I got much better at Siena, probably the result of the medicinal nature of the city, the name of which, as a well-instructed girl like you knows, is derived from the senna, which grows wild there, and gives the soil its peculiar pigmentary character.

But unfortunately I forgot to bring any with me, and the effect went off during the first few days of our residence here, when I was, as the Italians say, "molto basso nel bocca." However I am picking up again now, and if people wouldn't call upon us, I feel there might be a chance for me.

I except from that remark altogether the dear Walpoles who are here and as nice as ever. Mrs. Walpole's mother and sister live here, and the W's are on a visit to them but leave on Wednesday. They go to Venice, but only for two or three days.

We shall probably stay about a fortnight in Venice, and then make our way back by easy stages to London. We are wae to see you all again.

Doctor M— [Mrs. Huxley] has just been called in to a case of sore throat in the person of a young lady here, and is quite happy. The young lady probably will not be, when she finds herself converted into a sort of inverted mustard-pot, with the mustard outside! She is one of a very nice family of girls, who (by contrast) remind us of own.

Ever your loving (to all) father,

Pater.

Mrs. M.— has just insisted on seeing this letter.

[To his youngest daughter.]

Hotel Beau Sejour, San Remo, March 30, 1885.

Dearest Babs,

We could not stand "beautiful Venice the pride of the sea" any longer. It blew and rained and colded for eight-and-forty hours consecutively. Everybody said it was a most exceptional season, but that did not make us any warmer or prevent your mother from catching an awful cold. So as soon as she got better we packed up and betook ourselves here by way of Milan and Genoa. At Milan it was so like London on a wet day, that except for the want of smoke we might have been in our dear native land. At Genoa we arrived late one afternoon and were off early in the morning—but by dint of taking a tram after dinner (not a dram) and going there and back again we are able to say we have seen that city of palaces. The basements we saw through the tram windows by mixed light of gas and moon may in fact all have belonged to palaces. We are not in a position to say they did not.

The quick train from Genoa here is believed to go fully twenty-five miles an hour, but starts at 7 A.M., but the early morning air being bad for the health, we took the slow train at 9.30, and got here some time in the afternoon. But mind you it is a full eighty miles, and when we were at full speed between the stations—very few donkeys could have gone faster. But the coast scenery is very pretty, and we didn't mind.

Here we are very well off and as nearly warm as I expect to be before reaching England. You can sit out in the sun with satisfaction, though there is a little knife-edge of wind just to remind us of Florence. Everybody, however, tells us it is quite an exceptional season, and that it ought to be the most balmy air imaginable. Besides there are no end of date-palms and cactuses and aloes and odorous flowers in the garden—and the loveliest purple sea you can imagine.

Well, we shall stop some days and give San Remo a chance—at least a week, unless the weather turns bad.

As to your postcards which have been sent on from Venice and are really shabby, I am not going to any dinners whatsoever, either Middle Temple or Academy. Just write to both that "Mr. H. regrets he is unable to accept the invitation with which — have honoured him." (It's like putting the shutters up," [he said sadly to his wife, when he felt unable to attend the Royal Academy dinner as he had done for many years.])

I have really nothing the matter with me now—but my stock of strength is not great, and I can't afford to spend any on dinners.

The blessedest thing now will be to have done with the nomadic life of the last five months—and see your ugly faces (so like their dear father) again. I believe it will be the best possible tonic for me.

M— has not got rid of her cold yet, but a few warm days here will, I hope, set her up.

I met Lady Whitworth on the esplanade to-day—she is here with Sir Joseph, and this afternoon we went to call on her. The poor old man is very feeble and greatly altered since I saw him last.

Write here on receiving this. We shall take easy stages home, but I don't know that I shall be able to give you any address.

M— sends heaps of love to all (including Charles [The cat.]).

Ever your loving father,

T.H. Huxley.

Tell the "Micropholis" man that it is a fossil lizard with an armour of small scales.

CHAPTER 2.17.

1885.

[On April 8, he landed at Folkestone, and stayed there a day or two before going to London. Writing to Sir J. Donnelly, he remarks with great satisfaction at getting home:—]

We got here this afternoon after a rather shady passage from Boulogne, with a strong north wind in our teeth all the way, and rain galore. For all that, it is the pleasantest journey I have made for a long time—so pleasant to see one's own dear native mud again. There is no foreign mud to come near it.

[And on the same day he sums up to Sir M. Foster the amount of good he has gained from his expedition, and the amount of good any patient is likely to get from travel:—]

As for myself I have nothing very satisfactory to say. By the oddest chance we met Andrew Clark in the boat, and he says I am a very bad colour—which I take it is the outward and visible sign of the inward and carnal state. I may sum that up by saying that there is nothing the matter but weakness and indisposition to do anything, together with a perfect genius for making mountains out of molehills.

After two or three fine days at Venice, we have had nothing but wet or cold—or hot and cold at the same time, as in that prodigious imposture the Riviera. Of course it was the same story everywhere, "perfectly unexampled season."

Moral.—If you are perfectly well and strong, brave Italy—but in search of health stop at home.

It has been raining cats and dogs, and Folkestone is what some people would call dreary. I could go and roll in the mud with satisfaction that it is English mud.

It will be jolly to see you again. Wife unites in love.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[To return home was not only a great pleasure; it gave him a fillip for the time, and he writes to Sir M. Foster, April 12:—]

It is very jolly to be home, and I feel better already. Clark has just been here overhauling me, and feels very confident that he shall screw me up.

I have renounced dining out and smoking (!!!) by way of preliminaries. God only knows whether I shall be permitted more than the smell of a mutton chop for dinner. But I have great faith in Andrew, who set me straight before when other "physicians' aid was vain."

[But his energy was fitful; lassitude and depression again invaded him. He was warned by Sir Andrew Clark to lay aside all the burden of his work. Accordingly, early in May, just after his sixtieth birthday, he sent in his formal resignation of the Professorship of Biology, and the Inspectorship of Salmon Fisheries; while a few days later he laid his resignation of the Presidency before the Council of the Royal Society. By the latter he was begged to defer his final decision, but his health gave no promise of sufficient amendment before the decisive Council meeting in October.

He writes on May 27:—]

I am convinced that what with my perennial weariness and my deafness I ought to go, whatever my kind friends may say.

[A curious effect of his illness was that for the first time in his life he began to shrink involuntarily from assuming responsibilities and from appearing on public occasions; thus he writes on June 16:—]

I am sorry to say that the perkiness of last week was only a spurt [I.e. at the unveiling of the Darwin statue at South Kensington.], and I have been in a disgusting state of blue devils lately. Can't mark out what it is, for I really have nothing the matter, except a strong tendency to put the most evil construction upon everything.

I am fairly dreading to-morrow [i.e. receiving the D.C.L. degree at Oxford] but why I don't know—probably an attack of modesty come on late in life and consequently severe.

Very likely it will do me good and make me "fit" for Thursday [(i.e. Council and ordinary meetings of Royal Society).

And a month later:—]

I have been idling in the country for two or three days—but like the woman with the issue, "I am not better but rather worse"—blue devils and funk—funk and blue devils. Liver, I expect. [(An ailment of which he says to Professor Marsh,] "I rather wish I had some respectable disease—it would be livelier.")

And again:—]

Everybody tells me I look so much better, that I am really ashamed to go growling about, and confess that I am continually in a blue funk and hate the thought of any work—especially of scientific or anything requiring prolonged attention.

[At the end of July he writes to Sir W. Flower:—]

4 Marlborough Place, July 27, 1885.

My dear Flower,

I am particularly glad to hear that things went right on Saturday, as my conscience rather pricked me for my desertion of the meeting. [British Museum Trustees, July 25.] But it was the only chance we had of seeing our young married couple before the vacation—and you will rapidly arrive at a comprehension of the cogency of THAT argument now.

I will think well of your kind words about the Presidency. If I could only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to hold in Devonshire!

P.R.S. in a continual blue funk is not likely to be either dignified or useful; and unless I am in a better frame of mind in October I am afraid I shall have to go.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A few weeks at Filey in August did him some good at first; and he writes cheerfully of his lodgings in] "a place with the worst-fitting doors and windows, and the hardest chairs, sofas, and beds known to my experience."

[He continues:—]

I am decidedly picking up. The air here is wonderful, and as we can set good cookery against hard lying (I don't mean in the Munchausen line) the consequent appetite becomes a mild source of gratification. Also, I have not met with more than two people who knew me, and that in my present state is a negative gratification of the highest order.

[Later on he tried Bournemouth; being no better, he thought of an entirely new remedy.]

The only thing I am inclined to do is to write a book on Miracles. I think it might do good and unload my biliary system.

[In this state of indecision, so unnatural to him, he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

I am anything but clear as to the course I had best take myself. While undoubtedly much better in general health, I am in a curious state of discouragement, and I should like nothing better than to remain buried here (Bournemouth) or anywhere else, out of the way of trouble and responsibility. It distresses me to think that I shall have to say something definite about the Presidency at the meeting of the Council in October.

[Finally on October 20, he writes:—]

I think the lowest point of my curve of ups and downs is gradually rising—but I have by no means reached the point when I can cheerfully face anything. I got over the Board of Visitors (two hours and a half) better than I expected, but my deafness was a horrid nuisance.

I believe the strings of the old fiddle will tighten up a good deal, if I abstain from attempting to play upon the instrument at present—but that a few jigs now will probably ruin that chance.

