London, 8th, Aug, 1856.
My dear mother
I have been very much pressed by work for many days: now I am thankful to say a good portion of it is thrown off my shoulders and I have time to write to you. Early next week I start for the Continent and purpose spending the next six weeks among the glaciers of Switzerland and Southern Germany. This journey is very needful for me at present for my brain wants rest and my body exercise. In the healthy mountain air I shall soon get very strong and hope to return with a stock of good health sufficient to last for the next half year.
The reason I send you money so soon,1 and so little, is that I just wish you to have what will keep you going until I return. I will make the rest of my debt good. You need not answer this letter, as I shall be away before your reply could reach me. I will write to you soon after I commence my operations upon the mountains, and let you know from time to time where I am and how I am getting on. I think I used to hear a song long ago in Ireland commencing
‘Green hills of Tyrol again I see &c’2
Well in a very short time I shall be among these green hills, and snow clad mountains. A portion of the time I shall be alone, and the other portion I shall have an old companion and fellow student at my side.3 It is a pleasant thing to be able to make one’s self at home in this distant place, to speak the language of the people and feel less a stranger than a Leighlin Bridge man would in the County Kilkenny.4 I hope to be able to do some scientific work while I am away, and thus turn my journey to useful account. You are now I have no doubt fast asleep in bed, while I am here writing to you in the midst of great London. It is just on the stroke of midnight and I am getting sleepy.
Good night | Your affectionate son | John
RI MS JT/5/16/159–60
LT Transcript Only
money so soon: Tyndall had been sending occasional sums of money to his mother since his surveying days. See, for example, Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 1, letter 0006, 8 June 1840.
Green hills of Tyrol again I see: The first line of a widely-circulated ballad that was used by Gioachino Rossini in Act 3 of his opera Guglielmo Tell (William Tell) in 1829.
an old companion ... at my side: Edward Frankland.
County Kilkenny: Because of dialect variations and the possibility of Gaelic being spoken, a man from County Carlow might find difficulty in communicating with someone from Kilkenny. Tyndall had experienced this while working as a surveyor in rural Ireland. See Tyndall Correspondence, vol. 1, letter 0008, n.3 and letter 0043.
Please cite as “Tyndall1270,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on