Royal Institution | Friday
My dear Pollock
I am sorry to say that I shall not be here at 4 o’c[lock]. My head frightens me, and I run to the country to day to rest it. I shall be here on Monday—let us then talk the matter over.
Nothing has passed between Murray2 & me since he promised to send me the book.3
What passed between us was this—I said to him that I thought you would undertake the Review, and that some months ago you spoke of doing so. He said something about your great literary powers, I know not what exactly, and at once said that he would send you an early copy of the work.
My feeling is & was & shall be, that there are no hands into which it would give me greater pleasure to see my book fall. But I wd sooner bury it as deep as Prospero’s4 than endeavor in any way to sway my friend towards a task to which he might feel disinclined. —I was probably wrong in mentioning the thing to Murray at all—if so it was an error of judgment which I know you will forgive.
Ever yours | John Tyndall.
RI MS JT/1/T/1256
RI MS JT/1/TYP/6/2199
[June 1860]: this letter indicates that Tyndall envisaged Pollock writing a review of Glaciers of the Alps. It gives a likely date in mid-1860.
Murray: John Murray, publisher of Glaciers of the Alps.
the book: Glaciers of the Alps.
as deep as Prospero’s: a reference to Act 5, Scene 1 of The Tempest by William Shakespeare: ‘Some heavenly music, which even now I do, | To work mine end upon their senses that | This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, | Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, | And deeper than did ever plummet sound | I’ll drown my book’.
Please cite as “Tyndall1718,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on