[Vine Cottage, Broughton] | 21st. June, 1856.
My dear Tom
My sojourn in Broughton draws near a close. This is Saturday and tomorrow morning I start for London. I have got my questions nicely together,1 so that I have nothing to do but to hand them in at our meeting on Monday. My health except a touch of indigestion which makes me feel that I have a stomach is good, and to overcome the enemy alluded to I have only to use ordinary care in my diet. I have lived almost exclusively on your substance throughout the week. Have swallowed your gooseberries, fed on your rhubarb, tasted your honey, smacked my lips on your currant jam, eat your bread and drank your beer. I have besides have had sundry chops and cutlets, a pull or two at your brandy bottle, and today when I attempt to form an estimate of the amount of my consumption I find difficulties in the way which neither Elizabeth2 nor myself can remove. Today I have been hammering in the chalk pits of the neighborhood and have learned a great deal about flint, concerning which the most vague, and I believe erroneous notions are entertained by geologists. First I spent half an hour in the pit beside the Houghton road,3 thence I directed my steps to that large cliff near Bossington4 where the defunct lime kiln stands, and then I picked and smashed for a couple of hours. I shall have something to say upon the matter at a future day – My lecture5 at the Royal Institution on Slate Cleavage is printed by this time. I will send you a copy soon. It was heard with great attention and I believe produced general – not universal – conviction. I have no doubt upon my own mind as to the subject, so that I expect those who still differ from me to come round to my way of thinking by and by. I have had two or three rides on Fanny.6 Once she and I had to contend with an angry thunder cloud which seemed bent on reaching a summit before us – On reaching the said summit Fan would halt, but I expostulated with the uninstructed beast, and told her plainly that she did not understand the subject[,] for if she did she would not make [,] as her deportment was calculated to do[,] herself and me a lightning conductor. Fox was with me for a couple of hours last night[.] the day weather was cold and we had to lay a fire in your study. Fox smoked and we talked of you. He remarked that there was a good deal of pallor about your cheeks, which I must say I have noticed myself for some time – and attributed it, without suggestion from me I protest, to your smoking too much. I do believe that damned tobacco has an evil influence on you, and I would ask you to observe its influence, and if you conscientiously believe it bad or doubt its goodness to moderate it. Take two pipes a day. That will be sufficient and wont harm, and by their superior sweetness will compensate for the reduction of your present superfluity. This is Fox’s advice, and I merely commend it to you as a thing you ought to attend to. What are you doing with yourself? I hope you have plenty of wholesome work at your elbow, and do not permit that brain of yours to break and ruin itself in bootless brooding. There is a sorrow which with all its pain has some thing purifying and ennobling in it. God forbid that I should wish to quench this high feeling in your soul, but you must not let it degenerate into dark repining. What do you purpose doing with your house. I have been told that you intend keep it in hand till September. Why not try to let it now – it surely is the best season, and to keep it in your own hands besides keeping a paying tenant out will add considerably to your expense. I think you ought to let it without delay if you have made up your mind to go to Italy. Your crops are beautiful, your potatoes, beans, peas [,] cabbage – all promise abundance. Your grass is fit for mowing. I hope you will turn your thoughts to these things among others, and give distinct orders how every thing is to be done. Nobody here appears to know distinctly what your wishes or intentions are. Debus & Tribe7 are off to the Tyrol. They have a glorious trip before them and constitute pleasant companions. Lee has offered Tribe this curacy but I believe he has not accepted it, fearing that he could not attend to it and to Queenwood. The school is quite a wilderness at present, with one single rose of Sharon8 viz. Miss Edmondson,9 blooming in its wastes. The boys are all gone & the playground is as silent as the ruins of Nineveh.10 What are your thoughts with regard to Queenwood: do you purpose striking into a new line when you return from Italy. I should like to have at least a shadow of your feelings on this subject, so that I may know how to deport myself. Edmondson, mentioned that matter to me a few days ago proposing as terms 50 pounds until December.11 He does not see the difficulty of his position, and professes to Richard Wright that although things apparently make against him, Providence has something good in store for him behind it all. My fear is that the said Providence is now very likely to demand payment of a debt which has been long due to her by the aforesaid George Edmondson. George William12 is at home; a good account I hear has been sent with him from his master – he is miserably pale – his cheeks and eyes sunken, and the whole expression of his countenance unusual. Fox I believe is plying him with beer to improve his health. I’m told he has a serious cough also. Mrs Edmondson I am informed has also forsaken hydropathy,13 her medical preceptor Dr Martin14 having proved apostate to the cold water cure.15 Of Haas I have seen very little since I came. We have had lately a specimen of the collective wisdom of parliament as regards the system of National Education in Ireland.16 Were it not that I like to reserve myself for other matters I would certainly rush into print. And still what need – those fellows are hastening the doom of the church of England in Ireland17 more effectually than the most direct attacks of their enemies could do. God will shower judgment upon them by and by and all I have to say is ‘may it come quickly’.
