Queenwood College | Augst 11th 1854
My dear John
Enclosed I return you Mrs Coxe’s letter1 which pleased me so well that I have copied a portion in my journal.2 I admire the woman’s frank unhesitating admiration as well as her unusual penetration but I am afraid on acquaintance we should find her too intellectual, a little too fond of defining attributes. I was rather startled at your attack of cholera on the Island3 and am thankful you have re covered from it. I expect your Cousin4 will have left you before now, I should have been glad too to have known more of him. We are exceedingly busy now our 110 boys having almost all arrived.5 I have already given two lectures. The introductory one I send you,6 you will understand it better than my hearers It is plain but sincere and although it did not, I believe, please some of the masters I feel convinced that I only said what required to be said. Send me it back when read and recollect that it is written for delivery and not for publication. I have received Magnus’ memoir7 and will set about translating it immediately I will have it finished as soon as my duties will permit. I am on the point of taking a house at Broughton it is close to Tomkins’8 but a little further down the valley towards Mottisfont.9 I had Simpson here one day last week he was sorry he did not see you. Every week I have cheering news from Ireland, my weekly letter10 encourages me greatly it is a solace to me throughout the week. Dr. Atkinson will soon call on you he is paying a visit to England do not tell him of my prospects but tell him I want him to come to Queenwood for a day. He wishes to earn a little money by translating chemical articles; if Francis or yourself could put a little money in his pocket in this way I know you will for he is a deserving fellow and has not much money to spare.
Wrights prospects are favourable enough now. Next month he enters his house and will have his four boys. We are going to have another junior master immediately and in October I shall remove to Broughton in all probability. I hope your health continues good and that you are progressing with your researches to your own satisfaction. As soon as I have translated Magnus’ I will commence Beetz’s11 memoir though it has not yet arrived.
With best love believe me | Yours affectionately, | T.A. Hirst.
RI MS JT/1/H/202
RI MS JT/1/HTYP/355
Mrs. Coxe’s letter: letter missing but see n. 2 for an excerpt.
copied a portion in my journal: from Hirst’s journal entry of 11 August 1854: ‘In a letter from Mrs Coxe (A. Cumming’s aunt) to Tyndall occurs the following passage worth recording. It was written shortly after he had seen her for the first time:– “I will tell you now the very words of Dr Playfair in reply to my (womanlike!) question “Is he handsome?” “Not in the ordinary sense of that term, but it is a countenance full of genius – he is simple and playful as a child – and of most fascinating manners.” One element of this “fascination”, the existence of which I admit most fully, is in the genial spirit with which you seem to raise others to your own level, instead of making them feel a painful consciousness of inferiority. Above all, one feels thoroughly to “believe in” you, and I think unless you have the conviction that one is honest and true, all the qualities in the world are worth little or nothing”’ (Hirst, ‘Journals’, 11 August 1854). Tyndall referred to Coxe’s comments about Playfair in letter 0919.
attack of cholera on the Island: on his recent trip to the Isle of Wright, Tyndall told Hirst that he found himself ‘invaded by symptoms like cholera’ (see letter 0960, n. 17).
your Cousin: Hector Tyndale.
110 boys … arrived: Hirst was referring to the beginning of classes at Queenwood College.
introductory one I send you: not identified. However, Tyndall did respond with criticism to the lecture, as noted in his journal entry of 16 August 1854 (Journal, JT/2/13b/683).
Magnus’ memoir: Tyndall must have sent Magnus’s memoir on red and black sulphur to Hirst to be translated for the Phil. Mag. (see letters 0943, n. 2 and 0948, n. 4).
Tomkins’: may refer to the established residence of the Steele Tomkins family, longtime residents of Broughton near Stockbridge, Hampshire, England (‘Anne Steele on Suffering and the Silence of God’, in C. Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele [Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2008], p. 105, n. 9).
Mottisfont: refers to Mottisfont Abbey, a historic priory that was transformed by Sir John Barker-Mill (1803–60) into an estate known for its hunting and shooting (‘The History of Mottisfont’, Mottisfont, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont/features/the-history-of-mottisfont [accessed 15 October 2016]).
from Ireland, my weekly letter: this refers to his correspondence with Anna Martin, who Hirst recently proposed to marry (see letter 0953). See also letters 0949; 0951, n. 3; and 0954.
Beetz’: Wilhelm von Beetz (1822–86), a German physicist who worked on magnetism and electrochemistry. Hirst was to translate Beetz’s paper and address from 13 June to the Berlin Academy of Science, ‘Ueber die Leitungsfähigkeit für Elektricität, welche Isolatoren durch Temperaturerhöhung annehmen’, Poggend. Annal. 92 (July 1854), pp. 452–66. It was published in English as M. W. Beetz, ‘On the power of conducting Electricity assumed by Insulators at High Temperatures’, Phil. Mag. 8:51 (September 1854), pp. 191–201.
Please cite as “Tyndall0961,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on