And the early drilling in the Bible was a good thing for young Tyndall. Bible legend and allusion color the English language, and any man who does not know his Bible well, can never hope to speak or write English with grace and fluency. Tyndall always knew and acknowledged his indebtedness to his parents, and he also knew that his salvation depended upon getting away from and beyond the narrow confines of their beliefs and habits. Because a thing helps you in a certain period of your education is no reason why you should feed upon it forevermore.
This way lies arrested development.
Life, like heat, is a mode of motion, and progress consists in discarding a good thing as soon as you have found a better.
ccasionally Herbert Spencer used to spend a Sunday afternoon with the Carlyles at their modest home in Chelsea. At such times Jeannie Welsh would usually manage to pilot the conversational craft along smooth waters; but if she were not present, hot arguments would follow, and finally a point would be reached where Carlyle and Spencer would simply sit and glare at each other.
"After such scenes I always thought less of two persons, Carlyle and myself," said Spencer; "and so for many years I very cautiously avoided Cheyne Row." Then there was another man Spencer avoided, although for a different reason; this individual was John Tyndall.
On the death of Tyndall, Spencer wrote:
"There has just died the greatest teacher of modern times: a man who stimulated thought in old and young, every one he met, as no one else I ever knew did. Once we went together for a much-needed rest to the Lake District. Gossip, which has its advantages in that it can be carried on with no tax on one's intellectual powers, had no part in our conversation. The discussion of great themes began at once wherever Tyndall was.
"The atmosphere of the man was intensely stimulating: everybody seemed to become great and wise and good in his presence.
"We walked on the shores of Windermere, climbed Rydal Mount, rowed across Lake Grasmere (leaving our names on the visitors' list), and all the time we dwelt upon high Olympus and talked.