Royal Institution | 9th Jan. 1862.
Thanks my dear Miss Moore for your kind note—the attention of the little fellows2 quite cheered me up & I got through the ordeal quite as well as I expected.
The Yankees3 though mad are not devoid of that shrewdness which sometimes associates itself with madness—What a set of vulgarians they are—No doubt there are choice & refined spirits among them, but their position amid such awful scum cannot be enviable.
Kindest regards to your mother4 and sister, and long may you be able to write to me & cheer me as you have hitherto done.
Yours ever | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/1074
Miss Moore: Harriet Moore (1801–84) or Julia Moore (1804–1904).
the attention of the little fellows: Tyndall delivered a course of six lectures for a juvenile audience at the RI, with the last one being given on Tuesday 7 January 1862.
The Yankees: those on the Union side of the American civil war. The historical event presumed here might be the Trent affair that had threatened to precipitate a war between the United Kingdom and America, then in the throes of the civil war.
your mother: Harriet Moore, wife of surgeon and vaccine promoter James Carrick-Moore. She had two daughters then living: Harriet Jane Moore, a celebrated watercolour artist and Julia Moore.
Please cite as “Tyndall1855,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on