My dear Tom.
I enclose you a letter from our good friend Stegmann.2 I hope you will feel inclined to write to him and say whether you think it well to send a copy of his work3 to the person mentioned4 – He is a man for whom I entertain a high esteem and it was with true pleasure that I sat down this evening to reply to his letter. The intelligence of Kohlrausch’s success5 was very pleasant to me. He is a lovable fellow and extremely ingenious. I have been obliged to stop at home today by a cold. I moved on Saturday from the warm laboratory into a cold moist room for the sake of securing a constant temperature but the cold and moisture made an experiment on me and sent me home at night with a shiver and headache. Sunday I remained within doors, but yesterday I planted myself in the same room and though constantly admonished by a violent headache remained there all day. I have paid for it, for today I have been able to do nothing. I am better tonight and tomorrow I will try it again. It is a flagged room with moist walls, but I hope to be able to make myself used to it.
Affectionately your | John | 6th Dec.
The following is my theory of Debus.6
He thinks it incumbent on him to say something in company and this requires a certain tact acquired by practice – he has never been used to company and he knows nothing of conversational tactics. I remember very well 8 or 10 years ago that I was capable of saying very silly things merely for the sake of saying something. I cannot imagine that Debus thinks he is speaking wisely when he indulges in what you call twaddle. He merely imagines that he is dealing in the stuff common to conversation and as this is stuff of whose chemistry he is totally ignorant he makes mistakes. If he were an observant man he would soon correct this, but he is not observant in such matters, and he cannot see the intrinsic difference between his twaddle and what he believes to be other people’s twaddle. He has given me such proofs of wisdom and penetration as forbid me to believe that he attaches any value to what he says on such occasions. He has as keen a glance into some of the deeper recesses of human nature as most men that I have met. when in good health and flushed with the spirit from on high his words are worth listening to. I have heard him say things fit to be uttered by the greatest men – but he is unequal; the victim of a deranged body and a mind so sensitive that it sometimes borders on the suspicious. His gold however is at heart – his drop is superficial.
J.T.
<Hereafter LT Transcript Only>
Dear Tom
Dont send me the money.7 I have just got a cheque for £100.8
Your affectionate | John
RI MS JT/1/T/584
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/296
6[–7] December [1853]: while the first section of this letter was written on 6 December, it is possible that the section on Debus and the final part beginning ‘Dear Tom’ were written on 7 December. Hirst wrote ‘Dec. 7’ at the top of the letter, which could indicate the day he received it.
a letter from our good friend Stegmann: most likely letter 0823.
a copy of his work: see letter 0823, n. 2. Hirst recorded receiving Stegmann’s book in his journal (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 25 December 1853), and the work is further discussed in Hirst’s response to Tyndall (see letter 0851).
the person mentioned: Bartholomew Price (see letter 0823, n. 3).
Kohlrausch’s success: a reference to Kohlrausch becoming Extraordinary Professor of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Marburg (see letter 0823, n. 5).
my theory of Debus: this is in response to Hirst’s complaints about Debus’s ‘sullen fits’ (see letter 0848).
Dont send me the money: in letter 0848, Hirst noted that he had ₤5, which Tyndall was free to borrow. Tyndall had asked Hirst to send this money in letter 0849.
cheque for £100: this was Tyndall’s half year salary from the RI which was authorized on 5 December (Minutes of the Managers’ Meeting, RI MS AD/02/B/02/A/11/38).
Please cite as “Tyndall0850,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on