1873 LETTER TO TYNDALL 117 



Tyndall, who had not attended the 1873 meeting 

 of the British Association, had heard that some local 

 opposition had been offered to hig election as President 

 for the Belfast meeting in 1874, and had written : 



I wish to heaven you had not persuaded me to accept 

 that Belfast duty. They do not want me. . . . But 

 Spottiswoode assures me that no individual offered the 

 slightest support to the two unscientific persons who 

 showed opposition. 



The following was written in reply : 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, 

 Sept. 25, 1873. 



MY DEAR TYNDALL I am sure you are mistaken about 



the Belfast people. That blundering idiot of wanted 



to make himself important and get up a sort of " Home 

 Rule " agitation in the Association, but nobody backed him 

 and he collapsed. I am at your disposition for whatever 

 you want me to do, as you know, and I am sure Hooker 

 is of the same mind. We shall not be ashamed when we 

 meet our enemies in the gate. 



The grace of God cannot entirely have deserted you 

 since you are aware of the temperature of that ferocious 

 epistle. Reeks, 1 whom I saw yesterday, was luxuriating 

 in it, and said (confound his impudence) that it was quite 

 my style. I forgot to tell him, by the bye, that I had 

 resigned in your favour ever since the famous letter to 

 Carpenter. Well, so long as you are better after it there 

 is no great harm done. 



Somebody has sent me the two numbers of Scribner 

 with Blauvelt's articles on " Modern Skepticism." They 

 seem to be very well done, and he has a better apprecia- 

 tion of the toughness of the job before him than any of 



1 The late Trenham Reeks, Registrar of the School of Mines, 

 aud Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology. 