I have been thinking for sometime of making another onset on Lord Panmure as regards the question of physics.18 The case is so sound that I think I cannot fail: But I will wait and mature my thoughts upon the matter. Write to me Tom & tell me what you are doing – tell me how is Anna. Her note to Mrs Wright was bright & cheery I am told. Remember Tom no brooding – action of some kind becomes you now. Goodbye & God bless you.
Every Your | John
RI MS JT/1/T/628
my questions nicely together: examination questions for the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers to be sat in July 1856. An examiners’ meeting to discuss these questions was held on 23 June (RI MS JT/2/13c/850).
Elizabeth: the Hirsts’ servant. Surname not known.
The Houghton Road: Road linking Broughton to the village of Houghton on the River Test two miles to the east.
Bossington: A village at the junction of the rivers Anton and Test, one mile south-east of Houghton.
My lecture: The RI discourse of 6 June 1856, ‘Comparative View of the Cleavage of Crystals and Slate Rocks’, Roy. Inst. Proc., 2 (1854–8), pp. 295–308; Phil. Mag., 12 (1856), pp. 35–48.
Fanny: the Hirsts’ horse.
Tribe: Walter Harry Tribe (1832–1909) had been appointed to teach classics at Queenwood in July 1855. Subsequently, he took holy order in 1857 and was Rector of Stockbridge (1860–7). He served on the north-west frontier of India (1867–85) and was Archdeacon of Lahore (1885–92). He ended his days as Vicar of Awliscombe in Devon.
rose of Sharon: ‘I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys’, Song of Solomon, 2:1.
Miss Edmondson: Jane Edmondson (1823–1906), the Edmondson’s only daughter. She had been born in St Petersburg, and was to marry a Lancashire business man, David Benson (1820–92) in 1859.
the ruins of Nineveh: Nineveh, the former Assyrian city on the River Tigris whose archaeology had been investigated by Austen Henry Layard between 1847 and 1849. Tyndall had heard Colonel Henry Rawlinson’s account of the excavations in an RI lecture on 15 June 1855, Roy. Inst.Proc., 2 (1854-58), pp. 143–4.
50 pounds until December: Edmondson was offering Tyndall a fee of £50 to teach at Queenwood in place of Hirst while a new master was sought.
George William: George William Edmondson (1837–1913), the Edmondson’s only son. He became a professional photographer in Cleveland, Ohio. See letter 1086.
forsaken hydropathy: a popular Victorian water treatment.
Dr Martin: not identified.
cold water cure: a drastic form of hydrotherapy that involved wrapping a patient in ice–cold wet sheets.
National System of Education in Ireland: A system of non-denominational elementary education set up by the British government in 1831 and administered by a National Board of Education (2 Catholics, 2 Protestants and 2 Presbyterians). The government paid for building schools and teachers’ salaries. All the lessons, apart from religion and morals, were secular, but religious lessons could be denominational. In practice, as the century wore on, the schools assumed a denominational character at local level. The government provided cheap textbooks, including primers on scientific topics; these were also widely adopted in English schools and this led to protests from English publishers of school textbooks.
the doom of the church of England in Ireland: On 17 June 1856, the House of Commons discussed the national education system in Ireland. A proposal by the former Home Secretary, Spencer Horatio Walpole (1806–98) to extend grants to ‘unvested schools’, provided they removed religious instruction from the curriculum, was defeated. He argued it was unfair to exclude some schools (the ‘unvested’) from government grant when everyone, whatever their religion, paid their taxes. Although education ought to be based on religion (in a moral sense) it was not right that the protestant Church of England and Ireland schools were ineligible for grant aid because they insisted on teaching their doctrines. Despite some opposition, the proposal was passed by a majority of ten MPs. Tyndall was angry because he disliked the idea of protestant schools being forced into the same mould as Catholic schools with an entirely secular curriculum.
the question of physics: This remark may have related to the unfair weighting of marks for scientific questions in the Royal Artillery examinations; or to the plan for practical physics teaching at Woolwich mentioned in letter 1244, n.5.
Please cite as “Tyndall1245,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on