Sunday 30th Oct.
My dear Tom.
I send you the 2nd half of the £10 note1 and along with it a copy of the Leader.2 I have been much pleased by many of the articles, that on Cobden at Barnsley3 pleased me particularly. The paper certainly sustains the pitch onto which its first notes were thrown. But if I commence in this way I shall probably write you a long letter, which I by no means intend for you dont merit it – your letters are always so scanty! True they meet the material wants of the time but this is not all that I require of you – and I think I shall begin to act in the same way towards you just to see how you would relish it – You have protested before now when I did so, but the tables are turned and you are the offender. In the last page of your lecture4 first change the word ‘to’ into ‘in’ in the phrase ‘to our generation.’ Was Galvani a believer in Animal Electricity before he discovered it? and if not could it have influenced him in the way you say?
Goodbye | affectionately | John
I am now going to allow myself a glorious dinner. roast beef potatoes and cauliflower, – perhaps an apple tart afterwards, and likely enough a glass of sherry to wash it down! My diurnal dinner is a bun and a pint of stout! I get no vegetables – the odour of the latter reaches up from Anderton’s5 although it is two miles distant.
Just care as little about your Andover defeat6 as I do! if you do it wont keep you from sleeping – A thing of the kind spreads round a man’s life like a vapour. If he is a fool he lives in it now scalds the eyes of his soul by the smoke.
I have been engaged during the last week in making utter smash of an investigation of a very eminent man.7 but my task has been not all negation, for I have expanded the field of enquiry far beyond the limits which he ascribed to it – The subject the [press], is not important. It will make a capital Friday even[in]g lecture.8 Faraday was present when I made some of my experiments yesterday. He almost danced with pleasure. [Sweet] noble fellow, each day makes me like him more.
RI MS JT/1/T/932
2nd half of the £10 note: Tyndall sent the first half in letter 0813.
the Leader: see letter 0804, n. 9. The issue Tyndall included was The Leader, 29 October 1853.
Cobden at Barnsley: ‘Public Education: Mr. Cobden and Sir Robert Peel’, The Leader, 29 October 1853, which summarized a speech the politician and manufacturer Richard Cobden (1804–65) gave on education (ODNB).
your lecture: probably Hirst’s introductory lecture at Queenwood. See letters 0808 and 0810.
Anderton’s: possibly Anderton’s Hotel and Tavern, located at 164 Fleet Street, London.
your Andover defeat: reference to the lecture Hirst delivered on 26 October in Andover, which he described in his journal as ‘not at all to my satisfaction’ (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 30 October 1853).
an investigation of a very eminent man: refers to J. D. Forbes, ‘Experimental Researches regarding certain Vibrations which take place between Metallic Masses having different Temperatures’, Phil. Mag. 4:21 (1834), pp. 15–28 and 182–94. In his journal entry of 25 October Tyndall noted, ‘Forbes has found bismuth completely inert either as a rocker or bearer in Treveleyan’s experiment. I produced distinct and enduring tones with it today’ (Journal, JT/2/13b/629). On 26 October, he stated ‘Forbes’s experiments must have been coarsely made’ (Journal, JT/2/13b/630).
Friday even[in]g lecture: Tyndall would indeed make this subject the focus of a Friday evening lecture (see letter 0876, n. 14).
Please cite as “Tyndall0814,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on