Dear Sir,
I have spent some time reflecting on what I ought to say in reply to your note2 of the 6th which reached me this morning, but I feel that the best that I could utter would be but a weak and defective acknowledgment of the obligation which I owe to you. I have had indistinct visions from time to time latterly of an investigation which might be found worthy to place in the hands of yourself or Mr Faraday and communicated to the Royal Society, but even as the result of such an investigation I did not dare to promise myself the high reward which you have proposed. I regarded the distinction as a kind of mountain summit which I was determined by patient climbing one day to attain, and if I should be elected Fellow of the Royal Society I shall undoubtedly consider it an honour paid in advance; it will place me in the position of a debtor to science which debt it shall be the religious duty of my life honorably to liquidate.
John Tyndall3 –
RI MS JT/2/6/74–75
JT Transcript
[9 November 1851]: this is a reply to letter 0559. In his journal entry for 9 November (JT/2/6/74–75) Tyndall recorded receiving Sabine’s letter that morning (3 days from London to Queenwood was an unusually slow post). He wrote this reply the same day and copied both Sabine’s letter and his reply into his journal.
your note: letter 0559.
John Tyndall: The original would have included conventional and formal subscription, such as, ‘I remain, dear Sir …’, but Tyndall omitted these details when he copied the letter into his journal.
Please cite as “Tyndall0564,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0564