Edinbro. | Sunday, March 23rd.
My dear Dr Tyndall
Sunday though it be, I must just write you one line, to thank you for the last reading you sent me,1 and to tell you honestly that it was far and away beyond my capacity!
I write this to deprecate your wrath, before my husband faces you, which he hopes very soon to do.
He, expects to be in London on Thursday first2 at Fenton’s Hotel3 – he and his colleague Mr Monteith4 – they go up to meet their English Brethren,5 before their report is printed – he will be excessively busy for they have many matters to discuss – but I am very sure he will find, or make time to see you nevertheless – I would have accompanied him, but my eldest daughter Mrs Ed. Whately6 is now with us, and will remain with me till his return, at the end of as few days as may be (not less I fear than 14). When this said report is through the press, we hope to be in London together, on our way to the Continent, but as that will not likely be before June, I greatly fear that we shall find you flown – though who knows but we may stumble on a meeting across the Channel. You and he will talk over your mutual plans. I do envy him the sight of you, and one or two other friends – little as I like London in a general way –
‘I loathe the Squares and Streets, And the faces that one meets
Hearts that have no love for me.’7
Now good bye dear Dr Tyndall, and believe me always | very much Yours | Mary Anne Coxe.
RI MS JT/1/1/275
LT Typescript Only
the last reading you sent me: letter missing; presumably Tyndall had recommended that she should read a book or article.
first: this refers to Dr Coxe’s first location in London and not to 1 April, which was a Tuesday (not Thursday).
Fenton’s Hotel: a hotel at 63 St James’s Street, London. It was a popular, respectable hotel, but not considered suitable for the gentry or aristocracy.
Mr Monteith: not identified.
their English Brethren: The Scottish Lunacy Commission which presented its Report by Her Majesty’s Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the State of Lunatic Asylums in Scotland (HMSO; Edinburgh) to both Houses of Parliament in 1857.
Mrs Ed. Whately: The Coxe’s daughter, née Teckla Coxe (b. 1830) had married the clergyman Edward W. Whately (b. 1824). He was the Minister of St Giles Church, Norwich.
I loathe … Hearts that have no love for me: Mrs Coxe was quoting from Tennyson’s Maud, or, The Madness (London: Moxon, 1855), Part 2, IV, verse 13. The poem probably interested Mrs Coxe because of her husband’s involvement in psychiatry.
Please cite as “Tyndall1205,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on