But I will say my final word at our meeting next week. I would rather step down from the chair than dribble out of it. Even the devil is in the habit of departing with a "melodious twang," and I like the precedent.

[So at the Anniversary meeting on November 30, he definitely announced in his last Presidential address his resignation of that] "honourable office" [which he could no longer retain] "with due regard to the interests of the Society, and perhaps, I may add, of self-preservation."

I am happy to say [he continued] that I have good reason to believe that, with prolonged rest—by which I do not mean idleness, but release from distraction and complete freedom from those lethal agencies which are commonly known as the pleasures of society—I may yet regain so much strength as is compatible with advancing years. But in order to do so, I must, for a long time yet, be content to lead a more or less anchorite life. Now it is not fitting that your President should be a hermit, and it becomes me, who have received so much kindness and consideration from the Society, to be particularly careful that no sense of personal gratification should delude me into holding the office of its representative one moment after reason and conscience have pointed out my incapacity to discharge the serious duties which devolve upon the President, with some approach to efficiency.

I beg leave, therefore, with much gratitude for the crowning honour of my life which you have conferred upon me, to be permitted to vacate the chair of the Society as soon as the business of this meeting is at an end.

[The settlement of the terms of the pension upon which, after thirty-one years of service under Government, he retired from his Professorship at South Kensington and the Inspectorship of Fisheries, took a considerable time. The chiefs of his own department, that of Education, wished him to retire upon full pay, 1500 pounds. The Treasury were more economical. It was the middle of June before the pension they proposed of 1200 pounds was promised; the end of July before he knew what conditions were attached to it.

On June 20, he writes to Mr. Mundella, Vice-President of the Council:—]

My dear Mundella,

Accept my warmest thanks for your good wishes, and for all the trouble you have taken on my behalf. I am quite ashamed to have been the occasion of so much negotiation.

Until I see the Treasury letter, I am unable to judge what the 1200 pounds may really mean [I.e. Whether he was to draw his salary of 200 pounds as Dean or not.], but whatever the result, I shall never forget the kindness with which my chiefs have fought my battle.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On July 16, he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

The blessed Treasury can't make up their minds whether I am to be asked to stay on as Dean or not, and till they do, I can't shake off any of my fetters.

[Early in the year he had written to Sir John Donnelly of the necessity of resigning:—]

Nevertheless [he added], it will be a sad day for me when I find myself no longer entitled to take part in the work of the schools in which you and I have so long been interested.

[But that "sad day" was not to come yet. His connection with the Royal College of Science was not entirely severed. He was asked to continue, as Honorary Dean, a general supervision of the work he had done so much to organise, and he kept the title of Professor of Biology, his successors in the practical work of the chair being designated Assistant Professors.]

"I retain," [he writes,] "general superintendence as part of the great unpaid."

It is a comfort [he writes to his son] to have got the thing settled. My great desire at present is to be idle, and I am now idle with a good conscience.

[Later in the year, however, a change of Ministry having taken place, he was offered a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year by Lord Iddesleigh. He replied accepting it:—]

4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.

My dear Lord Iddesleigh,

Your letters of the 20th November reached me only last night, and I hasten to thank you for both of them. I am particularly obliged for your kind reception of what I ventured to say about the deserts of my old friend Sir Joseph Hooker.

With respect to your lordship's offer to submit my name to Her Majesty for a Civil List Pension, I can but accept a proposal which is in itself an honour, and which is rendered extremely gratifying to me by the great kindness of the expressions in which you have been pleased to embody it.

I am happy to say that I am getting steadily better at last, and under the regime of "peace with honour" that now seems to have fallen to my lot, I may fairly hope yet to do a good stroke of work or two.

I remain, my dear Lord Iddesleigh, faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.

My dear Donnelly,

I believe you have been at work again!

Lord Iddesleigh has written to me to ask if I will be recommended for a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year, a very pretty letter, not at all like the Treasury masterpiece you admired so much.

Didn't see why I should not accept, and have accepted accordingly. When the announcement comes out the Liberals will say the Tory Government have paid me for attacking the G.O.M.! to a dead certainty.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Five days later he replies to the congratulations of Mr. Eckersley (whose son had married Huxley's third daughter):—]

...Lord Iddesleigh's letter offering to submit my name for an honorary pension was a complete surprise.

My chiefs in the late Government wished to retire me on full pay, but the Treasury did not see their way to it, and cut off 300 pounds a year. Naturally I am not sorry to have the loss made good, but the way the thing was done is perhaps the pleasantest part of it.

[There was a certain grim appropriateness in his "official death" following hard upon his sixtieth birthday, for sixty was the age at which he had long declared that men of science ought to be strangled, lest age should harden them against the reception of new truths, and make them into clogs upon progress, the worse, in proportion to the influence they had deservedly won. This is the allusion in a birthday letter from Sir M. Foster:—

Reverend Sir,

So the "day of strangulation" has arrived at last, and with it the humble petition of your friends that you may be induced to defer the "happy despatch" for, say at least ten years, when the subject may again come up for consideration. For your petitioners are respectfully inclined to think that if your sixtyship may be induced so far to become an apostle as to give up the fishery business, and be led to leave the Black Board at South Kensington to others, the t'other side sixty years, may after all be the best years of your life. In any case they would desire to bring under your notice the fact that THEY FEEL THEY WANT YOU AS MUCH AS EVER THEY DID.

Ever thine,

M.F.

Reference has been made to the fact that the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred this May upon Huxley by the University of Oxford. The Universities of the sister kingdoms had been the first thus to recognise his work; and after Aberdeen and Dublin, Cambridge, where natural science had earlier established a firm foothold, showed the way to Oxford. Indeed, it was not until his regular scientific career was at an end, that the University of Oxford opened its portals to him. So, as he wrote to Professor Bartholomew Price on May 20, in answer to the invitation,] "It will be a sort of apotheosis coincident with my official death, which is imminent. In fact, I am dead already, only the Treasury Charon has not yet settled the conditions upon which I am to be ferried over to the other side."

[Before leaving the subject of his connection with the Royal Society, it may be worth while to give a last example of the straightforward way in which he dealt with a delicate point whether to vote or not to vote for his friend Sir Andrew Clark, who had been proposed for election to the Society. It occurred just after his return from abroad; he explains his action to Sir Joseph Hooker, who had urged caution on hearing a partial account of the proceedings.]

South Kensington, April 25, 1885.

My dear Hooker,

I don't see very well how I could have been more cautious than I have been. I knew nothing of Clark's candidature until I saw his name in the list; and if he or his proposer had consulted me, I should have advised delay, because I knew very well there would be a great push made for — this year.

Being there, however, it seemed to me only just to say that which is certainly true, namely, that Clark has just the same claim as half a dozen doctors who have been admitted without question, e.g. Gull, Jenner, Risdon Bennett, on the sole ground of standing in the profession. And I think that so long as that claim is admitted, it will be unjust not to admit Clark.

So I said what you heard; but I was so careful not to press unduly upon the Council, that I warned them of the possible prejudice arising from my own personal obligations to Clark's skill, and I went so far as not to put his name in the FIRST list myself, a step which I now regret.

If this is not caution enough, I should like to know what is? As Clive said when he came back from India, "By God, sir, I am astonished at my own moderation!"

If it is not right to make a man a fellow because he holds a first-class place as a practitioner of medicine as the Royal Society has done since I have known it, let us abolish the practice. But then let us also in justice refuse to recognise the half-and-half claims, those of the people who are third-rate as practitioners, and hang on to the skirts of science without doing anything in it.

Several of your and my younger scientific friends are bent on bringing in their chum —, and Clark's candidature is very inconvenient to them. Hence I suspect some of the "outspoken aversion" and criticism of Clark's claims you have heard.

I am quite willing to sacrifice my friend for a principle, but not for somebody else's friend, and I mean to vote for Clark; though I am not going to try to force my notion down any one else's throat.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On the same subject he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

Obedience be hanged. It would not lie in my mouth, as the lawyers say, to object to anybody's getting his own way if he can.

If Clark had not been a personal friend of mine I should not have hesitated a moment about deciding in his favour. Under the circumstances it was quite clear what I should do if I were forced to decide, and I thought it would have been kindly and courteous to the President if he had been let off the necessity of making a decision which was obviously disagreeable to him.

If, on the other hand, it was wished to fix the responsibility of what happened on him, I am glad that he had the opportunity of accepting it. I never was more clear as to what was the right thing to do.

[So also at other times; he writes in September to Sir M. Foster, the Secretary, with reference to evening gatherings at which smoking should be permitted.]

Bournemouth, September 17, 1885.

I am not at all sure that I can give my blessing to the "Tabagie." When I heard of it I had great doubts as to its being a wise move. It is not the question of "smoke" so much, as the principle of having meetings in the Society's rooms, which are not practically (whatever they may be theoretically), open to all the fellows, and which will certainly be regarded as the quasi-private parties of one of the officers. You will have all sorts of jealousies roused, and talk of a clique, etc.

When I was Secretary the one thing I was most careful to avoid was the appearance of desiring to exert any special influence. But there was a jealousy of the x Club, and only the other day, to my great amusement, I was talking to an influential member of the Royal Society Club about the possibility of fusing it with the Phil. Club, and he said, forgetting I was a member of the latter: "Oh! we don't want any of those wire-pullers!" Poor dear innocent dull-as-ditchwater Phil. Club!

