Tuesday
My dear Mrs. Pollock
I called last night just to tell you what I had been doing with myself in the Country, and to get some instructions from you in the preparation of cocoa.2 But my maid has already made a trial & succeeded so I hope to derive whatever modicum of peace cocoa is capable of conferring upon an over active brain. Indeed I must do as you say. I was quite exasperated with the state of my head on Friday. Nor is it well now. The country, it is true, broke the terrible spell of wakefulness and made me wonderfully strong in two days, but I find even now a slight return of my enemy. I will however lay siege to him & dislodge him. In fact I think the speed with which I recover from these things when I give myself rest is sometimes a snare to me; but a recovery swiftly wrought I do not find to be durable & I really will try and recover my normal self who was a very tough & elastic little fellow.
I quite agree with you regarding going out & I have absolutely declined a great many invitations of late—I think I must go to Mrs. Drummond’s3 this eveng, she is so good & kind to me. If I stay away it is the fear of my head that will keep me.
Ever yours most Sincerely | John Tyndall
I look forward to our little excursion4—I will send you Julian5 very soon.
RI MS JT/1/T/1189
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2113
[17 February 1857]: the date is given by its relation to letter 1337, dated 16 February 1857, in which Juliet Pollock requests from Tyndall to have the book Stories of Julian and his Playfellows returned. Juliet’s response to this letter is 1343, dated 25 February 1857, and a Tuesday falling between was 17 February.
cocoa: cocoa or hot chocolate was thought of as having health benefits. Known in Tyndall’s time as ‘Dutch cocoa’, chocolate was either powdered or machine-pressed then shaved to make a hot drink.
Mrs. Drummond’s: Maria Drummond.
our little excursion: in letter 1343, Juliet Pollock thanks Tyndall ‘for your escort to the glaciers’. Possibly Tyndall had gone with the Pollocks to an exhibit or lecture on glaciers, or possibly English author and mountaineer Albert Smith’s (1816–60) very popular ‘Ascent of Mont Blanc’ diorama and performance at Egyptian Hall, which ran from 1852–8. See Peter H. Hansen, ‘Albert Smith, the Alpine Club, and the Invention of Mountaineering in Mid-Victorian Britain’, Journal of British Studies 34 (1995), pp. 300–24, on pp. 304–9.
Julian: see letter 1337, n. 7.
Please cite as “Tyndall1338,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on