Monday morning
Cheer up dear Tom. Things are only transiently black. You will learn to battle with the clouds2 by and by. The enclosed3 will perhaps amuse you. I have added a note since I read your letter4 entreating that young lady5 to meddle no further in school matters. Remember a portion of your vocation is to battle with insincerity and shallowness. I had a note from Forbes6 this morning requesting [me] for a statement of my results when they differ from his. He says he was never fully satisfied with his own paper.7 His tone of writing is very kindly.
Affectionately | John.
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/317–319
LT Typescript Only
[27 February 1854]: Tyndall recorded in his journal that he received Hirst’s letter (presumably letter 0889) on 27 February, which was a Monday (Journal, 27 February, JT/2/13b/663–4).
learn to battle with the clouds: in letter 0889 Hirst referred to ‘a cloud over Queenwood’.
The enclosed: presumably letter 0890, which included a postscript that suggested that the management of Queenwood was a sphere that ‘does not belong to them’, meaning the ‘ladies’ of Queenwood. It is, however, possible that the ‘note’ added here was the draft letter to Jane Edmondson that Tyndall never sent (see letter 0893, n. 4).
your letter: see letter 0889. The added note can be found after Tyndall’s closing salutation in letter 0890.
that young lady: Jane Edmondson.
a note from Forbes: see letter 0888.
his own paper: Forbes’s paper on the vibration of heated metals (see letter 0814, n. 7); Tyndall published a paper in January 1854 challenging a number of Forbes’s claims (see letter 0876, n. 14).
Please cite as “Tyndall0891,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on