[Mention has already been made of the unveiling of the Darwin statue at South Kensington on June 9, when, as President of the Royal Society, Huxley delivered an address in the name of the Memorial Committee, on handing over the statue of Darwin to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, as representative of the Trustees of the British Museum. The concluding words of the speech deserve quotation:—]

We do not make this request [i.e. to accept the statue] for the mere sake of perpetuating a memory; for so long as men occupy themselves with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Copernicus, or that of Harvey.

Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its cynosural position in this entrance hall of our National Museum of Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin's views have received your official sanction; for science does not recognise such sanctions, and commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

No, we beg you to cherish this memorial as a symbol by which, as generation after generation of students enter yonder door, they shall be reminded of the ideal according to which they must shape their lives, if they would turn to the best account of the opportunities offered by the great institution under your charge.

[Nor was this his only word about Darwin. Somewhat later, Professor Mivart sent him the proofs of an article on Darwin, asking for his criticism, and received the following reply, which describes better than almost any other document, the nature of the tie which united Darwin and his friends, and incidentally touches the question of Galileo's recantation:—]

November 12, 1885.

My dear Mr. Mivart,

I return your proof with many thanks for your courtesy in sending it. I fully appreciate the good feeling shown in what you have written, but as you ask my opinion, I had better say frankly that my experience of Darwin is widely different from yours as expressed in the passages marked with pencil. I have often remarked that I never knew any one of his intellectual rank who showed himself so tolerant to opponents, great and small, as Darwin did. Sensitive he was in the sense of being too ready to be depressed by adverse comment, but I never knew any one less easily hurt by fair criticism, or who less needed to be soothed by those who opposed him with good reason.

I am sure I tried his patience often enough, without ever eliciting more than a "Well there's a good deal in what you say; but—" and then followed something which nine times out of ten showed he had gone deeper into the business than I had.

I cannot agree with you, again, that the acceptance of Darwin's views was in any way influenced by the strong affection entertained for him by many of his friends. What that affection really did was to lead those of his friends who had seen good reason for his views to take much more trouble in his defence and support, and to strike out much harder at his adversary than they would otherwise have done. This is pardonable if not justifiable—that which you suggest would to my mind be neither.

I am so ignorant of what has been going on during the last twelvemonth, that I know nothing of your controversy with Romanes. If he is going to show the evolution of intellect from sense, he is the man for whom I have been waiting, as Kant says.

In your paper about scientific freedom, which I read some time ago with much interest, you alluded to a book or article by Father Roberts on the Galileo business. Will you kindly send me a postcard to say where and when it was published?

I looked into the matter when I was in Italy, and I arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals had rather the best of it. It would complete the paradox if Father Roberts should help me to see the error of my ways.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[August and September, as said above, were spent in England, though with little good effect. Filey was not a success for either himself or his wife. Bournemouth, where they joined their eldest daughter and her family, offered a] "temperature much more to the taste of both of us," [and at least undid the mischief done by the wet and cold of the north.

The mean line of health was gradually rising; it was a great relief to be free at length from administrative distractions, while the retiring pensions removed the necessity of daily toil. By nature he was like the friend whom he described as] "the man to become hipped to death without incessant activity of some sort or other. I am sure that the habit of incessant work into which we all drift is as bad in its way as dram-drinking. In time you cannot be comfortable without the stimulus." [But the variety of interests which filled his mind prevented him from feeling the void of inaction after a busy life. And just as he was at the turning-point in health, he received a fillip which started him again into vigorous activity—the mental tonic bracing up his body and clearing away the depression and languor which had so long beset him.

The lively fillip came in the shape of an article in the November "Nineteenth Century," by Mr. Gladstone, in which he attacked the position taken up by Dr. Reville in his "Prolegomena to the History of Religions," and in particular, attempted to show that the order of creation given in Genesis 1, is supported by the evidence of science. This article, Huxley used humorously to say, so stirred his bile as to set his liver right at once; and though he denied the soft impeachment that the ensuing fight was what had set him up, the marvellous curative effects of a Gladstonian dose, a remedy unknown to the pharmacopoeia, became a household word among family and friends.

His own reply, "The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature," appeared in the December number of the "Nineteenth Century" ("Collected Essays" 4 page 139). In January 1886 Mr. Gladstone responded with his "Proem to Genesis," which was met in February by "Mr. Gladstone and Genesis" ("Collected Essays" 4 page 164). Not only did he show that science offers no support to the "fourfold" or the "fivefold" or any other order obtained from Genesis by Mr. Gladstone, but in a note appended to his second article he gives what he takes to be the proper sense of the "Mosaic" narrative of the Creation (4 page 195), not allowing the succession of phenomena to represent an evolutionary notion, as suggested, of a progress from lower to higher in the scale of being, a notion assuredly not in the mind of the writer, but deducing this order from such ideas as, putting aside our present knowledge of nature, we may reasonably believe him to have held.

A vast subsidiary controversy sprang up in the "Times" on Biblical exegetics; where these touched him at all, as, for instance, when it was put to him whether the difference between the "Rehmes" of Genesis and "Sheh-retz" of Leviticus, both translated "creeping things," did not invalidate his argument as to the identity of such "creeping things," he had examined the point already, and surprised his interrogator, who appeared to have raised a very pretty dilemma, by promptly referring him to a well-known Hebrew commentator.

Several letters refer to this passage of arms. On December 4, he writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer:—]

Do read my polishing off of the G.O.M. I am proud of it as a work of art, and as evidence that the volcano is not yet exhausted.

To Lord Farrer.

4 Marlborough Place, December 6, 1885.

My dear Farrer,

From a scientific point of view Gladstone's article was undoubtedly not worth powder and shot. But, on personal grounds, the perusal of it sent me blaspheming about the house with the first healthy expression of wrath known for a couple of years—to my wife's great alarm—and I should have "busted up" if I had not given vent to my indignation; and secondly, all orthodoxy was gloating over the slap in the face which the G.O.M. had administered to science in the person of Reville.

The ignorance of the so-called educated classes in this country is stupendous, and in the hands of people like Gladstone it is a political force. Since I became an official of the Royal Society, good taste seemed to me to dictate silence about matters on which there is "great division among us." But now I have recovered my freedom, and I am greatly minded to begin stirring the fire afresh.

Within the last month I have picked up wonderfully. If dear old Darwin were alive he would say it is because I have had a fight, but in truth the fight is consequence and not cause. I am infinitely relieved by getting rid of the eternal strain of the past thirty years, and hope to get some good work done yet before I die, so make ready for the part of the judicious bottle-holder which I have always found you.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 13, 1886.

My dear Farrer,

My contribution to the next round was finished and sent to Knowles a week ago. I confess it to have been a work of supererogation; but the extreme shiftiness of my antagonist provoked me, and I was tempted to pin him and dissect him as an anatomico-psychological exercise. May it be accounted unto me for righteousness, though I laughed so much over the operation that I deserve no credit.

I think your notion is a very good one, and I am not sure that I shall not try to carry it out some day. In the meanwhile, however, I am bent upon an enterprise which I think still more important.

After I have done with the reconcilers, I will see whether theology cannot be told her place rather more plainly than she has yet been dealt with.

However, this between ourselves, I am seriously anxious to use what little stuff remains to me well, and I am not sure that I can do better service anywhere than in this line, though I don't mean to have any more controversy if I can help it.

(Don't laugh and repeat Darwin's wickedness.)

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, this] "contribution to the next round" [seemed to the editor rather too pungent in tone. Accordingly Huxley revised it, the letters which follow describing the process:—]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 15, 1886.

My dear Knowles,

I will be with you at 1.30. I spent three mortal hours this morning taming my wild cat. He is now castrated; his teeth are filed, his claws are cut, he is taught to swear like a "mieu"; and to spit like a cough; and when he is turned out of the bag you won't know him from a tame rabbit.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 20, 1886.

My dear Knowles,

Here is the debonnaire animal finally titivated, and I quite agree, much improved, though I mourn the loss of some of the spice. But it is an awful smash as it stands—worse than the first, I think.

I shall send you the manuscript of the "Evolution of Theology" to-day or to-morrow. It will not do to divide it, as I want the reader to have an apercu of the whole process from Samuel of Israel to Sammy of Oxford.

I am afraid it will make thirty or thirty-five pages, but it is really very interesting, though I say it as shouldn't.

Please have it set up in slip, though, as it is written after the manner of a judge's charge, the corrections will not be so extensive, nor the strength of language so well calculated to make a judicious editor's hair stand on end, as was the case with the enclosed (in its unregenerate state).

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some time later, on September 14, 1890, writing to Mr. Hyde Clarke, the philologist, who was ten years his senior, he remarks on his object in undertaking this controversy:—]

I am glad to see that you are as active-minded as ever. I have no doubt there is a great deal in what you say about the origin of the myths in Genesis. But my sole point is to get the people who persist in regarding them as statements of fact to understand that they are fools.

The process is laborious, and not yet very fruitful of the desired conviction.

To Sir Joseph Prestwich.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 16, 1886.

My dear Prestwich,

Accept my best thanks for the volume of your Geology, which has just reached me.

I envy the vigour which has led you to tackle such a task, and I have no doubt that when I turn to your book for information I shall find reason for more envy in the thoroughness with which the task is done.

