4th Aug 1856
My dear Tris
I am ready to go down upon my marrow bones and implore the forgiveness of Mrs. Frankland.1 But she does not know what a man I intended to send you home to her. She does not know how I would have taken care of you, and prevented your lank carcase from been2 squashed in the crevasses of the ice[.] She does not know how I would have fed you in the choice mountain milk, and kept everything dyspeptic out of your stomach’s way – If she knew all this – if she could contemplate the prospect of your returning to her a compact mass of bone and muscle weighing at least thirteen stone, with vigour in your heart sufficient to carry you triumphantly through the mist & soot of ugly Manchester3 during the coming winter – She would I am sure forgive the effort I made to confer all these benefits upon you and her. But it was ever thus –This was always the treatment which the world’s benefactors received at the world’s hand, and I am content like them to suffer for righteousness sake – Mrs Frankland! Mrs Frankland! Your black ingratitude brings tears to my eyes: but I will pray for my enemy and say God bless her! You can have half a dozen boxes4 if you like at the R.I. I will meet you as you propose, but Chur (Coire)5 will be better than Feldkirch.6 I will write to you again upon this point – Perhaps I may take up my quarters upon the Finstermünz Glacier7 and await your arrival there. I will write to you again before I start.
Faraday’s picture8 I have received. Thank you twice over for it. The face is Faraday’s face without the soul of Faraday shining through it. Give my kind regards to Williamson and respects to his wife.9
Ever yours | John Tyndall
JRL Frankland, 246
the forgiveness of Mrs Frankland: Tyndall was responding to a missing letter from Frankland. It would appear that Sophie Frankland did not want her husband to go to Switzerland. The Franklands had had their third child, Sophie Frankland, on 3 November 1855.
been: being.
Manchester: Frankland continued to teach chemistry at Owens College, Manchester until October 1857.
half a dozen boxes: Tyndall was employing hyperbole. The lecture theatre seating at the RI did not include boxes.
Chur (Coire): see letter 1267, n.14.
Feldkirch: see letter 1267, n.10.
Finstermünz Glacier: the glaciers surrounding the Finstermünz Pass on the borders between Austria and Italy and between the towns of Landeck and Nauders. In his Journal for 10 August 1856, Tyndall stated that he had ‘Fixed to meet Frankland at Landeck in the Tyrol on the 1st September’ (RI MS JT/2/13c/865). In the event the two men met in the Finstermünz Pass on 2 September 1856 (RI MS JT/2/13c/897).
Faraday’s picture: Frankland was a keen photographer and had probably taken a photograph of Faraday which he sent to Tyndall.
Williamson and … his wife: William Crawford Williamson (1816–95; FRS 1854), medical practitioner in Manchester and, from 1851, inaugural Professor of Natural History, Anatomy and Philosophy at Owens College. His publications mainly concerned palaeontology. Tyndall had first met him in London on 23 November 1854 (RI MS JT/2/13c/699).
Please cite as “Tyndall1268,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on