Royal Institution of Great Britain | Tuesday
My dear Mrs Pollock
I wrote to you this morning2 before quitting my perch in St. John’s Wood3—I came to Albermarle Street4 & there find your letter.5 Saturday week I will try to get down to Newport & thence to Freshwater.6 Sunday we could have a stroll, and Monday I could rush to town again. I have been living such a life of dissipation that my work has got awfully in arrear; and hence three days—Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—is all that my tyrant conscience will hear of.
Your interview with Mr Taylor7 raises a question in my mind as to the right of forming an opinion of a man from a single interview. a crumb of bad cheese, or a glass of bad wine taken overnight; or an overdose of lobster salad—any thing in short that keeps one awake distorts the finest nature, makes the most sensible man stupid, the most eloquent taciturn. Do you not feel after a good night’s rest exactly like a bird to which it is not trouble to sing—from which song rushes by a gravity as natural as that by which water falls down hill! But do you not also feel that after a bad night’s rest that thought must be pumped up to its elevation before it can fall into expression! I do. To get the law of a man's nature, the range of his mind, the tendency of his feelings you must see him more than once. In fact I fear & deprecate that women’s tendency to jump to conclusion regarding a man without any sufficient knowledge of the state of his digestion!
Yours ever | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT/1/T/1185
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2027
[11 October 1864]: the date is given based on letter content. In letter 2154, dated 12 October 1864, William Frederick Pollock noted that ‘Henry Taylor was here during my absence’, having arrived on the day that he left. The letter suggests that the meeting with Juliet Pollock occurred between 8 and 10 October. Pollock also noted that Tyndall was busy and could not visit, indicating that he had knowledge of the content of this letter. Thus, this letter is best dated as 11 October 1864, which indeed fell on a Tuesday.
wrote to you this morning: letter missing.
St. John’s Wood: a district of northwest London, where since June 1861 Tyndall lived with Hirst at 14 Waverly Place. He would later move out on 25 January 1868 to occupy Faraday’s rooms at the RI following his death.
Albermarle Street: the RI is located at 21 Albemarle Street, London.
your letter: letter missing.
Newport & thence to Freshwater: towns on the Isle of Wight.
Mr Taylor: Henry Taylor (1800–86), a British poet and public servant (ODNB). A report of this meeting is recorded in William Frederick Pollock’s letter (see n. 1), which suggests that the meeting between Juliet Pollock and Taylor likely occurred between 8 and 10 October 1864.
Please cite as “Tyndall2149,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on