Greta Bank | September 24.
My dear Mr Tyndall,
I am amazed at your retort2 courteous and admit that your rebuke may be just but I grieve to say that Walter’s3 letters continue to be desponding.
Our baby4 is recovering and we are able to enjoy the agreeable society of the family here at present without a drawback.
We have had such a variety of weather as exhibits the mountains under all their different aspects, and yesterday they were very grand under a storm clearing off. I wish I had a portion of your climbing powers but my ambition is greater than my strength and though for a woman I can accomplish a fair extent of walking I cannot achieve any thing brilliant in that way.
The comet5 has during the last two nights been concealed in stormy skies but I have some hopes of seeing him to night and I think I shall die the happier for having seen a party of that description superior to the famous one of 18116 hitherto held over me triumphantly by my elders. Is that a sentiment worthy of a philosopher’s friend?
I suppose you and Anderson are laboring together now at the R.I. in the accustomed manner, and that you have seen Mr Faraday and our friends the Moores.7
If you are so kind as to think of writing to me again my present address and during the next week is Greta Bank | Keswick, Cumberland
Fred’s8 best regards | Yours ever most truly | Juliet Pollock.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2050
LT Typescript Only
[1858]: the year is given by the reference to Donati’s comet. See n. 5.
your retort: letter missing.
Walter’s letters continue to be desponding: Walter Pollock, second son of Juliet and William Frederick Pollock, was in school in Brighton (see letter 1545).
Our baby: Maurice Pollock.
comet: Donati’s comet, a celestial spectacle of the nineteenth century, was first observed by Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Donati (1826–73) on 2 June 1858. The comet was visible to observers in both hemispheres between September 1858 and March 1859. See A. Gasperini, D. Galli, and L. Nenzi, ‘The worldwide impact of Donati’s comet on art and society in the mid-19th century’, in D. Valls-Gabaud and A. Boksenberg (eds), The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture: Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 260 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 340–5. The painting of a coastal scene in southeastern England by William Dyce (1806–64)—Pegwell Bay, Kent—a Recollection of October 5th 1858—depicts the comet in daytime above people exploring the beach at low tide.
famous one of 1811: the Great Comet of 1811, visible for 260 days, was discovered by French astronomers Honoré Flaugergues (1755–1835) on 25 March 1811 and Jean-Louis Pons (1761–1831) on 11 April 1858. This comet held the record for longest period of visibility until the discovery of Hale-Bopp in 1997.
the Moores: James and Harriet Moore and their family Harriet Jane, Julia, John, and Graham.
Fred’s: William Frederick Pollock.
Please cite as “Tyndall1560,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on