The Athenaeum1 | 24th Nov 1862
My dear Lubbock
I saw your name on our Friday Evening programme a day or two ago and I was glad to see it there;2 for I know that once pledged to us you will manfully redeem the pledge. Now I hope you will remember that if I can do any thing to help you, or to furnish in any way a little spice for your wholesome fare in the way of experimental illustration you will do me a favour in letting me know. I can guarantee almost any thing in the way of magnified projection on a screen. But you will probably scorn all such factitious aids and throw yourself back on the pure merits of your subject: this is the noblest way; though it is not at all times that the heroic frame of mind necessary to the task is attainable.
Will you give my love to little Amy & Johnny & Conny3—I hardly know which of them I like best. I think however Johnny has made the deepest impression on me. I often think of the boy. All three were at my knees on the evening of my arrival at Lamas;4 we had been romping together, and Amy & Conny had entangled themselves in my legs and arms. But Johnny wanted more play & I caught at intervals the expression of entreaty in his eye—He was silent at intervals, but he never lost that expression—never once allowed his eyes to sink from mine—I was very much struck with him; though I cannot describe the little man’s influence. Children however had always a great & I think good influence upon me. Without them I should be a cold stern hardhearted fellow, but they fuse the hardness & banish the chill. I am a great old fool of course for allowing myself thus to gossip, but here I am alone, with one dim lamp making the darkness of this room visible, and no sound save the intermittent ticking of the clock—here I am I say wanting 20 minutes occupation and did I not employ them in harmless twaddle I should probably employ them in something worse—.
—Kind regards to Mrs. Lubbock5—
Busk is here glorying in his bachelorhood—goodbye. | always yours | J. Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/1038
The Athenaeum: see letter 1907, n. 7.
our Friday Evening programme: Lubbock delivered a Friday Evening Discourse on 27 February 1863 at the RI ‘On the Ancient Swiss Lake-Habitations of Switzerland’ (Roy. Inst. Proc., 4 (1862–6), pp. 29–40).
Amy & Johnny & Conny: Amy Harriet Lubbock (1857–1929), John Birkbeck Lubbock (1858–1929), and Constance Mary Lubbock (1860–92); three of Lubbock’s four children at this time (another son was Norman Lubbock (1861–1926). Two more children would come later, Gertrude Lubbock (1863–1934) and Rolfe Arthur Lubbock (1865–1909) (R. Birkbeck, Notes on the History and Genealogy of the Family of Lubbock (London: Mitchell and Hughes, 1891), pp. 36–7).
Lamas: the Lubbocks’ house at Chislehurst in southeast London; in 1865 they would take up residence at High Elms (Lubbock’s parents’ home, very near Charles Darwin’s Down House).
Mrs. Lubbock: Ellen Frances Lubbock (née Horden). (R. Birkbeck, Notes on the History and Genealogy of the Family of Lubbock).
Please cite as “Tyndall1945,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on