CHAPTEE IV 

 1873 



THE year opens with a letter to Tyndall, then on a 

 lecturing tour in America : 



4 MARLBOROTJGH PLACE, ABBEY ROAD, N.W., 

 January 1, 1872 [1873]. 



MY DEAR TYNDALL I cannot let this day go by 

 without wishing you a happy New Year, and lamenting 

 your absence from our customary dinner. But Hirst and 

 Spencer and Michael Foster are coming, and they shall 

 drink your health in champagne while I do the like in 

 cold water, making up by the strength of my good wishes 

 for the weakness of the beverage. 



You see I write from the new house. Getting into it 

 was an awful job, made worse than needful by the 

 infamous weather we have had for weeks and months, 

 and by the stupid delays of the workmen, whom we had 

 fairly to shove out at last as we came in. We are 

 settling down by degrees, and shall be very comfortable 

 by and by, though I do not suppose that we shall be able 

 to use the drawing-room for two or three months to 

 come. I am very glad to have made the change, but 

 there is a drawback to everything in " this here wale," as 

 Mrs. Gamp says, and my present thorn in the flesh is a 

 neighbour, who says I have injured him by certain 

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