[Happily the man turned out to have enough means to pay the bulk of the costs; but that was no compensation for the mental worry and consequent ill-health entailed from November to June.
The only amusing point in the whole affair was when the plaintiff's solicitors had the face to file an affidavit before the Vice-Chancellor himself in answer to his strictures upon the case, "about as regular a proceeding," reports Mr. Burton, "as for a middy to reply upon the Post Captain on his own quarter-deck."
The move was made in the third week of December (1872) amid endless rain and mud and with workmen still in the house. It was attended by one inconvenience. He writes to Darwin on December 20, 1872:—]
I am utterly disgusted at having only just received your note of Tuesday. But the fact is, there is a certain inconvenience about having FOUR addresses as has been my case for the most part of this week, in consequence of our moving—and as I have not been to Jermyn Street before to-day, I have missed your note. I should run round to Queen Anne Street now on the chance of catching you, but I am bound here by an appointment.
[One incident of the move, however, was more agreeable. Mr. Herbert Spencer took the opportunity of sending a New Year's gift for the new house, in the shape of a handsome clock, wishing, as he said, "to express in some way more empathic than by words, my sense of the many kindnesses I have received at your hands during the twenty years of our friendship. Remembrance of the things you have done in furtherance of my aims, and of the invaluable critical aid you have given me, with so much patience and at so much cost of time, has often made me feel how much I owe you."
After a generous reference to occasions when the warmth of debate might have betrayed him into more vigorous expressions than he intended, he concludes:—
But inadequately as I may ordinarily show it, you will (knowing that I am tolerably candid) believe me when I say that there is no one whose judgment on all subjects I so much respect, or whose friendship I so highly value.
It may be remembered that the 1872 address on "Administrative Nihilism" led to a reply from the pen of Mr. Spencer, as the champion of Individualism. When my father sent him the volume in which this address was printed, he wrote back a letter (September 29, 1873) which is characterised by the same feeling. It expresses his thanks for the book, "and many more for the kind expression of feeling in the preface. If you had intended to set an example to the Philistines of the way in which controversial differences may be maintained without any decrease of sympathy, you could not have done it more perfectly."
In connection with the building of the house, Tyndall had advanced a sum of money to his friend, and with his usual generosity, not only received interest with the greatest reluctance, but would have liked to make a gift of the principal. He writes, "If I remain a bachelor I will circumvent you—if not—not. It cleaves to me like dirt—and that is why you wish to get rid of it." To this he received answer:—
February 26, 1873.