I see Mr. Gladstone has been trying to wrest your scripture to his own purposes, but it is no good. Neither the fourfold nor the fivefold nor the sixfold order will wash.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

To Professor Poulton [Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford.].

4 Marlborough Place, February 19, 1886.

Dear Mr. Poulton,

I return herewith the number of the "Expositor" with many thanks. Canon Driver's article contains as clear and candid a statement as I could wish of the position of the Pentateuchal cosmogony from his point of view. If he more thoroughly understood the actual nature of paleontological succession—I mean the species by species replacement of old forms by new,—and if he more fully appreciated the great gulf fixed between the ideas of "creation" and of "evolution," I think he would see (1) that the Pentateuch and science are more hopelessly at variance than even he imagines, and (2) that the Pentateuchal cosmogony does not come so near the facts of the case as some other ancient cosmogonies, notably those of the old Greek philosophers.

Practically, Canon Driver, as a theologian and Hebrew scholar, gives up the physical truth of the Pentateuchal cosmogony altogether. All the more wonderful to me, therefore, is the way in which he holds on to it as embodying theological truth. So far as this question is concerned, on all points which can be tested, the Pentateuchal writer states that which is not true. What, therefore, is his authority on the matter—creation by a Deity—which cannot be tested? What sort of "inspiration" is that which leads to the promulgation of a fable as divine truth, which forces those who believe in that inspiration to hold on, like grim death, to the literal truth of the fable, which demoralises them in seeking for all sorts of sophistical shifts to bolster up the fable, and which finally is discredited and repudiated when the fable is finally proved to be a fable? If Satan had wished to devise the best means of discrediting "Revelation" he could not have done better.

Have you not forgotten to mention the leg of Archaeopteryx as a characteristically bird-like structure? It is so, and it is to be recollected that at present we know nothing of the greater part of the skeletons of the older Mesozoic mammals—only teeth and jaws. What the shoulder-girdle of Stereognathus might be like is uncertain.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letters have a curious interest as showing what, in the eyes of a supporter of educational progress, might and might not be done at Oxford to help on scientific education:—]

To the Master of Balliol.

4 Marlborough Place, December 21, 1885.

My dear Master [This is from the first draft of the letter. Huxley's letters to Jowett were destroyed by Jowett's orders, together with the rest of his correspondence.],

I have been talking to some of my friends about stimulating the Royal Society to address the Universities on the subject of giving greater weight to scientific acquirements, and I find that there is a better prospect than I had hoped for of getting President and Council to move. But I am not quite sure about the course which it will be wisest for us to adopt, and I beg a little counsel on that matter.

I presume that we had better state our wishes in the form of a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and that we may prudently ask for the substitution of modern languages (especially German) and elementary science for some of the subjects at present required in the literary part of the examinations of the scientific and medical faculties. If we could gain this much it would be a great step, not only in itself, but in its reaction on the schools.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, December 26, 1885.

My dear Foster,

Please read the enclosed letter from Jowett (confidentially). I had suggested the possibility of diminishing the Greek and Latin for the science and medical people, but that, you see, he won't have. But he is prepared to load the classical people with science by way of making things fair.

It may be worth our while to go in for this, and trust to time for the other. What say you?

Merry Christmas to you. The G.O.M. is going to reply, so I am likely to have a happy New Year! I expect some fun, and I mean to make it an occasion for some good earnest.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[So ends 1885, and with it closes another definite period of Huxley's life. Free from official burdens and official restraints, he was at liberty to speak out on any subject; his strength for work was less indeed, but his time was his own; there was hope that he might still recover his health for a few more years. And though the ranks of his friends were beginning to thin, though he writes (May 20, to Professor Bartholomew Price):—]

The "gaps" are terrible accompaniments of advancing life. It is only with age that one realises the full truth of Goethe's quatrain:—

Eine Bruche ist ein jeder Tag, etc.

[and again:—]

The x Club is going to smithereens, as if a charge of dynamite had been exploded in the midst of it. Busk is slowly fading away. Tyndall is, I fear, in a bad way, and I am very anxious about Hooker:—

[Still the club hung together for many years, and outside it were other devoted friends, who would have echoed Dr. Foster's good wishes on the last day of the year:—

A Happy New Year! and many of them, and may you more and more demonstrate the folly of strangling men at sixty.

CHAPTER 2.18.

1886.

[The controversy with Mr. Gladstone indicates the nature of the subject that Huxley took up for the employment of his newly obtained leisure. Chequered as this leisure was all through the year by constant illness, which drove him again and again to the warmth of Bournemouth or the brisk airs of the Yorkshire moors in default of the sovereign medicine of the Alps, he managed to write two more controversial articles this year, besides a long account of the "Progress of Science," for Mr. T. Humphry Ward's book on "The Reign of Queen Victoria," which was to celebrate the Jubilee year 1887. Examinations—for the last time, however—the meetings of the Eton Governing Body, the business of the Science Schools, the Senate of the London University, the Marine Biological Association, the Council of the Royal Society, and a round dozen of subsidiary committees, all claimed his attention. Even when driven out of town by his bad health, he would come up for a few days at a time to attend necessary meetings.

One of the few references of this period to biological research is contained in a letter to Professor Pelseneer of Ghent, a student of the Mollusca, who afterwards completed for Huxley the long unfinished monograph on "Spirula" for the "Challenger" Report.]

4 Marlborough Place, January 8, 1886.

Dear Sir,

Accept my best thanks for the present of your publications. As you may imagine, I find that on the cretaceous crustaceans very interesting. It was a rare chance to find the branchiae preserved.

I am glad to be able to send you a copy of my memoir on the morphology of the Mollusca. It shows signs of age outside, but I beg you to remember that it is 33 years old.

I am rejoiced to think you find it still worth consulting. It has always been my intention to return to the subject some day, and to try to justify my old conclusions—as I think they may be justified.

But it is very doubtful whether my intention will now ever be carried into effect.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Mr. Gladstone's second article appeared in the January number of the "Nineteenth Century," to this the following letter refers:—]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 21, 1886.

My dear Skelton,

Thanks for your capital bit of chaff. I took a thought and began to mend (as Burns' friend and MY prototype (G.O.M.) is not yet recorded to have done) about a couple of months ago, and then Gladstone's first article caused such a flow of bile that I have been the better for it ever since.

I need not tell you I am entirely crushed by his reply—still the worm will turn and there is a faint squeak (as of a rat in the mouth of a terrier) about to be heard in the next "Nineteenth."

But seriously, it is to me a grave thing that the destinies of this country should at present be seriously influenced by a man, who, whatever he may be in the affairs of which I am no judge—is nothing but a copious shuffler, in those which I do understand.

With best wishes to Mrs. Skelton and yourself, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[With the article in the February number of the "Nineteenth Century," he concluded his tilt with Mr. Gladstone upon the interpretation of Genesis. His supposed] "unjaded appetite" [for controversy was already satiated; and he begged leave to retire from] "that 'atmosphere of contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air," [for the] "Elysium" of scientific debate, which "suits my less robust constitution better." [A vain hope. Little as he liked controversy at bottom, in spite of the skill—it must be allowed, at times, a pleasurable skill—in using the weapons of debate, he was not to avoid it any more than he was to avoid the east wind when he went to Bournemouth from early in February till the end of March, of which he writes on February 23:—]

The "English Naples" is rather Florentine so far as a bitter cold east wind rather below than above 0 degrees C. goes, but from all I hear it is a deal better than London, and I am picking up in spite of it. I wish I were a Holothuria, and could get on without my viscera. I should do splendidly then.

[Here he wrote a long article on the "Evolution of Theology" ("Collected Essays" 4 287) which appeared in the March and April numbers of the "Nineteenth Century." It was a positive statement of the views he had arrived at, which underlay the very partial—and therefore misleading—exposition of them possible in controversy. He dealt with the subject, not with reference to the truth or falsehood of the notions under review, but purely as a question of anthropology,] "a department of biology to which I have at various times given a good deal of attention." [Starting with the familiar ground of the Hebrew Scriptures, he thus explains the paleontological method he proposes to adopt:—]

In the venerable record of ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is really a library comparable to a selection of works from English literature between the times of Beda and those of Milton, we have the stratified deposits (often confused and even with their natural order inverted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral life of Israel during many centuries. And, embedded in these strata, there are numerous remains of forms of thought which once lived, and which, though often unfortunately mere fragments, are of priceless value to the anthropologist. Our task is to rescue these from their relatively unimportant surroundings, and by careful comparison with existing forms of theology to make the dead world which they record live again.

[A subsequent letter to Professor Lewis Campbell bears upon this essay. It was written in answer to an inquiry prompted by the comparison here drawn between the primitive spiritual theories of the books of Judges and Samuel, and the very similar development of ideas among the Tongans, as described by Mariner, who lived many years among the natives.]

Hodeslea, October 10, 1894.

My dear Campbell,

I took a good deal of trouble years ago to satisfy myself about the point you mention, and I came to the conclusion that Mariner was eminently trustworthy, and that Martin was not only an honest, but a shrewd and rather critical, reporter. The story he tells about testing Mariner's version of King Theebaw's oration shows his frame of mind (and is very interesting otherwise in relation to oral tradition).

I have a lot of books about Polynesia, but of all I possess and have read, Mariner is to my mind the most trustworthy.

The missionaries are apt to colour everything, and they never have the chance of knowing the interior life as Mariner knew it. It was this conviction that led me to make Mariner my cheval de bataille in "Evolution of Theology."

