Tuesday evening
My dear Mrs Pollock.
I have just 20 minutes at my disposal and shall fill them by writing a random scroll to you. Last Sunday week I was with Sir Benjamin & Lady Brodie2 at Broome Park: His eyesight is much damaged3 but still not so bad as I expected—he is able to walk about the house & grounds though he cannot read or write. On my return home on Monday evening I was stunned by the intelligence that my poor friend Huxley had lost his eldest child & only boy4—a fine little fellow nearly 4 years old. I knew the hopes that were centered in that boy—I knew that both his father & mother doated on him, and was bewildered by the intelligence of their bereavement. We buried the boy on Tuesday at Finchley Huxley, his brother & myself being the only persons present. It is sad very sad.
I suppose this atrocious weather stretches to the Lakes5—Last night the air howled as if agitated by a winter storm—wild, dashing rain, which might be fine were it not accompanied by the thought of the crops that are still exposed, and the still sadder reflection as to the lives that were exposed at sea.
I have my eye upon ‘Ida’,6 certainly there are materials in these two first chapters for many interesting entanglements—I shall follow the threads with interest as you cast them, assured that you will work them all into a web of beauty at the end.
Ever yours | J. Tyndall
Prof. Forbes has written a somewhat bitter pamphlet against me7—but I do not think I shall notice it. At all events not at present. I could “flutter” him if I liked.
RI MS JT/1/T/1194
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/1908
[25 September 1860]: Noel Huxley died on Saturday 15 September 1860 and was buried on Tuesday 18 September: see L. Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (2 vols) (London: Macmillan, 1900), vol. 1, p. 213. Tyndall was the only close friend at the funeral. It seems likely that this letter is from the following Tuesday, not the day of the funeral.
Sir Benjamin & Lady Brodie: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783–1862), physiologist and surgeon, was President of the Royal Society 1858–61. He married Anne Sellon in 1816. Tyndall was a welcome visitor at their country house. They were later keen for him to take a house close to them at Box Hill: see Tyndall to Elizabeth Steuart, 20 October 1868, RI MS JT/1/TYP/10/3383.
His eyesight is much damaged: this prompted his resignation the following year as President of the Royal Society (RS Minutes of Council (1858–69) vol. 3, p. 89–90), and he was succeeded by Edward Sabine in November 1861.
my poor friend Huxley had lost his eldest child & only boy: Noel Huxley, who died of scarlet fever, age 4, see n. 1.
the Lakes: The Lake District, where the Pollocks regularly went on holiday.
‘Ida’: Juliet Pollock’s novel Ida Conway was serialized in twelve monthly instalments in Fraser’s Magazine between September 1860 and August 1861. The byline is ‘By J. M. C.’, presumably Juliet M. Creed (her maiden name). The novel is incorrectly attributed in the Welleseley Index to J. M. (John Moore) Capes. The first two chapters were published in September 1860 (Fraser’s Magazine, 62 (1860), pp. 285–98) and the final chapters in August 1861 (Fraser’s Magazine, 64 (1861), pp. 219–33).
Prof. Forbes has written a somewhat bitter pamphlet against me: see letter 1731, n. 4.
Please cite as “Tyndall1729,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on