Kew Tuesday
Dear Tyndall
I was concerned to miss you from the Club2 yesterday and more so to hear that you were poorly—Will you not come here?3 I am altogether alone. Father,4 and Mother5 both away and you can have perfect quiet and such grub as I have got. What folly it is of you to work yourself into these conditions. You are not strong—and know it—and yet cannot exercise the simplest of all the virtues of self governance—taking care of yourself. It is a weak short-sighted policy. Your spirit drives you to it, true enough, and so it does other men to worse things—who yet are no worse than you in yielding to their evil spirits. All your friends remark how haggard and worried you look and you won’t have pity on them either. Take heart of grace and be reasonable. Come here and rusticate with books and papers and a room to yourself if you please.
Ever yours | J.D. Hooker
RI MS JT/1/TYP/8/2545
LT Typescript Only
[28 April 1857]: the date is given based on relation to letter 1383, and the date of the reference meeting of the Philosophical Club of the RS (see n. 2).
the Club: Philosophical Club of the RS (see letter 1299, n. 7), Hooker was in attendance at a meeting on 27 April 1857. See T. G. Bonney, Annals of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society, Written from Its Minute Books (London: Macmillan and Co., 1919), p. 48.
come here?: while Hooker lived at 55 Kew Green, here he is likely inviting Tyndall to stay at his parents’ house, the director’s residence at 49 Kew Green. See R. Desmond, Kew: The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens (London: Harvill Press/Kew, 1995), p. 416.
Father: William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865), botanist, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and father of Joseph Hooker (ODNB).
Mother: Maria Hooker (née Turner, 179 7–1872), wife of William Jackson Hooker (married in 1815) and mother of Joseph Hooker.
Please cite as “Tyndall1382,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on