He was, however, soon to be engrossed in an "affair" of another kind;
one which has proved very detrimental to the progress of many men of
science, but which, in Lyell's case, had the happiest results, and
smoothed rather than it impeded his path to fame; for in the summer--on
July 12th--he ceased to be a bachelor. The marriage was celebrated at
Bonn, where Miss Horner's family were still resident. A Lutheran
clergyman seems to have officiated, and the ceremony was a very quiet
one; the distance from home preventing the attendance of English friends
or even of relations of the bridegroom.
The newly-married couple departed from Bonn up the Rhine, and travelled
by successive stages to Heidelberg, but they were not forgetful of
geology, even in the first week of the honeymoon, for they visited as
they journeyed more than one interesting section on the western edge of
the Odenwald. Then they made excursions to Carlsruhe and Baden-Baden,
and ultimately travelled from Freiburg to Schaffhausen through the
romantic defiles of the Höllenthal, and across the corner of the Black
Forest. A journal was now needless, and probably the newly-married
couple were too much engrossed with their own happiness to write many
letters, for few details have been preserved about their Swiss tour. It
was, however, comparatively a short one, for they remained less than a
fortnight in the country. Still Lyell probably found it useful in
refreshing recollections and testing his early impressions by greatly
increased knowledge and experience. From the valley of the Rhone they
crossed the Simplon Pass into Italy and followed the usual road to Milan
along the shore of the Lago Maggiore.
How long they remained in Italy, or by what route they returned to
England, is not stated; indeed, for nearly six months next to nothing is
on record concerning Lyell's movements or work, but in the beginning of
1833 he and his wife were settled in London at No. 16, Hart Street,
Bloomsbury, which became their residence for some years. A state of
happiness is not always indicated by much correspondence: probably it
was so with Lyell; at any rate, a single letter, dated January 5th,
gives the only information of his doings between September, 1832, and
April, 1833. In this letter, however, he mentions that the Council of
King's College had decided that in future ladies should not be admitted
to Lyell's lectures, and that, in consequence, he had received a
pressing invitation from the managers of the Royal Institution to give,
after Easter, a course of six or eight lectures in their theatre,
coupled with the offer of a substantial remuneration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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