I am giving a good deal of trouble—ill for the last week, and at present with a sharp lumbago! so nice! With our love to Mrs. Campbell and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The circumstances under which the following letter was written are these. The activity of the Home Rulers and the lethargy of Unionists had caused one side only of the great question then agitating English politics to be represented in the American press, with the result that the funds of the Nationalists were swelled by subscriptions from persons who might have acted otherwise if the arguments on the other side had been adequately laid before them.

Mr. Albert Grey, M.P., therefore had arranged for a series of clear, forcible pronouncements from strong representative Englishmen against a separate Parliament, to be cabled over to New York to a syndicate of influential newspapers, and his American advisers desired that the opening statement should be from Huxley.

Although it will be seen from the letter that he would not undertake this task, Mr. Grey showed the letter to one or two of the leading Liberal Unionists to strengthen their hands, and begged permission to publish it for the benefit of the whole party. Accordingly, it appeared in the "Times" of April 13, 1886.]

Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 21, 1886.

Dear Mr. Grey,

I am as much opposed to the Home Rule scheme as any one can possibly be, and if I were a political man I would fight against it as long as I had any breath left in me; but I have carefully kept out of the political field all my life, and it is too late for me now to think of entering it.

Anxious watching of the course of affairs for many years past has persuaded me that nothing short of some sharp and sweeping national misfortune will convince the majority of our countrymen that government by average opinion is merely a circuitous method of going to the devil; and that those who profess to lead but in fact slavishly follow this average opinion are simply the fastest runners and the loudest squeakers of the herd which is rushing blindly down to its destruction.

It is the electorate, and especially the Liberal electorate, which is responsible for the present state of things. It has no political education. It knows well enough that 2 and 2 won't make 5 in a ledger, and that sentimental stealing in private life is not to be tolerated; but it has not been taught the great lesson in history that there are like verities in national life, and hence it easily falls a prey to any clever and copious fallacy-monger who appeals to its great heart instead of reminding it of its weak head.

Politicians have gone on flattering and cajoling this chaos of political incompetence until the just penalty of believing their own fictions has befallen them, and the average member of Parliament is conscientiously convinced that it is his duty, not to act for his constituents to the best of his judgment, but to do exactly what they, or rather the small minority which drives them, tells him to do.

Have we a real statesman? A man of the calibre of Pitt or Burke, to say nothing of Strafford or Pym, who will stand up and tell his countrymen that this disruption of the union is nothing but a cowardly wickedness—an act bad in itself, fraught with immeasurable evil—especially to the people of Ireland; and that if it cost his political existence, or his head, for that matter, he is prepared to take any and every honest means of preventing the mischief?

I see no sign of any. And if such a man should come to the front what chance is there of his receiving loyal and continuous support from a majority of the House of Commons? I see no sign of any.

There was a time when the political madness of one party was sure to be checked by the sanity, or at any rate the jealousy of the other. At the last election I should have voted for the Conservatives (for the first time in my life) had it not been for Lord Randolph Churchill; but I thought that by thus jumping out of the Gladstonian frying-pan into the Churchillian fire I should not mend matters, so I abstained altogether.

Mr. Parnell has great qualities. For the first time the Irish malcontents have a leader who is not eloquent, but who is honest; who knows what he wants and faces the risks involved in getting it. Our poor Right Honourable Rhetoricians are no match for this man who understands realities. I believe also that Mr. Parnell's success will destroy the English politicians who permit themselves to be his instruments, as soon as bitter experience of the consequences has brought Englishmen and Scotchmen (and I will add Irishmen) to their senses.

I suppose one ought not to be sorry for that result, but there are men among them over whose fall all will lament.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some of the newspapers took these concluding paragraphs to imply support of Parnell, so that at the end of June he writes:—]

The "Tribune" man seems to have less intelligence than might be expected. I spoke approvingly of the way in which Parnell had carried out his policy, which is rather different from approving the policy itself.

But these newspaper scribes don't take the trouble to understand what they read.

[While at Bournemouth he also finished and sent off to the "Youth's Companion," an American paper, an article on the evolution of certain types of the house, called "From the Hut to the Pantheon." Beginning with a description of the Pantheon, that characteristically Roman work with its vast dome, so strongly built that it is the only great dome remaining without a flaw:—]

For a long time [he says] I was perplexed to know what it was about the proportions of the interior of the Pantheon which gave me such a different feeling from that made by any other domed space I had ever entered.

[The secret of this he finds in the broad and simple design peculiar to the building, and then shows in detail how:—]

The round hut, the Aedes Vestae, and the Pantheon are so many stages in a process of architectural evolution which was effected between the first beginnings of Roman history and the Augustan age.

[The relation between the beehive hut, the terremare, and the pile-dwellings of Italy lead to many suggestive bits of early anthropology, which, it may be hoped, bore fruit in the minds of some of his youthful readers.

We find him also reading over proofs for Mr. Herbert Spencer, who, although he might hesitate to ask for his criticism with respect to a subject on which they had a "standing difference," still:—

concluded that to break through the long-standing usage, in pursuance of which I have habitually submitted my biological writing to your castigation, and so often profited by so doing, would seem like a distrust of your candour—a distrust which I cannot entertain.

So he wrote in January; and on March 19 he wrote again, with another set of proofs:—

Toujours l'audace! More proofs to look over. Don't write a critical essay, only marginal notes. Perhaps you will say, like the Roman poet to the poetaster who asked him to erase any passages he did not like, and who replied, "One erasure will suffice"—perhaps you will say, "There needs only one marginal note."

To this he received answer:—]

Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 22, 1886.

My dear Spencer,

More power to your elbow! You will find my blessing at the end of the proof.

But please look very carefully at some comments which are not merely sceptical criticisms, but deal with matters of fact.

I see the difference between us on the speculative question lies in the conception of the primitive protoplasm. I conceive it as a mechanism set going by heat—as a sort of active crystal with the capacity of giving rise to a great number of pseudomorphs; and I conceive that external conditions favour one or the other pseudomorph, but leave the fundamental mechanism untouched.

You appear to me to suppose that external conditions modify the machinery, as if by transferring a flour-mill into a forest you could make it into a saw-mill I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything—especially as I am now so much occupied with theology—but I don't see my way to your conclusion.

And that is all the more reason why I don't want to stop you from working it out, or rather to make the "one erasure" you suggest. For as to stopping you, "ten on me might," as the navvy said to the little special constable who threatened to take him into custody.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Warmth and sea-fogs here for a variety.

[One more letter may be given from this time at Bournemouth—a letter to his eldest daughter on the loss of her infant son:—]

Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 2, 1886.

It's very sad to lose your child just when he was beginning to bind himself to you, and I don't know that it is much consolation to reflect that the longer he had wound himself up in your heart-strings the worse the tear would have been, which seems to have been inevitable sooner or later. One does not weigh and measure these things while grief is fresh, and in my experience a deep plunge into the waters of sorrow is the hopefullest way of getting through them on to one's daily road of life again. No one can help another very much in these crises of life; but love and sympathy count for something, and you know, dear child, that you have these in fullest measure from us.

[On coming up to London in April he was very busy, among other things, with a proposal that the Marine Biological Association, of which he was President, should urge the Government to appoint a scientific adviser to the Fishery Board. A letter of his on this subject had appeared in the "Times" for March 30. There seemed to him, with his practical experience of official work, insuperable objections to the status of such an officer. Above all, he would be a representative of science in name, without any responsibility to the body of scientific men in the country. Some of his younger colleagues on the Council, who had not enjoyed the same experience, thought that he had set aside their expressions of opinion too brusquely, and begged Sir M. Foster, as at once a close friend of his, and one to whose opinion he paid great respect, to make representations to him on their behalf, which he did in writing, being kept at home by a cold. To this letter, in which his friend begged him not to be vexed at a very plain statement of the other point of view, but to make it possible for the younger men to continue to follow his lead, he replied:—]

4 Marlborough Place, April 5, 1886.

My dear Foster,

Mrs. Foster is quite right in looking sharp after your colds, which is very generous of me to say, as I am down in the mouth and should have been cheered by a chat.

I am very glad to know what our younger friends are thinking about. I made up my mind to some such result of the action I have thought it necessary to take. But I have no ambition to lead, and no desire to drive them, and if we can't agree, the best way will be to go our ways separately...

Heaven forbid that I should restrain anybody from expressing any opinion in the world. But it is so obvious to me that not one of our friends has the smallest notion of what administration in fishery questions means, or of the danger of creating a scientific Frankenstein in that which he is clamouring for, that I suppose I have been over-anxious to prevent mischief, and seemed domineering.

Well, I shall mend my ways. I must be getting to be an old savage if you think it risky to write anything to me.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[But he did not stay long in London. By April 20 he was off to Ilkley, where he expected to stay] "for a week or two, perhaps longer." [on the 24th he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

I was beginning to get wrong before we left Bournemouth, and went steadily down after our return to London, so that I had to call in a very shrewd fellow who attends my daughter M—. Last Monday he told me that more physicking was no good, and that I had better be off here, and see what exercise and the fresh air of the moors would do for me. So here I came, and mean to give the place a fair trial.

I do a minimum of ten miles per diem without fatigue, and as I eat, drink, and sleep well, there ought to be nothing the matter with me. Why, under these circumstances, I should never feel honestly cheerful, or know any other desire than that of running away and hiding myself, I don't know. No explanation is to be found even in Foster's "Physiology!" the only thing my demon can't stand is sharp walking, and I will give him a dose of that remedy when once I get into trim.

