n. 2);
his beautifully arranged laboratory: Frankland was consulted on the design of his laboratory spaces at Owens College (Russell, Edward Frankland, pp. 149–50).
Braunschweig: or Brunswick, a city northeast of Marburg, en route to the port of Hamburg.
Brighouse: small town half way between Huddersfield and Halifax. Some of Hirst’s Yorkshire relatives lived there.
some old friends at Halifax: the visit is recounted in the next Hirst letter to Tyndall (letter 0621).
orthodox uncle … gone to Chapel: the husband of his aunt Allatt (see letter 0406 about a previous visit), who had led family prayers. The family attended ‘Chapel’, that is, they were Non-conformists, not Anglicans; they considered that rail travel on Sunday was Sabbath-breaking.
little Booth’s at the Bird Cage: Booth and his mother lived at Birdcage Cottage on Skircoat Moor (Brock and MacLeod, Hirst Journals, 21 December 1851, n. 273).
your letter: letter 0617.
my lecture: a MS copy, perhaps made for the school magazine, the Queenwood Reporter, of the lecture that Hirst had delivered, ‘On Study and Students’, on his last evening in Queenwood (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 6 April 1852). Hirst copied the lecture into his Journal (ff. 857–63) and it was later published (see letter 0624, n. 15).
Gretchen’s Song at the Spinning Wheel: ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, a song written in 1814 by Franz Schubert and based on Goethe’s Faust.
nevermore: in the version of the poem which Hirst entered in his Journal (f. 808), there is an extra verse at this point.
Please cite as “Tyndall0619,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 5 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0619