My Dear Tom.
Two letters have come to me from the Cathedral Hotel,2 one from a Mr Dressner3 and the other from myself4 which arrived too late to catch you. Mr Dressner merely speaks of some things which he entrusted to your care and gives you advise as to the manner of stowing them so as to avoid the custom house harpies – saying at the same time that he did not know until informed of it that such matters were so sharply looked after. My own letter (which was the best of the two!) ran as follows.
My Dear Tom. My conscience pricks me for not having written yesterday5 as this may arrive too late – not that I have any thing particular, or unparticular to say, but have merely a dumb unaccountable feeling that I ought to have written to you. Well boy may the gods beckon you onwards, and may you ever feel that ‘your valours are your best gods’.6
Say to Wrightson that it was my intention to have written to him at length – say that I have now no time as the postman is pulling on his leggings to be off. Greet him from me kindly – greet Noll, greet Karl,7 greet Schell, greet Prof. Stegmann – a man who of my German acquaintance ranks among those whom I esteem the most, greet the ladies great and small, blue eyes and brown – or better still engage Wrightson to do it, instead of you; from the specimens he has given me in this line I know he will do justice to my feelings towards them.8 – I am speculating on a trip to Jersey; would that you were at my side, I would roar like the ocean for joy – I hope a long life of happiness stretches before Knoblauch and his bride. One last wish I waft to thee boy and that is that when you and I jostle at a future day – as jostle we will please the gods – the shock may be ‘the shock of men!’9
John Tyndall.
Thus did I discharge myself and got rid of you to the infinite relief of my conscience – I received your letter to January – I don’t know whether I should subscribe to every sentence in it, but I know that I do not like10 a whit the less for this – It is a brave good letter and full of truth,11 and as I read it I saw exactly the ground from which you had sketched – indeed the whole matter was as clear to me as the arrangement of the keys and the sound of the notes of your piano are to the ear of Schell. The more I reflect on this matter the more extraordinary it appears to me – I mean the extreme similarity of our ways of looking at things – this is a great mischief, for hang it we can get nothing out of each other – you are not able to tell me any thing that I don’t know already and I am in the same unlucky predicament myself with regard to you – Well, well, I suppose we must tolerate each other notwithstanding; perhaps, the secret of the matter is that we are both taught by the same master,12 and that the voices which attend thee make themselves audible to me also.
I have been reading a translation of Plato’s Dialogues lately. I like that old fellow Socrates almost as well as Jesus – his apology13 is the best thing I ever read in my life, although he has said nothing [in] it that you could not conceive it possible for any man who had made up his mind to live and die for the truth to say. It is so solid! the words lie as thinly over the great thoughts as layers of moss upon a rock – This is what delights me, there is such a terrible reality under every sentence – Who can calculate a man’s value? – [there] this ugly old Athenian with the twilight of 2000 years between him and me is as fresh and vivid before me as if I had heard his tongue with my bodily ears in the halls of his native city – wonderful are the links wherewith the human family are bound – Socrates, though not so impetuous, is as free in his speech as Thomas Carlyle – he does not shrink from telling those in whose hands his life lies that their practices are scandalous – he treats the idea of death as a school boy would his teetum-totum,14 plays with it, looks at it, tosses it from hand to hand and evidently cares nothing at all about it – Surely he hath attained that sublime elevation of which you spoke to January when he could afford to despise pain. When we hear the small-[beer] philosophists15 of the present day talk about ‘progress’ and imagine them set beside this mighty boulder stone of antiquity; how ridiculous their creed appears – or rather how ridiculous that such pismires16 should undertake to be the preachers of such a creed – Where shall we look for such men as Socrates, Plato, Cato, Plutarch and others of the same stamp at present – one man alone in England I find fit at all to stand beside them and that is our friend Tom Carlyle.
Our half year is drawing to a close here; we shall break up next week – a day or two ago I received an official intimation from the secretary of the Royal Society of my being elected as fellow.17 accompanying the letter was a card of invitation to the President’s Soiree at Connaught place on Saturday next. I shall try and get up as opportunities of the kind may not often occur.18
Well I have managed to get out a prospectus19 which pleases me at last. it is a good practical document and I would send you one did not the postage prevent me – I will send January20 half a dozen. Our prospects for the coming half year are better than they have been for years – I have no doubt whatever that with a little care the place can be made to prosper.