[Indeed he was so much better even after a single day at Ilkley, that he writes home:—]

It really seems to me that I am an imposter for running away, and I can hardly believe that I felt so ill and miserable four-and-twenty hours ago.

[And on the 28th he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

I have been improving wonderfully in the last few days. Yesterday I walked to Bolton Abbey, the Strid, etc., and back, which is a matter of sixteen miles, without being particularly tired, though the afternoon sun was as hot as midsummer.

It is the old story—a case of candle-snuff—some infernal compound that won't get burnt up without more oxygenation than is to be had under ordinary conditions...

I want to be back and doing something, and yet have a notion that I should be wiser if I stopped here a few weeks and burnt up my rubbish effectually. A good deal will depend upon whether I can get my wife to join me or not. She has had a world of worry lately.

[As to his fortunate choice of an hotel,] "I made up my mind," [he writes,] "to come to this hotel merely because Bradshaw said it was on the edge of the moor—but for once acting on an advertisement turned out well." [The moor ran up six or seven hundred feet just outside the garden, and the hotel itself was well outside and above the town and the crowd of visitors. Here, with the exception of a day or two in May, and a fortnight at the beginning of June, he stayed till July, living as far as possible an outdoor life, and getting through a fair amount of correspondence.

It was not to be expected that he should long remain unknown, and he was sometimes touched, more often bored, by the forms which this recognition took. Thus two days after his arrival he writes home:—]

Sitting opposite to me at the table d'hote here is a nice old Scotch lady. People have found out my name here by this time, and yesterday she introduced herself to me, and expressed great gratitude for the advice I gave to a son of hers two or three years ago. I had great difficulty in recollecting anything at all about the matter, but it seems the youngster wanted to go to Africa, and I advised him not to, at any rate at present. However, the poor fellow went, and died, and they seem to have found a minute account of his interview with me in his diary.

[But all were not of this kind. On the 26th he writes:—]

I took a three hours' walk over the moors this morning with nothing but grouse and peewits for company, and it was perfectly delicious. I am beginning to forget that I have a liver, and even feel mildly disposed to the two fools of women between whom I have to sit every meal.

27th.

...I wish you would come here if only for a few days—it would do you a world of good after your anxiety and wear and tear for the last week. And you say you are feeling weak. Please come and let me take care of you a bit; I am sure the lovely air here would set you up. I feel better than I have for months...

The country is lovely, and in a few days more all the leaves will be out. You can almost hear them bursting. Now come down on Saturday and rejoice the "sair een" of your old husband who is wearying for you.

[Another extract from the same correspondence expresses his detestation for a gross breach of confidence:—]

April 22.

...I have given Mr. — a pretty smart setting down for sending me Ruskin's letter to him! It really is iniquitous that such things should be done. Ruskin has a right to say anything he likes in a private letter and — must be a perfect cad to send it on to me.

[The following letter on the ideal of a Paleontological Museum is a specialised and improved version of his earlier schemes on the same subject:—]

4 Marlborough Place, May 3, 1886.

My dear Foster,

I cannot find Hughes' letter, and fancy I must have destroyed it. So I cannot satisfy Newton as to the exact terms of his question.

But I am quite clear that my answer was not meant to recommend any particular course for Cambridge, when I know nothing about the particular circumstances of the case, but referred to what I should like to do if I had carte blanche.

It is as plain as the nose on one's face (mine is said to be very plain) that Zoological and Botanical collections should illustrate (1) Morphology, (2) Geographical Distribution, (3) Geological Succession.

It is also obvious to me that the morphological series ought to contain examples of all the extinct types in their proper places. But I think it will be no less plain to any one who has had anything to do with Geology and Paleontology that the great mass of fossils is to be most conveniently arranged stratigraphically. The Jermyn St. Museum affords an example of the stratigraphical arrangement.

I do not know that there is anywhere a collection arranged according to Provinces of Geographical Distribution. It would be a great credit to Cambridge to set the example of having one.

If I had a free hand in Cambridge or anywhere else I should build (A) a Museum, open to the public, and containing three strictly limited and selected collections; one morphologically, one geographically, and one stratigraphically arranged; and (B) a series of annexes arranged for storage and working purposes to contain the material which is of no use to any but specialists. I am convinced that this is the only plan by which the wants of ordinary people can be supplied efficiently, while ample room is afforded for additions to any extent without large expense in building.

On the present plan or no plan, Museums are built at great cost, and in a few years are choked for want of room.

If you have the opportunity, I wish you would explain that I gave no opinion as to what might or might not be expedient under present circumstances at Cambridge. I do not want to seem meddlesome.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Don't forget Cayley.

N.B.—As my meaning seems to have been misunderstood I wish, if you have the chance, you would make it clear that I do not want three brick and mortar museums—but one public museum—containing a threefold collection of typical forms, a biological Trinity in Unity in fact.

It might conciliate the clerics if you adopted this illustration. But as YOUR OWN, mind. I should not like them to think me capable of it.

[However, even Ilkley was not an infallible cure. Thus he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]

May 17.

I am ashamed of myself for not going to town to attend the Government Grant Committee and Council, but I find I had better stop here till the end of the month, when I must return for a while anyhow.

I have improved very much here, and so long as I take heaps of exercise every day I have nothing to complain of beyond a fit of blue devils when I wake in the morning.

But I don't want to do any manner of work, still less any manner of play, such as is going on in London at this time of year, and I think I am wise to keep out of it as long as I can.

I wish I knew what is the matter with me. I feel always just on the verge of becoming an absurd old hypochondriac, and as if it only wanted a touch to send me over.

May 27.

...The blue devils worry me far less than they did. If there were any herd of swine here I might cast them out altogether, but I expect they would not go into blackfaced sheep.

I am disposed to stop not more than ten days in London, but to come back here and bring some work with me. In fact I do not know that I should return yet if it were not that I do not wish to miss our usual visit to Balliol, and that my Spanish daughter is coming home for a few months...

I am overwhelmed at being taken at my word about scientific federation. [I.e. a federation between the Royal Society and scientific societies in the colonies.] "Something will transpire" as old Gutzlaff [This worthy appears to have been an admiral on the China station about 1840.] said when he flogged plaintiff, defendant and witnesses in an obscure case.

P.S.—I have had an invitation from — to sign "without committing myself to details" an approbation of his grand scheme. [For the reorganisation of the Fisheries Department.] A stupendous array of names appear thus committed to the "principle of the Bill." I prefer to be the Hartington of the situation.

[During this first stay in London he wrote twice to Mr. Herbert Spencer, from whom he had received not only some proofs, as before, on biological points, but others from his unpublished autobiography. After twice reading these, Huxley had merely marked a couple of paragraphs containing personal references which might possibly be objectionable] "to the 'heirs, administrators and assigns,' if there are any, or to the people themselves if they are living still." [He continues, June 1:—]

You will be quite taken aback at getting a proof from me with so few criticisms, but even I am not so perverse as to think that I can improve your own story of your own life!

I notice a curious thing. If Ransom [Dr. Ransom of Nottingham.] had not overworked himself, I should probably not be writing this letter.

For if he had worked less hard I might have been first and he second at the Examination at the University of London in 1845. In which case I should have obtained the Exhibition, should not have gone into the navy, and should have forsaken science for practice...

[Again on June 4:—]

My dear Spencer,

Here's a screed for you! I wish you well through it.

Mind I have no a priori objection to the transmission of functional modifications whatever. In fact, as I told you, I should rather like it to be true.

But I argued against the assumption (with Darwin as I do with you) of the operation of a factor which, if you will forgive me for saying so, seems as far off support by trustworthy evidence now as ever it was.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On the same day he wrote to Mr., afterwards Sir John, Skelton:—]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., June 4, 1886.

My dear Skelton,

A civil question deserves a civil answer—Yes. I am sorry to say I know—nobody better—"what it is to be unfit for work." I have been trying to emerge from that condition, first at Bournemouth, and then at Ilkley, for the last five months, with such small success that I find a few days in London knocks me up, and I go back to the Yorkshire moors next week.

We have no water-hens there—nothing but peewits, larks, and occasional grouse—but the air and water are of the best, and the hills quite high enough to bring one's muscles into play.

I suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was quite happy so long as he grazed and kept clear of Babylon; if so, I can hold him for my Scripture parallel.

I wish I could accept your moral Number 2, but there is amazingly little evidence of "reverential care for unoffending creation" in the arrangements of nature, that I can discover. If our ears were sharp enough to hear all the cries of pain that are uttered in the earth by men and beasts, we should be deafened by one continuous scream!

And yet the wealth of superfluous loveliness in the world condemns pessimism. It is a hopeless riddle.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Please remember me to Mrs. Skelton.

[The election of a new Headmaster (Dr. Warre) at Eton, where he was a member of the Governing Body, was a matter of no small concern to him at this moment. Some parts of the existing system seemed impossible to alter, though a reform in the actual scheme and scope of teaching seemed to him both possible and necessary for the future well-being of the school. He writes to his eldest son on July 6, 1886:—]

The whole system of paying the Eton masters by the profits of the boarding-houses they keep is detestable to my mind, but any attempt to alter it would be fatal.

