Hastings Lodge—Hastings—Oct 17
My dear Sir
Thank you very much for letting me see your publication2, on the “Conformation of the Alps”—My knowledge is very slight & my opinion therefore worth little, on this subject, but it is impossible not to be struck with the lucidity of your treatment of it—& it is difficult not to fancy one knows something of geology oneself, from this remarkably clear way in which you bring out your facts, & the inferences from them, for the mind of your reader.
You do not, I suppose, intend to convey, that there has been no Plutonic action3 on our crust, or that glacial & water influence worked wholly the inequalities on the Earthy surface!
However, it is idle for me to press on this.
My main object, in writing, was to suggest that, when you want some free time, or have a spare day or two, you would come & visit us here. We should be delighted to welcome you—& renew our Pontresina acquaintance4—
That “Instructive Charm” which you mention, produced a disruption in my family—my youngest daughter5 then accepted young John Symonds6—& they are to be married on the 10th Nov[e]m[ber]7— Could you not come to us, [1 word illeg] the end of it, then—It would be great fun, & you should have 8 Bridesmaids to prance about with.
Yours ever truly | Fredrich North
By the way, you were hard on me, publishing my Age in the Times,8 the other day. Mrs Sabine9 wrote my daughter,10 that it was very delicate of you not mentioning names—but all my Constituents here recognize the old man.
RI MS JT/1/N/16
[1864]: the year is given based on references to Tyndall’s paper on the conformation of the Alps, and Tyndall giving North’s age in a letter to the Times.
your publication: see letter 2100, n. 4.
Plutonic action: see letter 2124, n. 5.
Pontresina acquaintance: Pontresina is a small mountain village in the Maloja Region in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. North was here referring to their climb together (see letter 2130). Tyndall referred to North in his letter to the Times recounting their avalanche accident (see letter 2145).
my youngest daughter: Janet Catherine North (1837–1913), sister of the traveler and botanical illustrator Marianne North (1830–90) (ODNB). Janet would later edit her sister’s autobiography, Recollections of a Happy Life: being the Autobiography of Marianne North, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1892).
John Symonds: John Addington Symonds (1840–93), an English poet, literary critic, and advocate of sexual reform (ODNB).
married on the 10th Nov[e]m[ber]: they were indeed married on 10 November 1864, in Hastings (J. C. North, Recollections of a Happy Life: being the Autobiography of Marianne North, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1892), vol. 1, p. 34).
publishing my Age in the Times: in his letter to the Times (letter 2145), Tyndall revealed that North was 64 years of age.
Mrs Sabine: Elizabeth Juliana Leeves Sabine (1807–79), British translator of Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos. She also assisted her husband, Edward Sabine, in his scientific work (M. Brück, Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites (London: Springer, 2009), pp. 101–4).
my daughter: this could be either Janet Catherine North or Marianne North.
Please cite as “Tyndall2157,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on