1 Brougham Place | Wellington Road | Dublin | Augst 6th /60
My dear John.
I arrived here very early this morning after a very pleasant journey which I broke into two parts at Bangor where I descended for a day’s exercise in the neighbourhood of the Menai Straits. Before leaving town I dispatched to your address the Saturday review containing two excellently written articles. They entertained me greatly on my journey. The first1 is full of original and deep thought. On a first perusal it is the peculiarity of the speculations which most strikes the reader but the concluding portion will rank amongst the boldest of well founded speculations of the day. You have directed your mental telescope furnished with intellectual lenses of high power under good arrangement to the nebulae of metaphysics and thus given definition and shape to what was before mere nebulosity. Your article must I think command attention from the best thinkers and help to give you the place amongst them to which you are entitled. To me such thoughtful piercing glances into the depths of philosophy possess a peculiar fascination and I muttered audibly Bravo John! as I read. The article on Faraday2 pleased me almost as much, it will please Faraday too I am sure. For certainly it has never before fallen to his lot to be so thoroughly and nobly appreciated. Again I cried Bravo John, and thrust the Saturday Review into my pocket to be carefully preserved amongst my other valuables.
The distribution of prizes at University College passed off well on Friday last. In reply to the answer I sent to Key3 (to the effect that an offer must proceed from the council) he informed me that the portion of work which I proposed to resign amounted to one fourth of the whole and that the salary if diminished accordingly would amount to £180 he was however prepared to recommend 180 guineas. I replied briefly saying that if 180 guineas were offered to me I should accept the appointment. Nothing more passed between us up to the day of the distribution when without any apparent reason they handed a scrap of paper to me on which were written these words
“I intend to recommend to the council a salary of £200, instead of the amount I last stated”
I thanked him and replied that after the numerous proofs he had given me of his willingness to meet my needs and consult my wishes I was quite prepared to leave the matter of salary entirely in his own hands.
I am expecting daily to hear of the final settlement of the question.4
Having only just arrived I cannot of course say when I shall reach you. You may rest assured however that I shall not delay unnecessarily what I look forward to with so much pleasure. I hope you are proceeding satisfactorily with what you wish to do and are daily gaining strength to be afterwards expended upon work into which you will throw your whole force.
Wishing you every success and blessing I remain
Dear John | Yours as ever | T. A. Hirst
RI MS JT/1/H/245
The first: ‘Physics and Metaphysics’, Saturday Review, 10: 249 (4 August 1860), pp. 140–1.
The article on Faraday: ‘Faraday’s Juvenile Lectures’, Saturday Review, 10: 249 (4 August 1860), pp. 149–50.
Key: Thomas Hewitt Key (1799–1875), a classicist and mathematician, was headmaster of University College School from 1832–75. Hirst taught mathematics at the school from 1860–4.
final settlement of the question: Hirst’s journal also notes that Key initially proposed a salary of 180 guineas and then, without any particular comment from Hirst, recommended 200 guineas to the Council (Hirst Journal, RI MS JT/2/32c/1547), though Hirst does not note if that was the final figure.
Please cite as “Tyndall1725,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on