Sunday night
My dear Miss Coxe,
How are you this cold weather? I am here in a still room of the Athenaeum,3 dimly lighted with no companion, & no sound save the ticking of the clock.
‘How shall I pass the next 10 minutes?’ thought I—Your idea rose before me, & then & there I exclaimed ‘why in writing to Mrs. Coxe to be sure!’
So here I am committed to my task but with nothing to say.
How did you get home from London?
I broke my back at Cambridge & went to the Isle of Wight to recover.4 I was almost well when, like a fool, I went to bathe amid huge rolling waves: one of them broke upon me as I was returning, tossed me about like a feather & broke my back a second time—I was quite doubled up for several days, but am now all right. Alick5 called but I did not see him, & I do not know where the boy now is.
I am working hard at a big book which I hope to get out early next year.6
I am told the Duke7 has been “pulling me up”—those are the words in the ‘Edinburgh.’—Well I have read his article8 which is extremely clever; but he touches a point which his son’s son, with all the accumulated advantages of the next two generations will fail to solve. I have thought of it more or less for years, and sometimes for whole weeks in succession, but always to retire baffled;—to feel, in fact, that man lacks the organ which can grasp this great question.
Now don’t cry ‘botheration!’ & I will pester you with this subject no further.
I thought of you when at Cambridge. You said when I last met you that I should never ‘lose heart.’ But as I sat ten minutes before my lecture with my aching back, and my thoughts all muddled by the accident I felt that you had been mistaken, & that whatever heart I once possessed had become mere gizzard! I was a bird with a very white feather.9
Now the ten minutes are up—Goodbye. K[ind]. R[egards]. to the Commissioner.10
Ever & always yours | J. Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/253
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/281
Mary Anne Coxe: Mary Anne Coxe (née Cumming, 1811–c. 1875), a daughter of Lesley Baillie and Robert Cumming of Logie, Co Moray. Her mother was the subject of Robert Burns’s ‘Bonnie Lesley’, as noted in the novelist Charles Gibbon’s dedication of In Honour Bound, vol. 1 (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1874) to Lady Coxe. In 1841 she married the Scottish physician James Coxe (1811–78), and became Lady Coxe after he was knighted in 1863. Tyndall claimed to have toasted her on the summit of Mont Blanc in 1857. Coxe sought advice from Tyndall about the future educational and employment opportunities for her nephew Alexander (Alick) Cumming.
[30 November 1862]: the date is written on the letter, but in a different hand than the author’s. This letter clearly prompts letter 1947 from Mary Anne Coxe. It is likely she received this letter on or around 25 November, and replied immediately. It is possible that she showed the letter to the Duke of Argyll the following Sunday, who wrote on the top right of the first page the following: ‘Prof: Tyndall—on my article | on the | “Supernatural” | Nov: 30/62’. Tyndall’s mention of his trip to Cambridge where he injured his back also confirms 1862.
the Athenaeum: see letter 1907, n. 7.
I broke my back at Cambridge & went to the Isle of Wight to recover: see letter 1933, n. 1.
Alick: Alexander (Alick/Alix) Cumming (d. 1865), nephew of Mary Anne and James Coxe. Alick was one of Tyndall’s students at Queenwood College, who later trained at the East India Company Military Seminary in Addiscombe, Surrey (1855–7). Tyndall took a great interest in Alick’s education and was keen for him to continue his studies in Germany. Tyndall referred to him several times in his journal during the 1850s (RI MS JT/2/13c/725, 746, 751, 808).
a big book which I hope to get out early next year: Heat as a Mode of Motion.
the Duke: George Douglas Campbell (1823–1900), Duke of Argyll, a Scottish politician and scientist. In the peerage of Scotland he was eighth Duke of Argyll (and first in the peerage of the United Kingdom). Campbell served over ten years as Lord Privy Seal and from December 1868 to February 1874 was Secretary of State for India. He was a proponent of educational reform and led the Argyll Commission (1865–8) into the Scottish school system. As an amateur scientist he wrote on ornithology, geology, and evolution, and defended the special creation of humans apart from other species (ODNB).
been “pulling me up”—those are the words in the ‘Edinburgh.’—Well I have read his article: [G. Campbell], ‘The Supernatural’, Edinburgh Review, 116 (1862), pp. 378–97. In this anonymous article, Campbell reviewed several books about miracles as well as Charles Darwin’s 1862 book on orchids.
a bird with a very white feather: a phrase used in cockfighting indicating that a bird was of inferior breeding.
the Commissioner: Mary Anne’s husband James Coxe (1811–78), a Scottish
physician who studied at Göttingen, Heidelberg, Paris, and received his MD in 1835 from the
University of Edinburgh, where he then practiced medicine. In 1841 he married Mary Anne
Cumming. In 1855 he was appointed to the Royal Commission that examined the conditions of the
lunatic asylums in Scotland and, following the 1857 act that established the General Board of
Lunacy for Scotland, served as one of its two paid commissioners. He was knighted in 1863 for
his services. (‘Sir James Coxe’, Illustrated London News, 18 May 1878, p. 471.)
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Please cite as “Tyndall1944,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on