It will release me of an immense difficulty if you will undertake R. Boyle and the Royal Society (which of course includes Hooke); and the subject is a capital one.
The book should not exceed about 200 pages, and you need not be ready before this time next year. There could not be a more refreshing piece of work just to enliven the dolce far niente of the Bel Alp. (That is quite a la Knowles, and I begin to think I have some faculty as an editor.)
Settle your own terms with Macmillan. They will be as joyful as I shall be to know you are going to take part in the enterprise.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, December 31, 1878.
My dear Tyndall,
I would sooner have your Boyle, however long we may have to wait for it, than anybody else's d—d simmer. (Now that's a "goak," and you must ask Mrs. Tyndall to explain it to you.)
Two years will I give you from this blessed New Year's eve, 1878, and if it isn't done on New Year's Day 1881 you shall not be admitted to the company of the blessed, but your dinner shall be sent to you between two plates to the most pestiferous corner of the laboratory of the Royal Institution. I am very glad you will undertake the job, and feel that I have a proper New Year's gift.
By the way, you ought to have had Hume ere this. Macmillan sent me two or three copies, just to keep his word, on Christmas Day, and I thought I should have a lot more at once.