To Juliet Pollock   Sunday | 17th. Ap. 1859

Keswick Sunday | 17^th. Ap. 1859

My dear M^rs. Pollock

I am going to write to you as much as a bad head and half time will let me. I started from London on Friday morning—in the carriage with me were a gentleman and his grown up daughters; a Bolton manufacturer, who was a ranter and his little daughter, and a woman who kissed an old man several times with great affection before entering the carriage. The Bolton man sang hymns, and whistled hymn tunes when his voice was tired—it was very unpleasant, and I had half a mind to tell him so. Had the man sung common songs I would have listened to him with pleasure but I suppose it was the impudent selfishness which rendered the man regardless of the comfort of others, coupled with the implied assertion of a more than average sanctity that exasperated me. Had he been under a showerbath I should have pulled the string and thus incurred the charge of religious persecution.

I reached Windermere¹ at 6 oC and before dinner walked to Orrest Head² and saw Wordsworth’s “beautiful romance of Nature”³ Next morning at 9 oC. we rowed from Windermere to Ambleside⁴—the lake was smooth and sunny when we departed, but it became black and rough, and to shelter ourselves from one shower we pushed ashore and landed on a wooded knoll. Near the place stood a granite cross marking the spot where two young men had been drowned the year before within 18 feet of the shore. Remember Walter must be taught to swim. The storm howled over us spitting heavy snow flakes against us. The little lake looked quite grand, black as ink under the black scowl of heaven with the crests of its little sputtering waves rendered doubly white by contrast. The slate rocks all over the knoll were carved and sculptured by some local madman, who had a passion for chiseling—there were Wordsworth, Davy, and a hundred other names, some deeply cut, others in relief, the rock around the letters being chiseled away. We landed at Ambleside, walked thence to Rydal Mount; and looked round in Wordsworth’s nest.⁵ Thence to Grassmere, and stood for some minutes beside his grave.⁶ A clear stream rushes near it, a few trees are at hand; one black cypress gives character to the scene, and there the poet sleeps, while the plainest slab of black slate which contains only his name, marks his resting place. If I can manage it I will be buried in a country churchyard. I hate town burials.

