11th July, 1856.
My dear Tom
I saw this day Messrs Galbraith & Haughton.1 They feared that they would not be able to [do] any thing, as their best men get posts immediately in India & elsewhere, in which the possibility of advancement is before them. But two they mentioned as possible, these they promised to consult and to let me know the result of their enquiries in a week. They are themselves solid men, and will I think recommend none but a competent man for the post. If therefore Mr Edmondson is willing to wait a week he will have the benefit of their researches. I have written to him letting him know what I now tell you.
I think I told you that I had a week’s idleness with Wright at Christchurch. It was of amazing advantage to me as you will glean from the journal of one day which I will send you soon, and which is written in blank doggrel.2 This London has something vicious in its air – my stock of strength has already ebbed, and sometimes I almost feel tempted to give up science for a time and turn to the doggrel or something else. Though it is a rigmarole, still I felt a pleasure in writing it, and it showed me that with a little discipline I could throw some power into a thing of the kind. I dare say 3 months, spent at some folly of this kind would be very good for my health physical & mental.
But I talk while in a crisis. Goethe says each transition is a crisis3 & I have ever found it so. I am now floundering in the dark with my experiments; no light of hope to cheer me on, nothing but that dumb stubborn faith that there is always something to be gained by seeking. This however requires a physical substratum of sound health, and hence it is in my case at present not as strong as it might be. But away with complaining – There is still a balm in Gilead,4 there is still a physician there.
Affectionate remembrance to Anna | Ever Yours | John
RI MS JT/1/T/630
Galbraith & Haughton: It is not known what brought these Irish scientists to London. Tyndall consulted them on a replacement for Hirst’s teaching position at Queenwood. The meeting was not recorded in Tyndall’s Journal.
blank doggrel: The long piece of doggerel describing his adventures with the Wrights at Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight is found in Tyndall’s Journal for Monday 30 June 1856 (RI MS JT/2/13c/853–60); there is also a fair version in RI MS JT/2/7/355‒373.
each transition is a crisis: ‘Every transition is a crisis; and a crisis presupposes sickness’. The quotation is from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96) which Tyndall had read in its English translation by Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1824). Quotation at p. 260.
a balm in Giliad: a rare perfume mentioned in the Bible figuratively to indicate a perfect cure (Jer. 8:22).
Please cite as “Tyndall1255,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on