Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing (CMSW) - www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/ Document : 239 Title: Letter from Geikie to Murray, 5 Dec 1874 Author(s): Geikie, Sir Archibald Geikie Profr Edinburgh Decr. 5th. 1874 My dear Sir Your letter and friendly criticism deserve my best thanks. I have read the passage carefully to which you probably refer viz on pp 356-7. It cost me some trouble in the writing . I weighed every word well, & I am convinced that my judgement is perfectly true. But it is another question whether this judgement should appear in the Life. and on this I am willing and anxious to be guided by friends of greater experience than myself. The two men now living who probably knew Murchison most intimately in his scientific life are Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Reeks. They have neither made any comment on the passage in question but I have written to them both, asking their special attention to it I am sorry that the passage should seem to you “ too bitter ”. Certainly such a feeling was very far indeed from my thoughts. My struggle was to tell the honest truth with as little damage to Murchison as possible. I daresay you have probably no notion of the extent to which he irritated his scientific con-temporaries by his assumption of superiority, and by constantly pulling them up for not noticing his own work sufficiently . Like all his friends I had abundant personal experience of it and his vast correspondence has brought innumerable and often very painful examples of the same thing before me . I must in honesty let this feature of his character appear : to many people it was his salient one . But of course I shall only be too glad if it can be done in a gentler way than I have done it. Perhaps a few verbal changes might meet your wishes. I enclose a sample of Murchison's field sketches Yours very truly Arch Geikie John Murray Esqr