...I look to the new appointment with great anxiety. It will make or mar Eton. If the new Headmaster has the capacity to grasp the fact that the world has altered a good deal since the Eton system was invented, and if he has the sense to adapt Eton to the new state of things, without letting go that which was good in the old system, Eton may become the finest public school in the country.

If on the contrary he is merely a vigorous representative of the old system pure and simple, the school will go to the dogs.

I think it is not unlikely that there may be a battle in the Governing Body over the business, and that I shall be on the losing side. But I am used to that, and shall do what I think right nevertheless.

[The same letter contains his reply to a suggestion that he should join a society whose object was to prevent a railway from being run right through the Lake district.]

I am not much inclined to join the "Lake District Defence Society." I value natural beauty as much as most people—indeed I value it so much, and think so highly of its influence that I would make beautiful scenery accessible to all the world, if I could. If any engineering or mining work is projected which will really destroy the beauty of the Lakes, I will certainly oppose it, but I am not disposed, as Goschen said, to "give a blank cheque" to a Defence Society, the force of which is pretty certain to be wielded by the most irrational fanatics amongst its members.

Only the other day I walked the whole length of Bassenthwaite from Keswick and back, and I cannot say that the little line of rails which runs along the lake, now coming into view and now disappearing, interfered with my keen enjoyment of the beauty of the lake any more than the macadamised road did. And if it had not been for that railway I should not have been able to make Keswick my headquarters, and I should have lost my day's delight.

People's sense of beauty should be more robust. I have had apocalyptic visions looking down Oxford Street at a sunset before now.

Ever, dear lad, your loving father,

T.H. Huxley.

[After this he took his wife to Harrogate,] "just like Clapham Common on a great scale," [where she was ordered to drink the waters. For himself, it was as good as Ilkley, seeing that he needed] "nothing but fresh air and exercise, and just as much work that interests me as will keep my mind from getting 'blue mouldy.'" [The work in this case was the chapter in the Life of Charles Darwin, which he had promised Mr. F. Darwin to finish before going abroad.

On July 10, he writes to Sir M. Foster on the rejection of the Home Rule Bill:—]

The smashing of the G.O.M. appears to be pretty complete, though he has unfortunately enough left to give him the means of playing an ugly game of obstruction in the next Parliament.

You have taken the shine out of my exultation at Lubbock's majority—though I confess I was disheartened to see so many educated men going in for the disruption policy. If it were not for Randolph I should turn Tory, but that fellow will some day oust Salisbury as Dizzy ousted old Derby, and sell his party to Parnell or anybody else who makes a good bid.

We are flourishing on the whole. Sulphide of wife joins with me in love.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[On the 21st he writes:—]

The formation of Huxley sulphide will be brought to a sudden termination to-morrow when we return to London. The process has certainly done my wife a great deal of good and I wish it could have gone on a week or two longer, but our old arrangements are upset and we must start with the chicks for Switzerland on the 27th, that is next Tuesday.

CHAPTER 2.19.

1886.

[The earlier start was decided upon for the sake of one of his daughters; who had been ill. He went first to Evolena, but the place did not suit him, and four days after his arrival went on to Arolla, whence he writes on August 3:—]

We reached Evolena on Thursday last...We had glorious weather Thursday and Friday, and the latter day (having both been told carefully to avoid over-exertion) the wife and I strolled, quite unintentionally, as far as the Glacier de Ferpecle and back again. Luckily the wife is none the worse, and indeed, I think in which more tired of the two. But we saw at once that Evolena was a mistake for our purpose, and were confirmed in that opinion by the deluge of rain on Saturday. The hotel is down in a hole at the tail of a dirty Swiss village, and only redeemed by very good cooking. So, Sunday being fine, I, E. and H. started up here to prospect, 18 miles up and down, and 2000 feet to climb, and did it beautifully. It is just the place for us, at the tail of a glacier in the midst of a splendid amphitheatre of 11 to 12,000 feet snow heights, and yet not bare and waste, any quantity of stone-pines growing about...I rather long for the flesh-pots of Evolena—cooking here being decidedly rudimentary—otherwise we are very well off.

[The keen air of six thousand feet above sea level worked wonders with the invalids. The lassitude of the last two years was swept away, and Huxley came home eager for active life. Here too it was that, for occupation, he took up the study of gentians; the beginning of that love of his garden which was so great a delight to him in his last years. On his return home he writes:—]

4 Marlborough Place, September 10, 1886.

My dear Foster,

We got back last evening after a very successful trip. Arolla suited us all to a T, and we are all in great force. As for me, I have not known of the existence of my liver, and except for the fact that I found fifteen or sixteen miles with a couple of thousand feet up and down quite enough, I could have deluded myself into the fond imagination that I was twenty years younger.

By way of amusement I bought a Swiss Flora in Lausanne and took to botanising—and my devotion to the gentians led the Bishop of Chichester—a dear old man, who paid us (that is the hotel) a visit—to declare that I sought the "Ur-gentian" as a kind of Holy Grail. The only interruption to our felicity was the death of a poor fellow, who was brought down on a guide's back from an expedition he ought not to have undertaken, and whom I did my best to keep alive one night. But rapid pleuritic effusion finished him the next morning, in spite of (I hope not in consequence of) such medical treatment as I could give him.

I see you had a great meeting at Birmingham, but I know not details. The delegation to Sydney is not a bad idea, but why on earth have they arranged that it shall arrive in the middle of the hot weather? Speechifying with the thermometer at 90 degrees in the shade will try the nerves of the delegates, I can tell them.

I shall remain quietly here and see whether I can stand London. I hope I may, for the oestrus of work is upon me—for the first time this couple of years. Let me have some news of you. With our love to your wife and you.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., September 14, 1886.

My dear Donnelly,

I hear that some of your alguazils were looking after me yesterday, so I had better give myself up at once—hoping it will be considered in the sentence.

The fact is I have been going to write to you ever since we came back last Thursday evening, but I had about fifty other letters to write and got sick of the operation.

We are all in great force, and as for me, I never expected a year ago to be he well I am. I require to look in the glass and study the crows' feet and the increasing snow cap on the summit of my Tete noire (as it once was), to convince myself I am not twenty years younger.

How long it will last I don't feel sure, but I am going to give London as little chance as possible.

I trust you have all been thriving to a like extent. Scott [Assistant Professor of Botany at the Royal College of Science.] wrote to me the other day wanting to take his advanced flock (two—one, I believe, a ewe-lamb) to Kew. I told him I had no objection, but he had better consult you.

I have not been to South Kensington yet—as I have a devil (botanical—) and must satisfy him before doing anything else. It's the greatest sign of amendment that I have gone in for science afresh. When I am ill (and consequently venomous), nothing satisfies me but gnawing at theology; it's a sort of crib-biting.

Our love to Mrs. Donnelly. I suppose G.H. [Gordon Huxley Donnelly, Sir John's son.] is by this time a kind of Daniel Lambert physically and Solomon mentally—my blessing to him.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[As a sequel to the sad event mentioned in the former letter, the relations of the young man who had died so suddenly at Arolla wished to offer Huxley some gift in grateful recognition of the kindness he had shown to the poor fellow; but being unable to fix upon any suitable object, begged him to accept a considerable sum of money and expend it on any object he pleased as a memento. To this he replied, November 21, 1886:—]

I am very much obliged for the kind recognition of my unfortunately unavailing efforts to be of service to your brother-in-law which is contained in your letter.

But I and those who right willingly helped me did nothing more than our plain duty in such a case; and though I fully appreciate the motives which actuate Mrs. — and yourself and friends, and would gladly accept any trifle as a memento of my poor friend (I call him so, for we really struck up a great friendship in our twelve hours' acquaintance), I could not with any comfort use the very handsome cheque you offer.

Let me propose a compromise. As you will see by the enclosed paper, a colleague of mine has just died leaving widow and children in very poor circumstances. Contribute something to the fund which is being raised for their benefit, and I shall consider it as the most agreeable present you could possibly make to me.

And if you wish me to have a personal memento of our friend, send me a pipe that belonged to him. I am greatly devoted to tobacco, and will put it in a place of honour in my battery of pipes.

[The bracing effects of Arolla enabled him to stay two months in town before again retiring to Ilkley to be] "screwed up." [He had on the stocks his Gentian Paper and the chapter for the Darwin Life, besides the chapter on the Progress of Science for the "Reign of Queen Victoria," all of which he finished off this autumn; he was busy with Technical Education, and the Egyptian borings which were being carried out under the superintendence of the Royal Society. Finally he was induced by a "diabolical plot" on the part of Mr. Spencer to read, and in consequence to answer, an article in the "Fortnightly" for November by Mr. Lilly on "Materialism and Morality." These are the chief points with which the following correspondence is concerned.]

4 Marlborough Place, September 16, 1886.

My dear Foster,

I enclose the Report [The Annual Report of the Examiners in Physiology under the Science and Art Department, which, being still an Examiner he had to sign.] and have nothing to suggest except a quibble at page 4. If you take a stick in your hand you may feel lots of things and determine their form, etc., with the other end of it, but surely the stick is properly said to be insensible. Ditto with the teeth. I feel very well with mine (which are paid for) but they are surely not sensible? Old Tomes once published the opinion that the contents of the dentine tubules were sensory nerves, on the ground of our feeling so distinctly through our teeth. He forgot the blind man's stick. Indeed the reference of sensation to the end of a stick is one of the most interesting of psychological facts.

