George Biddell Airy to Faraday   3 July 1861¹

The Grange, Keswick, | Cumberland. | 1861 July 3.

My dear Sir

I write to you in great agony of spirit as to a confessor who may deny or give to me some consolation not unaccompanied with penance. As thus. I was to my great sorrow prevented from giving you a lecture on the Total Eclipse², by the necessity of overcoming certain accumulation[s] of work in my office which required my personal care. I forced my way through these, and endeavoured to forget them and everything similar to them among these mountains. But the genius of Science, so far as he is embodied in the British Association, unrelentingly pursues me. First the Local Officers, second the General Council, apply to me for an Evening Discourse; and the Eclipse is particularized as a subject. I have twice stated that I was under a degree of engagement - unhappily broken - to you, which would make it appear dishonorable to accede to the request of another body: but they return to their charge: and I am forced at length, not for my sake but for theirs, to give further consideration to their request.

And now I write to you to ask you whether the Royal Institution would take it disrespectful to them that I should discourse on the Eclipse to the British Association. If there is the least of such feeling, I will at once give up the idea, and either seek some other subject, or abstain entirely from lecture³.

I am, My dear Sir, | Yours Very truly | G.B. Airy

Professor Faraday