4 Rock Houses, Tenby. | Oct. 29th.
My dear Tyndall,
I rejoice in having got you to put your head under my yoke2 – and feel ready to break into a hand gallop3 on the strength of it.
I have written to Chapman to tell him you only make an experiment on your cerebral substance – whose continuance depends on tenacity thereof.
I didn’t suspect you of being seduced by the magnitude of the emolument4 – you Cincinnatus of the laboratory5 – I only suggested that as pay sweetens labour à – fortiori6 it will sweeten what will be to you no labour.
I’m not a miserable mortal now7 – quite the contrary – I never am when I have too much to do – and my sage reflexion was not provoked by envy of the more idle. Only I do sometimes wish I could ascertain the exact juste milieu8 of work which will suit – not my head or will – them can’t have too much; but, my absurd stomach.
Towards that organ my feeling is the costermonger’s9 towards his donkey –
‘I gives him hay, I gives him corn,
As much as he can chump off,
And then – if he don’t cut along,
Vy! I cuts his precious rump off.’10
Now I give him hay and corn of the quality he likes – but he won’t always cut along in proportion – and you know I can’t ‘cut his rump off’ that would be suicidal.
Excuse this abominable nonsense – the offspring of an extra cup of tea.
and believe me | Yours very faithfully | T. H. Huxley
I shall be home on the 1st – and right glad to see you.
IC HP: 8.20
RI MS JT/1/TYP/9/2870
[1854]: while the year is not included in the date of this letter, LT pencilled ‘[1854]’ in the top of the typescript.
I rejoice … my yoke: Tyndall had agreed to start working on the ‘Science’ column for the Westminster Review in preparation for the April 1855 issue (see letter 0989, n. 2).
hand gallop: a controlled gallop (OED).
emolument: ‘dues; reward, remuneration, salary’ (OED).
Cincinnatus of the laboratory: refers to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (c.519–430 BCE), a Roman statesman and military leader known for embodying Roman virtues of manliness, civic virtue, and modesty.
à—fortiori: a Latin phrase ‘used to express a conclusion for which there is stronger evidence than for one previously accepted’ (OED).
miserable mortal now: Tyndall suggested he knew people with less work to do who are ‘miserable devils’ (see letter 0989).
juste milieu: ‘a happy medium; judicious moderation’ (OED).
costermonger’s: ‘a person who sells fruit, vegetables, fish, etc. In the street from a barrow or handcart’; ‘also used as a term of contempt or abuse’ (OED).
I gives him … rump off: this is reworked verse from the nineteenth-century song ‘Whoppin’ Ned’ (Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as114950/ [accessed 22 December 2016]).
Please cite as “Tyndall0991,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on