London | Tuesday.
My dear Mr Dean,
I have had much pleasure in sending the card to your friend.2
With regard to my visit, I leave entirely in Mrs Dawes’s3 hands. I will either go to you after my lecture,4 or I will join you immediately after my vacation tour is ended: that will be about the middle of August.5 I certainly should have a weight upon my mind which no protestations could take away, if I thought I had hastened your visit to Ledbury6 by a single day.
The Malvern Hills7 I suppose will not be less beautiful towards the end of August than they are now. They will be beginning to show the tinting of their trees, and I like the colouring of autumn. But as I said before I will do exactly as Mrs Dawes wishes. She shall have me palefaced as I am, or she shall have me sunbrowned as I hope to be a couple of months hence.
Believe me, dear Mr Dean, | Yours very truly, | John Tyndall.
To my shame be it spoken, I have not yet sent Mrs Dawes my little book on mountaineering.8 I will write to Longmans9 forthwith about it.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/323
LT Typescript Only
[3 June 1862]: June 1862 was suggested by LT. Tyndall delivered the lecture referred to on 6 June, the previous Tuesday being 3 June. Tyndall did not visit the Dawes until August (see letter 1923).
your friend: not identified.
Mrs Dawes: Mary Helen Dawes.
after my lecture: Tyndall delivered a Friday Evening Discourse, ‘On Force’, at the RI on 6 June 1862 (Roy. Inst. Proc., 3 (1858–62), pp. 527–36).
middle of August: Tyndall returned from his vacation through the Alps on 16 August.
Ledbury: a town in Herefordshire in the west-midlands, to the west of the Malvern Hills.
Malvern Hills: a range of hills that run through Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and northern Gloucestershire.
my little book on mountaineering: Mountaineering in 1861.
Longmans: letter missing; to either Thomas Longman (1804–79) or William Longman (1813–77), brothers who ran the publishing firm Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.
Please cite as “Tyndall1902,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on