GLO’STER HOTEL. WEST COWES. | LATE THE R.V.S CLUB HOUSE.
Sunday night | 18th May 1862.
My dear Mrs Pollock
On Thursday I started from London with Mrs. Spedding’s1 card in my pocket—I will go if my head and humour permit me. I think I should like it. Down Southwest from London, with the cold rain glancing from the windows. Low down the line the rails were dry—the rain had not stretched so far southward. I quitted the train midway between Southampton & Salisbury & then had to walk four miles into the heart of the country. I was quite alone and the road without a passenger. I enjoyed my walk extremely. I like being alone on a pleasant winding road, with hazel hedges on each side and the drooping beech branches with their tender green leaves overhead. Here and there the brightness was enhanced by the gloom of the yew trees which were scattered amid the green. At intervals the odour of the fullblown hawthorn was blown into my face, the larks were in the air and the bees humming amid the flowers—and I sauntered along free from care & filled with pleasant thoughts. or rather suffused by the warm material of thought which had not yet taken definite shape. I crossed a long avenue and though my road lay across it the extreme beauty of its woodwork tempted me down it. Pine, beech & hazel right and left, and the nightingales filling the air with music. I reached a place where the beeches expanded to greater magnitude and the floor beneath them was free of brushwood. The sun broke through the clouds and ruled straight bars of radiance along this floor, struck the boles, and turned them into pillars of a finer gilding than could be produced by artificers hand. Then into an avenue, dark as if it led to the Shades, composed entirely of yews, with their branches quite interlaced overhead, and here and there a sunflick escaping through it. Here I wander[e]d & paused & listened to the nightingales, and here the shades of evening found me, until some rain drops whisking against my cheeks warned me that it was time to seek a better shelter. That night I had a good rest & next morn[in]g my head was better.
Next day I did nothing but dawdle through the fields & read Carlyle’s last volume.2 Let the world say what it will regarding Carlyle I am not acquainted with his equal. Among my acquaintance in the literary world—which of course is but a small acquaintance he has nothing like an equal. —an intellect of the very strongest fibre horsed on an imagination of the most fiery quality—the one of them worthy of the other—Well that night I had a tolerably fair rest, but the head gave evidence of being still in a maimed condition this morn[in]g.
I started to Romsey3—thence walked to Southampton & took my passage to Cowes4 with a fresh breeze in my face all the way. It did me great good, & now here I am passing the last hours of the day upon the sea fringe and listening to the faint lap of its wavelets on the beach. Tomorrow I saunter here until 4. Then to Southampton & thence to London, which I hope to reach in fair working condition.
good night | Yours always John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/1137
Mrs Spedding’s: probably Jane Spedding, nee Headlam (c. 1809–1884) sister-in-law of James Spedding (1808–1881), literary editor and Francis Bacon scholar.
Carlyle’s last volume: T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich the Second, called Frederick the Great. Vol. 3 (London: Chapman and Hall, 1862). The volume was published on 3 May.
Romsey: Market town seven miles NW of Southampton.
Cowes: Seaport town on the Isle of Wight.
Please cite as “Tyndall1897,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on