To Emil du Bois Reymond   27th June 1856

[Mudeford, Dorset] | 27^th June 1856.

My dear DuBois

I am greatly obliged to you for the portrait¹ you have sent me, and Mr Faraday also thanks you for the one you sent to him. It is a most excellent likeness, a fine, healthy, handsome countenance of which your wife² has every reason to be proud. It brings you very vividly to my remembrance, and I mean what I say, when I state that there are but few men whose images it will give me a greater pleasure to look upon.

You also sent Hirst a portrait.³ The poor fellow is now in Ireland sadly afflicted. You know he got married. Half a year ago his wife caught cold; it clung to her through the winter, but still he thought it was not serious, and that the fine weather would cause it at once to disappear. He however was obliged to have a London physician’s advice some time ago, and to poor Tom’s dismay it was discovered that his wife was far gone in a consumption. He is now with her in Ireland. The change of scene and air appears to have done her good, but the cough and expectoration continue unchanged. He has given up his post in Hampshire and purposes going with his wife to Italy during the winter. Poor fellow he is sadly smitten down.

My session has just ended and I am now giving myself a week’s rest. Faraday is very well – he purposes going over to Paris this year to thank them for the honour⁴ they have done him. Bence Jones is in capital health. I never saw him look better.

Believe me | ever yours sincerely | John Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/T/400