My dear Hal,
By Jove I am very glad. A few days ago I was speculating on the long phiz2 you were likely to draw, if it3 proved a boy. But you are as nicely balanced as John Gilpin4 when placed in equilibrio by his wine bottles. ’Pon my soul5 (—I don’t often swear thus) the gods are very kind to you! Things could not have happened more nicely if you yourself had been the patentee of the molecular architecture. I wonder when an equal blessedness is likely to fall upon me. You ought to feel thankful to heaven and especially thankful to your wife6 for managing these things in so excellent a manner. I shall be rejoiced to learn that the young life thus thrown upon the seedfield of time develops itself to its father's satisfaction, and that the noble matronly stem from which it sprung has become thoroughly reinvigorated.
Always yours | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/9/2887
IC HP 8:33
Typed Transcript Only
[17 February 1858]: the date is given by reference to the birth of Huxley’s daughter Jessie on 16 February 1858.
phiz: a face or facial expression, slang derived from the word ‘physiognomy’ (OED).
it: the birth of Huxley’s daughter Jessie on 16 February 1858 (d. 1927) (ODNB).
John Gilpin: a reference to the comedic poem ‘The Diverting History of John Gilpin’ (1782) by William Cowper (1731–1800). Tyndall means that Huxley now had one son (Noel, 1856–60) and one daughter.
’Pon my soul: an English expression meaning ‘I swear’, which appears in Shakespeare’s Othello (1622) and several times in C. Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (London: Chapman & Hall, 1841).
your wife: Henrietta Huxley.
Please cite as “Tyndall1491,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on