Queenwood 11th, May, 1853
My dear Dr Jones
When I cast my eye back upon my lifetime I sometimes feel inclined to be superstitious; for surely if a special guardian had been appointed to watch over my interests they could not have been more carefully looked to. For my own part I have resigned myself to the current of events, my chief care being to get a little work done, and now I find that the reward has come of itself. I have been often blamed by my more experienced friends for not making better use of my acquaintances to push myself on in the world but I have made little effort in this way. I have held on to my task and left events to the ruler of them. There seem to be moral affinities in the world which settle all these matters according to their own sure laws, and I have found friends rising around me, slowly but healthily, friends who like yourself have managed my affairs far better than I could have managed them myself. Had I the choice of a destiny I dont think I would make any alteration in my present one, for I do not think that the external world could do any thing more for my gratification than has been done. I dont know any recognition which the world could accord equal in my estimation to that of Faraday – Could I get science out of my head and resign myself for an instant to pure feeling I would say – God bless him. If I told the Managers of the Royal Institution how little I care about their professorship1 – how little it weighs with me at the present moment whether they appoint me or not – I am afraid they would discard me. Their hundreds can never purchase a pleasure equal to that which I have already experienced.
The paper of Du Bois2 which you have sent me is a most interesting one, I have been thinking of sending a report of the investigation to the Phil Mag and shall probably do so when I have got the lectures off my hands.
Francis informs me in a note received this morning that there is “a gentle pitch into me” by Matteucci in the Comptes Rendus.3 I dont know what the nature of the ‘pitch’ is – my molecular notions dont seem to please him. Very good, God, no doubt, will defend the right.
ever most faithfully
Yours | John Tyndall
RI JT/TYP/3/791
LT Typescript Only
Royal Institution … professorship: see letter 0755.
The paper of Du Bois: most likely Emil du Bois-Reymond’s reply to Matteucci as discussed in letters 0754 and 0756.
Comptes Rendus: see letter 0737, n. 12. Refers to C. Matteucci, ‘Sur l’influence de la chaleur, de la compression, de la form cristalline et de la composition chimique sur les phénomènes diamagnétiques’, Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences 36 (1853), pp. 740–44.
Please cite as “Tyndall0758,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on