3 Oakly Street King’s Road | Chelsea | June seventh 1856
dear Sir. Mrs Carlyle is gone out of town until Monday so it falls to me to write to you to thank you for the tickets you sent us.2 We quite promised ourselves the pleasure of going but when it came to the time Mrs Carlyle’s cold was not well enough to make going out at night prudent; of course I cd not go alone & I shd. have regretted my disappointment still more if I had not gone & tired myself to death at the Crystal Palace Concert.3 As we hope you will not be disgusted at our apparent want of zeal but send us other opportunities of hearing you – will you kindly let it be in a forenoon if possible as we can attend far better than in the evenings – going into crowded places at night generally makes her ill.
Do you never come to Chelsea when you are taking yr walks abroad? if so I wd suggest that Mrs Carlyle & I both live in Chelsea.
I am dear Sir | yrs truly & respectfully | Geraldine E Jewsbury | To – Tyndall Esq.
RI MS JT/1/J/27
Jewsbury: Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (1812–80), a popular novelist, prolific reviewer and publisher’s reader. She was a close friend of Thomas and Jane Carlyle. The latter referred to her as ‘Miss Gooseberry’. Tyndall had first met Jewsbury on 13 February 1856. Following a dinner at the Huxleys on 31 July, Tyndall recorded in his Journal: ‘Walked all the way to Piccadilly with Miss Jewsbury: we talked of the stars and of their science, then of other matters, finally of science again, and I muddled both her and myself: went a little astray, and found a Chelsea omnibus at length, and saw her safely on board. The account she gave of Carlyle’s present selfworship gave me great concern. When she knew him first this had no existence, but now it cuts away all sympathy with anything but himself’ (RI MS JT/2/13c/824 and 863).
tickets you sent us: tickets for one of Tyndall’s RI lectures.
Crystal Palace Concert: Following the success of the Great Exhibition in 1851, Paxton’s Crystal Palace was dismantled and re-erected on grounds at Sydenham. Under the management of George Grove (1820–1900), the engineer and musician, it became a popular venue for concerts and exhibitions.
Please cite as “Tyndall1237,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on