Monday
My dear Mrs Pollock,
I have heard of you almost daily—but I am no less glad to hear from yourself.2 Give my love to Walter;3 and my best regards to Mrs Cameron4—I do so like her for taking such good care of you.
I joined your husband5 yesterday at 2. You would be proud to know how dismal he is without you. We drove to Carlyle’s and found the Seer6 at the top of the house with a sky-light above him—I do so like and reverence the old fellow, and we get on so well together. He did not know me at first, for it is three or four years since I have seen him. But he warmed up and harangued us cheerfully.
We have been just at the Annual Meeting of the Reader7—and all went off happily.
Yours ever | John Tyndall
De Mussy8 is a gentleman and has a warm heart,
RI MS JT/1/T/1180
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2077
[19 December 1864]: the date is given by the content of the letter. Pollock recalled being approached by Tyndall and Huxley about The Reader in late October 1864, and noted in his Remembrances that the first number under their direction appeared 10 December 1864, the paper being wound up after several months (Remembrances, vol. 2, pp. 128–31). In his journal entry for 16 December 1864, Tyndall noted that there were several Reader meetings across the previous two weeks, although there’s no clear indication that any of these was the general meeting (RI MS JT/2/13c/1270). However, given that Hirst noted in his journal entry of 25 December 1864 that Tyndall was in London between 14 and 20 December, leaving with Lubbock and Huxley on that day to hike in Derbyshire, it seems likely that this letter was written between these dates, with 19 December falling on a Monday (Brock and Macleod, Hirst Journals, p. 1711).
to hear from yourself: letter missing.
Walter: Walter Pollock, the second son of William Frederick and Juliet Pollock.
Mrs Cameron: see letter 2135, n. 6.
your husband: William Frederick Pollock.
Seer: a reference to Carlyle’s novel Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh (London: Chapman and Hall, 1831). h
Reader: see letter 2181, n. 1. See also letters 2184, 2186, 2187, 2189, 2197, 2200, 2202, and 2206.
De Mussy: Noël-Francois-Odon Guéneau de Mussy (1813–85), a French physician known for his contributions to internal medicine and his publication of Clinique médical (1874–85). Huxley recommended him to Spencer, who found that his recommendation of hot bath treatments helped with his insomnia (H. Spencer, An Autobiography, 2 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), vol. 2, p. 92).
Please cite as “Tyndall2196,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on