From Grassmere we turned into what Frankland called a gully of the mountains,⁷ having first obtained a little information regarding Helvellyn.⁸ All day the snow storms assailed us at intervals, and here we were told that we should have wild work upon the mountain. We however steadily climbed the gorge, Griesdale Tarn⁹ being the landmark at which we first aimed: once we saw a cascade precipitating itself over a barrier which stretched across the gorge, and we thought the tarn must lie behind that barrier: we surmounted it, there was no tarn, but the sunniest little mountain basin imaginable: clasped all round by the hills, sheltered from the storm, and so cosy and warm that the comforts of the spot heightened our estimate of its beauty. It seemed to have been once a lake where waters had withered away, leaving its bed all smooth and grassy. And the barrier was in front of us which we surmounted in due time, and here the keen north wind met us again. Below us was the Tarn,¹⁰ the most lovely, and earnest looking piece of water imaginable: beyond it was spur from the summit of Helvellyn, the mountain top however being shut out from view. We descended to the Tarn—the hillside down which we went being covered with miniature glaciers. The snow had melted, and again coagulated so as to form little patches exactly resembling glaciers of the second order. All the higher summits were white, a definite snow line drew itself across the spur of Helvellyn, in fact a little imagination only was needed to cause us to fancy ourselves in the Alps. And indeed I know not that higher enjoyment or better feelings are excited by the loftiest of mountains than those called up by our own little hills. They are very picturesque. The slate rock of which they are in a great measure composed give a roughness to the eminences which renders them bolder than higher mountains with smoother outlines. They are knobbed and warty and very black under the black clouds. We were soon at the foot of Helvellyn, and very soon afterwards upon his sides. We reached the summit of the spur, each pursuing his own way; and our ways happened to be highly divergent. But we closed again upon the top of the spur, and went along the ridge towards the summit. The north was before us filled with black clouds; it sent its wind against us, and we concluded that it would empty its reservoir of snow upon us in due time. The flat ridge along which we marched was covered with snow, and over the precipices to our right a beautiful cornice was folded, which reminded me of cornices which I had seen elsewhere, the blackness in front augmented–dark as the gloom of the darkest night, when the light of stars is cut off by clouds. But this storm did not yet smite us, it moved right and left as if diverted by the mountain, and showered down its snow in the flanking valleys. A grander phenomenon of the kind I have never seen. The snow as, it fell from the black mass overhead, was drawn into vast vertical striae,¹¹ these grouped themselves into distinct columns which stalked like giants over the mountain heads. The blackness at length closed in upon us, and the blast augmented to a storm. It was dreadfully cold, and the pain of the face so great that I pinched mine at intervals to assure myself that it was not frostbitten. The falling snow soon dwindled to a thin hail, and we emerged in sunlight and calm at the other side of the storm. The summit was before us with the sunshine resting on it, scarcely a breath of air. In fact the character of the storms throughout the entire day was that of a series of undulations, first a rush, then a lull, the middle point between two atmospheric billows, being absolutely without motion. We enjoyed the perfect calm for some minutes upon the mountain head, and leaving Frankland and his sandwiches there, I descended to inspect Stridin Edge & the Red Tarn.¹² The place is awkward, & in foggy weather might be dangerous. Some parts are very steep, and the whole scene is very solemn. The mountain on that side is scooped into a vast crater-like hollow. Stridin Edge bends round the Red Tarn like a vast ridge of scoria,¹³ cast up from the hollow now occupied by the Tarn; and indeed the bubbled lava under one’s feet, and which composes the upper part of the mountains gives strength to the fancy. On the other side the tarn is bounded by Swirrel Edge,¹⁴ another wedgelike ridge which widens at its extremity to a bold conical mass, and forms Catchedecam.¹⁵ Beyond and around were the more distant lakes and mountains—the sea, the Isle of Man¹⁶ & Morecombe Bay.¹⁷ Black clouds again rose in the north, but this time they bore on directly towards us. There was no shelter save a mound of stones bearing the stump of a flagstaff which had once served as a signal for the ordinance surveyors: each of us danced for 10 minutes on the shale of the summit to get his feet warm and when the fronts of the storm reached us, we crunched down in shelter of the mound. a snow drift was our cushion; and there we sat and enjoyed the atmospheric war. The sun sometimes broke through the clouds, sending vast fanlike rays on all sides. Again columns of light and shade would diverge in one directions only–the columns forming a series of conical props for the sun itself which seemed planted at their place of apparent intersection. But the blackness was above all description grand, and the contrasts wonderful. The boundary of the storm was marked with perfect definition: outside of it rocks and fells, and lakes lay bathed in sunlight; in front of the gloom the hills were of a grimness which suggested a kind of supernatural horror. Frankland said that if a little nitrate of [strontium] were ignited on Scawfell Pike,¹⁸ so as to redden the clouds, we should have a fair representation of a certain locality. Here and there through a hole in the inky mass the sunbeams escaped, gilding the hills in small patches, and once they fell upon a little tarn which reflected the light upwards from amid the deepest gloom, with the effulgence of burnished silver. On hitting the knots and prominences of the mountain the wind was broken into eddies which caught the snow and twirled it round and round—mingled with this was the snow of the clouds themselves, the flakes of which as they crossed the more illuminated portions of the heavens seemed like a multitudinous flight of insects. We waited a good while, but still the storm continued—it was the most persistent we had yet encountered. It subsided a little and we commenced a descent in a direction opposite to that of our ascent. The tail of the storm contained its chief energy, it smote us with wild fury, tore up the crust that had formed upon the snow, and seizing upon the lighter and drier mass underneath beat it against us with pitiless animosity – there was a kind of unreasoning madness in this portion of the storm which suggested the fury of a woman with strong emotions and little intellect – a wild wasteful expenditure of strength, which speedily finished in complete exhaustion.

We went down to the base of the mountain, and marched along the high-way towards Keswick.¹⁹ During half the journey snow fell heavily. The hedgerows were laden, the carol and brine & furse laden, the laurel leaves especially laden, and the whole landscape was white. Towards sunset all cleared away except a storm which strode through the valleys to our right. You know the sun’s beams when he is setting are red—well these stalking snow columns became finally illuminated with this red light, and presented a most wonderful appearance. Turning towards Helvellyn the effect was lively beyond description—the mountain was quite clear of cloud, and a patch of heaven for some distance above the summit was equally free; but there was something in the nature of the light which gave the mountain a light and unsubstantial appearance, as if indeed it consisted of ether in a slightly more condensed form than that above and around it. The clouds about the west were magnificent. I cannot describe them, and the calm delight that they imparted suggested a relationship between them and the human soul.

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There is something in this universe different from the spinning of cotton, different also from the investigation of mere physical law. But I wont moralize

Good bye | Always yours | J. Tyndall

If you have the time and mind to write me a line I shall call at the post office Windermere on Friday afternoon. | I was very sorry indeed to find myself unable to accept Lady Martin’s²⁰ invitation for yesterday.²¹ It was so kindly

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given that I felt more than usual regret at being unable to accept it.

BL, Add MS 63092, ff. 16-227v

RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/1954-8