6j8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"... mir so oft 

 In Noth and Trilbsal beigestanden," * 



to whom, indeed, I have found the old shikaree's definition of a 

 friend, as " a man with whom you can go tiger-hunting," strictly 

 applicable, almost the earliest was John Tyndall. 



My elder by some five years, Tyndall's very marked and vigor- 

 ous personality must have long taken its final set when we fore- 

 gathered in 1851. The dyer's hand is subdued to that it works 

 in ; and, it may be, that much occupation with types of structure, 

 elsewhere, is responsible for a habit of classifying men to which I 

 was, and am, given. But I found my new friend a difficult sub- 

 ject incertcB sedis, as the naturalists say ; in other words, hard 

 to get into any of my pigeon-holes. Before one knew him well, 

 it seemed possible to give an exhaustive definition of him in a 

 string of epigrammatic antitheses, such as those in which the 

 older historians delight to sum up the character of a king or 

 leading statesman. Impulsive vehemence was associated with a 

 singular power of self-control and a deep-seated reserve, not easily 

 penetrated. Free-handed generosity lay side by side with much 

 tenacity of insistence on any right, small or great ; intense self- 

 respect and a somewhat stern independence, with a sympathetic 

 geniality of manner, especially toward children, with whom Tyn- 

 dall was always a great favorite. Flights of imaginative rhetoric, 

 which amused (and sometimes amazed) more phlegmatic people, 

 proceeded from a singularly clear and hard-headed reasoner, over- 

 scrupulous, if that may be, about keeping within the strictest lim- 

 its of logical demonstration ; and sincere to the core. A bright 

 and even playful companion, Tyndall had little of that quick 

 appreciation of the humorous side of things in general, and of 

 one's self in particular, which is as oil to the waves of life, and is 

 a chief component of the worthier kind of tact ; indeed, the best 

 reward of the utterer of a small witticism, or play upon words, in 

 his presence, was the blank, if benevolent, perplexity with which 

 he received it. And I suppose that the character-sketch would be 

 incomplete, without an explanation of its peculiarities by a refer- 

 ence to the mixture of two sets of hereditary tendencies, the one 

 eminently Hibernian, the other derived from the stock of the 

 English Bible translator and Reformer. 



To those who have been privileged to become intimate with 

 Tyndall, however, sketch and explanation will seem alike inade- 

 quate. These superficial characteristics disappeared from view, 

 as the powerful faculties and the high purposes of the mind, on 

 the surface of which they played, revealed themselves. And to 



* . . . have so often stood by me 

 In trouble and adversity. 



