To May Anne Coxe   16th Nov | before day in the morning¹

London 16^th Nov | before day in the morning.

My dear M^rs Coxe,

I returned last night from the country,² weary, draggled and grim with my speculations on the state of matters in the Crimea.³ The plaid was here before me⁴ and your note apprizing me of it had reached me in the morn[in]g. I commenced a note to you but my thoughts were too shifty or too dull to let me finish it. Well I have now commenced another, and what am I to say? I scarcely know. Your kindness is precious to me believe me but these expensive proofs of it are not needed. I want no other proof of it than your letters bring me. The first letter⁵ you ever wrote to me is fastened in my Journal and the last⁶ – the pencil one, is beside me. My constitution leads me to prefer these two simple documents to any number of plaids that you could possibly send me – Let me do justice to the plaid however – it is a magnificent one, but such things cannot add to that pure mental affinity which first prompted you to correspond with me. And then these postage stamps – I shall forward them without delay to my friend Charlie⁷ so that he may be able to write to me occasionally without invading his pocket money. I shall wear the plaid although I must invoke the aid of a northern friend to teach me how to put it on; but I trust from henceforth & forever you will permit the kindness of that large heart of yours to flow out through the nib of your pen alone.

Many thanks for Chambers’s Journal.⁸ To M^r Trevellyan is due the chief merit of that enquiry. He discovered it independently and sifted the matter to the bottom. This mode of experiment is hardly to be improved upon, and I have adopted it in lecturing upon the subject. all I have done is to rectify a few mistakes and to extend the matter a little beyond its former limits.⁹

I owe D^r. Coxe many thanks for his letter regarding Alick¹⁰ – no matter what may be his position Alick I doubt not will prove himself a superior man. I saw him several times last week: an accident placed me among a number of the teachers when his name was mentioned, and the character they one and all gave of him would have delighted you to hear. There can be no doubt that Alick’s intellectual powers are of a very high order and I firmly believe the moral foundations of his character are just those upon which such intellectual qualities ought to rest. Take him all in all body, soul, and spirit I have rarely met a boy that has pleased me more.

And now I must end by thanking you for all your goodness to me | & believe me dear M^rs. Coxe | ever most sincerely yours | John Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/T/252

RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/262