My dear Tyndall,
I am very sorry to hear of your gout, but they say when it comes out at the toes it flies from the better parts, and that is to the good.
There is no sort of reason why unsatisfied curiosity should continue to disturb your domestic hearth; your wife will have the gout too if it goes on. "They" can't bear the strain.
The history of the whole business is this. A day or two before I spoke to you, Lockyer told me that various people had been talking about the propriety of recognising your life-long work in some way or other; that, as you would not have anything else, a dinner had been suggested, and finally asked me to inquire whether you would accept that expression of goodwill. Of course I said I would, and I asked accordingly.
After you had assented I spoke to several of our friends who were at the Athenaeum, and wrote to Lockyer. I believe a strong committee is forming, and that we shall have a scientific jubilation on a large scale; but I have purposely kept in the background, and confined myself, like Bismarck, to the business of "honest broker."
But of course nothing (beyond preliminaries) can be done till you name the day, and at this time of year it is needful to look well ahead if a big room is to be secured. So if you can possibly settle that point, pray do.
There seems to have been some oversight on my wife's part about the invitation, but she is stating her own case. We go on a visit to Mrs. Darwin to Cambridge on Saturday week, and the Saturday after that I am bound to be at Eton.
Moreover, I have sacrificed to the public Moloch so far as to promise to take the chair at a public meeting in favour of a Free Library for Marylebone on the 7th. As Wednesday's work at the Geological Society and the soiree knocked me up all yesterday, I shall be about finished I expect on the 8th. If you are going to be at Hindhead after that, and would have us for a day, it would be jolly; but I cannot be away long, as I have some work to finish before I go abroad.
I never was so uncomfortable in my life, I think, as on Wednesday when L— was speaking, just in front of me, at the University. Of course I was in entire sympathy with the tenor of his speech, but I was no less certain of the impolicy of giving a chance to such a master of polished putting-down as the Chancellor. You know Mrs. Carlyle said that Owen's sweetness reminded her of sugar of lead. Granville's was that plus butter of antimony!
Ever yours very faithfully,