It is extraordinary how those dogs of examinees return to their vomit. Almost all the obstinate fictions you mention are of a quarter of a century date. Only then they were dominant and epidemic—now they are sporadic.

I wish Pasteur or somebody would find some microbe with which the rising generation could be protected against them.

We shall have to rearrange the Examination business—this partner having made his fortune and retiring from firm. Think over what is to be done.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

You don't happen to grow gentians in your Alpine region, do you?

[Of his formal responsibility for the examinations he had written earlier in the year:—]

Wells House, Ilkley, June 15, 1886.

My dear Donnelly,

I think it is just as well that you could not lay your hands on ink, for if you had you would only have blacked them. (N.B. This is a goak.)

You know we resolved that it was as well that I should go on as Examiner (unpaid) this year. But I rather repent me of it—for although I could be of use over the questions, I have had nothing to do with checking the results of the Examination except in honours, and I suspect that Foster's young Cambridge allies tend always to screw the standard up.

I am inclined to think that I had much better be out of it next year. The attempt to look over examination papers now would reduce the little brains I have left to mere pulp—and, on the other hand, if there is any row about results, it is not desirable that I should have to say that I have not seen the answers.

When I go you will probably get seven devils worse than the first—but that it is not the fault of the first devil.

I am picking up here wonderfully in spite of the bad weather. It rained hard yesterday and blew ditto—to-day it is blowing dittoes—but there is sunshine between the rain and squalls.

I hope you are better off. What an outlandish name "Tetronila." I don't believe you have spelt it right. With best regards to Mrs. Donnelly and my godson.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, September 16, 1886.

My dear Hooker,

I have sucked Grisebach's brains, looked up "Flora B. Americana," and "F. Antarctica and New Zealand," and picked about in other quarters. I found I knew as much as Grisebach had to tell me (and more) about lutea, purpureo-punctata, acaulis, campestris, and the verna lot, which are all I got hold of at Arolla. But he is very good in all but classification, which is logically "without form and void, and darkness on the face of it."

I shall have to verify lots of statements about gentians I have not seen, but at present the general results are very curious and interesting. The species fall into four groups, one PRIMARY least differentiated—three, specialised.

1. Lobes of corolla fringed. 2. Coronate. 3. Interlobate (i.e. not the "plica" between the proper petals).

Now the interesting point is that the Antarctic species are all primary and so are the great majority of the Andean forms. Lutea is the only old-world primary, unless the Himalayan Moorcroftiana belongs here. The Arctic forms are also primary, but the petals more extensively united.

The specialised types are all Arctogeal with the exception of half a dozen or so Andean species including prostrata.

There is a strange general parallelism with the crayfishes! which also have their primary forms in Australia and New Zealand, avoid E. S. America and Africa, and become most differentiated in Arctogaea. But there are also differences in detail.

It strikes me that this is uncommonly interesting; but, of course, all the information about the structure of the flowers, etc., I get at second hand, wants verifying.

Have you done the gentians of your "Flora Indica" yet? Do look at them from this point of view.

I cannot make out what Grisebach means by his division of Chondrophylla. What is a "cartilaginous" margin to a leaf?—"Folia margine cartilaginea!" He has a lot of Indian species under this head.

I send you a rough scheme I have drawn up. Please let me have it back. Any annotations thankfully received. Shan't apologise for bothering you.

I hope the pension is settled at last.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, September 22, 1886.

My dear Hooker,

I have written to Lubbock a long screed stating my views [Referring to the relations between the South Kensington department and the City and Guilds Committee on Technical Education.] with unmistakable distinctness as politeful as may be, and asking him, if he thought well, to send them on to whomsoever it may concern. As old Gutzlaff used to say when he wanted to get evidence from a Chinee—"Gif him four dozen, someting vill transpire." At any rate the Chinee transpired, and I hope some official will.

Here beginneth more gentian craze.

I have not examined Moorcroft. yet, but if the figure in Roxb. is trustworthy it's a primary and no mistake. I can't understand your admitting Amarellae without coronae. The presence of a corona is part of the definition of the amarella group, and an amarella without a corona is a primary ipso facto.

Taking the facts as I have got them in the rough, and subject to minor verifications, the contrast between the Andean, Himalayan, and Caucasian Gentian Florae is very striking.

TABLE OF GENTIAN FLORAE.

Column 1: Place. Column 2: Simplices. Column 3: Ciliatae. Column 4: Coronatae. Column 5: Interlobatae.

Andes : 27 : 0 (?) : 15 : 2.

Himalayas 1 (Moorecroft.) : 0 : 4 : 32.

Caucasus Pyrenees (all one) : 2 (lutea, umbellata) : 2 : 5 : 21.

I don't think Ciliatae worth anything as a division. I took it as it stood.

It is clear that migration helps nothing, as between the old-world and South American Florae. It is the case of the Tapirs (Andean and Sino-Malayan) over again. Relics of a tertiary Flora which once extended from South America to Eurasia through North America (by the west, probably).

I see a book by Engler on the development of Floras since tertiary epoch. Probably the beggar has the idea.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Godalming, September 25, 1886.

My dear Foster,

We are here till to-morrow on a visit to Leonard, seeing how the young folks keep house.

I brought the Egyptian report down with me. It is very important, and in itself justifies the expenditure. Any day next (that is to say this) week that you like I can see Colonel Turner. If you and Evans can arrange a day I don't think we need mind the rest of the Committee. We must get at least two other borings ten or fifteen miles off, if possible on the same parallel, by hook or by crook. It will tell us more about the Nile valley than has ever been known. That Italian fellow who published sections must have lied considerably.

Touching gentians, I have not examined your specimen yet, but it certainly did not look like Andrewsii. You talk of having acaulis in your garden. That is one of the species I worked out most carefully at Arolla, but its flowering time was almost over, and I only got two full-blown specimens to work at. If you have any in flower and don't mind sacrificing one with a bit of the rhizoma, and would put it in spirit for me, I could settle one or two points still wanting. Whisky will do, and you will be all the better for not drinking the whisky!

The distributional facts, when you work them in connection with morphology, are lovely. We put up with Donnelly on our way here. He has taken a cottage at Felday, eleven miles from hence, in lovely country—on lease. I shall have to set up a country residence some day, but as all my friends declare their own locality best, I find a decision hard. And it is a bore to be tied to one place.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1886.

My dear Hooker,

I wish you would not mind the trouble of looking through the enclosed chapter which I have written at F. Darwin's request, and tell me what you think of it. F.D. thinks I am hard upon the "Quarterly Article," but I read it a fresh and it is absolutely scandalous. The anonymous vilifiers of the present day will be none the worse for being reminded that they may yet hang in chains...

It occurs to me that it might be well to add a paragraph or two about the two chief objections made formerly and now to Darwin, the one, that it is introducing "chance" as a factor in nature, and the other that it is atheistic.

Both assertions are utter bosh. None but parsons believe in "chance"; and the philosophical difficulties of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever since theism was invented.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter to Mr. Edmund Gosse, who, just before, had been roughly handled in the "Quarterly Review," doubtless owed some of its vigour to these newly revived memories of the "Quarterly" attack on Darwin. But while the interest of the letter lies in a general question of literary ethics, the proper methods and limits of anonymous criticism, it must be noted that in this particular case its edge was turned by the fact that immediately afterwards, the critic proceeded to support his criticisms elsewhere uder his own name:—]

October 22, 1886.

Dear Sir,

I beg leave to offer you my best thanks for your letter to the "Athenaeum," which I have just read, and to congratulate you on the force and completeness of your answer to your assailant.

It is rarely worth while to notice criticism, but when a good chance of exposing one of these anonymous libellers who disgrace literature occurs, it is a public duty to avail oneself of it.

Oddly enough, I have recently been performing a similar "haute oeuvre." The most violent, base, and ignorant of all the attacks on Darwin at the time of the publication of the "Origin of Species" appeared in the "Quarterly Review" of that time; and I have built the reviewer a gibbet as high as Haman's.

All good men and true should combine to stop this system of literary moonlighting.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On the same date appeared his letter to the "Pall Mall Gazette," which was occasioned by the perversion of the new Chair of English Literature at Oxford to "Middle English" philology:—]

I fully agree with you that the relation of our Universities to the study of English literature is a matter of great public importance; and I have more than once taken occasion to express my conviction—Firstly, that the works of our great English writers are pre-eminently worthy of being systematically studied in our schools and universities as literature; and secondly, that the establishment of professional chairs of philology, under the name of literature, may be a profit to science, but is really a fraud practised upon letters.

That a young Englishman may be turned out of one of our universities, "epopt and perfect," so far as their system takes him, and yet ignorant of the noble literature which has grown up in those islands during the last three centuries, no less than of the development of the philosophical and political ideas which have most profoundly influenced modern civilisation, is a fact in the history of the nineteenth century which the twentieth will find hard to believe; though, perhaps, it is not more incredible than our current superstition that whoso wishes to write and speak English well should mould his style after the models furnished by classical antiquity. For my part, I venture to doubt the wisdom of attempting to mould one's style by any other process for that of striving after the clear and forcible expression of definite conceptions; in which process the Glassian precept, "first catch your definite conceptions," is probably the most difficult to obey. But still I mark among distinguished contemporary speakers and writers of English, saturated with antiquity, not a few to whom, it seems to me, the study of Hobbes might have taught dignity; of Swift, concision and clearness; of Goldsmith and Defoe, simplicity.