I purchase the Leader every week and intend when I have time – perhaps in the vacation to write a reply to those articles of Lewes on the Positive philosophy21 – At the commencement he excited a hope in me which his subsequent articles have by no means fulfilled – In many cases I think his position is untenable and if I have time I will tell him why I think so, meanwhile the paper appears to be making way and its talent if any thing is [in] the increase –
I will say no more at present. I dare say you have found it difficult to make that well-fed body of yours bend to its work once more. – You cannot imagine what a miserable varlet I should be if I did not work – I deserve no credit for working for without it I should assuredly die of ‘blue devils’!22
your affectionate | John
RI MS JT/1/T/1011
[late May – early June 1852]: this letter was written over an extended period, beginning 29 or 30 May, and finished c. 8 June; in addition, an earlier (missing) letter was copied in (n. 4 below). Letter 0631 begins as a covering note to accompany letters for Hirst which were forwarded to Queenwood, after missing Hirst at his London hotel. Hirst left London for Marburg on the morning of 27 May (‘Journals’, 27 May 1852). Even if the letters arrived a few hours after Hirst left and were forwarded immediately to Queenwood they could not have arrived before 28 May. Tyndall probably began this letter on 29 or 30 May, with 30 May being likely because it was a Sunday, when he often set aside time to write. The remainder of the letter is later; it was not finished until a few days after Tyndall had received Weld’s letter (0630) of 4 June (see n. 17). Moreover, Hirst had not received it on 13 June when he wrote letter 0632, so it was not posted before 8 June (see Note to Readers on post times).
the Cathedral Hotel: not identified. The hotel at which Hirst stayed in London on his way from Queenwood to Marburg. Although the name suggests it was near St Paul’s Cathedral, Hirst mentioned he was near the ‘new’ Houses of Parliament, so perhaps it was near Westminster Abbey (‘Journals’, 23–4 May).
Mr Dressner: not identified.
the other from myself: original missing, but copied out in the following two paragraphs, presumably to transfer it to light-weight paper for foreign posting.
not having written yesterday: if Tyndall had posted his letter on 25 May it would have reached London on 26 May, before Hirst left. Therefore he is writing either late on 25 May or early on 26 May for his letter did not reach Hirst’s hotel until after he had left on the morning of 27 May.
‘your valours are your best gods’: ‘His hidden meaning lies in our endeavours / Our valours are our best gods’, Emerson, discussing the nature of prayer, in ‘Self-Reliance’ (first published in Essays (cited letter 0393, n. 3), pp. 35–73, on p. 64). Emerson was quoting from a seventeenth century play about Boadicea, by John Fletcher.
Karl: probably a fellow student (see letter 0565, n. 16).
engage Wrightson … feelings towards them: one of many references to Wrightson’s sociable ways with ladies.
‘the shock of men!’: ‘But ‘midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, / To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, / And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, / With none who bless us, none whom we can bless’ (Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto II (1812), Stanza 26). Tyndall implies that he and Hirst will become equals, rather than mentor and student.
like: Tyndall probably meant to write ‘like you’.
brave letter … truth: letter missing. Tyndall’s comments imply it included criticisms. Hints of what Hirst might have written can be drawn from the reflections on January Searle which he wrote in his Journal (26 May) while in London. Presumably he sent his letter to Tyndall to check before posting it on to January.
the same master: a Carlylean allusion, more likely to ‘Nature’, than to Carlyle himself.
his apology: Plato’s version of a speech given by Socrates in 399 BC, in which he defended himself against charges of impiety and ‘corrupting the young’.
teetum-totum: probably a teetotum, a form of spinning top, known from Roman times, often used for gambling. It has a polygonal body, with a letter or number inscribed on each side (OED).
small-beer philosophists: small beer was a widely drunk, low-alcohol or weak beer; a philosophist was ‘an adherent or practitioner of what is held to be erroneous speculation or philosophy’ (OED).
pismires: insignificant persons, literally, ants (OED).
a day or two ago I received official intimation … the Royal Society: letter 0630. There is a studied casualness in this allusion which suggests that Tyndall had not written to Hirst as quickly as Hirst would have wanted to hear of Tyndall’s honour. Tyndall probably received the letter on 5 June, and we suggest, did not write to Hirst until at least 3 days later, giving a date of 8 or 9 June for finishing the letter.
card of invitation ... may not often occur: the soirée referred to was on 12 June. Tyndall did not attend due to illness (letter 0633).
prospectus: the prospectus for Queenwood (see letters 0619 and 0624).
January: that is, Phillips, was deeply involved in education in Yorkshire and therefore could direct potential pupils to Queenwood.
those articles of Lewes on the Positive philosophy: George Henry Lewes (co-editor of the Leader) wrote a series of 18 articles espousing the philosophy of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, published from May to August 1852. The tenth (‘On the Influence and Methods of Physics’) of 5 June 1852, appeared shortly before this letter was completed. Tyndall’s planned reply did not eventuate. The articles were later integrated into Lewes’s Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853).
‘blue devils’: usually ‘the blue devils’, feelings of depression or melancholy; low spirits, despondency (OED).
Please cite as “Tyndall0631,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 4 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0631