Well, among a hundred young men whose university career is finished, is there one whose attention has ever been directed by his literary instructors to a page of Hobbes, or Swift, or Goldsmith, or Defoe? In my boyhood we were familiar with "Robinson Crusoe," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Gulliver's Travels"; and though the mysteries of "Middle English" were hidden from us, my impression is we ran less chance of learning to write and speak the "middling English" of popular orators and headmasters than if we had been perfect in such mysteries and ignorant of those three masterpieces. It has been the fashion to decry the eighteenth century, as young fops laugh at their fathers. But we were there in germ; and a "Professor of Eighteenth Century History and Literature" we knew his business might tell young Englishmen more of that which it is profoundly important they should know, but which at present remains hidden from them, than any other instructor; and, incidentally, they would learn to know good English when they see or hear it—perhaps even to discriminate between slipshod copiousness and true eloquence, and that alone would be a great gain.

[As for the incitement to answer Mr. Lilly, Mr. Spencer writes from Brighton on November 3:—

I have no doubt your combative instincts have been stirred within you as you read Mr. Lilly's article, "Materialism and Morality," in which you and I are dealt with after the ordinary fashion popular with the theologians, who practically say, "You SHALL be materialists whether you like it or not." I should not be sorry if you yielded to those promptings of your combative instinct. Now that you are a man of leisure there is no reason why you should not undertake any amount of fighting, providing always that you can find foemen worthy of your steel.

I remember that last year you found intellectual warfare good for your health, so I have no qualms of conscience in making the suggestion.

To this he replies on the 7th:—]

Your stimulation of my combative instincts is downright wicked. I will not look at the "Fortnightly" article lest I succumb to temptation. At least not yet. The truth is that these cursed irons of mine, that have always given me so much trouble, will put themselves in the fire, when I am not thinking about them. There are three or four already.

[On November 21 Mr. Spencer sends him more proofs of his autobiography, dealing with his early life:—

See what it is to be known as an omnivorous reader—you get no mercy shown you. A man who is ready for anything, from the fairy tale to a volume of metaphysics, is naturally one who will make nothing of a fragment of a friend's autobiography!

To this he replies on the 25th:—]

4 Marlborough Place, November 25, 1886.

My dear Spencer,

In spite of all prohibition I must write to you about two things. First, as to the proof returned herewith—I really have no criticisms to make (miracles, after all may not be incredible). I have read your account of your boyhood with great interest, and I find nothing there which does not contribute to the understanding of the man. No doubt about the truth of evolution in your own case.

Another point which has interested me immensely is the curious similarity to many recollections of my own boyish nature which I find, especially in the matter of demanding a reason for things and having no respect for authority.

But I was more docile, and could remember anything I had a mind to learn, whether it was rational or irrational, only in the latter case I hadn't the mind.

But you were infinitely better off than I in the matter of education. I had two years of a Pandemonium of a school (between 8 and 10) and after that neither help nor sympathy in any intellectual direction till I reached manhood. Good heavens! if I had had a father and uncle who troubled themselves about my education as yours did about your training, I might say as Bethell said of his possibilities had he come under Jowett, "There is no knowing to what eminence I might not have attained." Your account of them gives me the impression that they were remarkable persons. Men of that force of character, if they had been less wise and self-restrained, would have played the deuce with the abnormal chicken hatched among them.

The second matter is that your diabolical plot against Lilly has succeeded—vide the next number of the Fortnightly. ["Science and Morals" "Collected Essays" 9 117.] I was fool enough to read his article, and the rest followed. But I do not think I should have troubled myself if the opportunity had not been good for clearing off a lot of old scores.

The bad weather for the last ten days has shown me that I want screwing up, and I am off to Ilkley on Saturday for a week or two. Ilkley Wells House will be my address. I should like to know that you are picking up again.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again on December 13:—]

My dear Spencer,

I am very glad to have news of you which on the whole is not unsatisfactory. Your conclusion as to the doctors is one I don't mind telling you in confidence I arrived at some time ago...

I am glad you liked my treatment of Mr. Lilly...I quite agree with you that the thing was worth doing for the sake of the public.

I have in hand another bottle of the same vintage about Modern Realism and the abuse of the word Law, suggested by a report I read the other day of one of Liddon's sermons. ["Pseudo-Scientific Realism" "Collected Essays" 4 59.]

The nonsense these great divines talk when they venture to meddle with science is really appalling.

Don't be alarmed about the history of Victorian science. [See above.] I am happily limited to the length of a review article or thereabouts, and it is (I am happy to say it is nearly done) more of an essay on the history of science, bringing out the broad features of the contrast between past and present, than the history itself. It seemed to me that this was the only way of dealing with such a subject in a book intended for the general public.

[The article "Science and Morals" was not only a satisfaction to himself, but a success with the readers of the "Fortnightly." To his wife he writes:—]

December 2.

Have you had the "Fortnightly"? How does my painting of the Lilly look?

December 8.

Harris...says that my article "simply made the December number," which pretty piece of gratitude means a lively sense of favours to come.

December 13.

I had a letter from Spencer yesterday chuckling over the success of his setting me on Lilly.

[Ilkley had a wonderful effect upon him.] "It is quite absurd," [he writes after 24 hours there,] "but I am wonderfully better already." [His regimen was of the simplest, save perhaps on one point.] "Clark told me," [he says with the utmost gravity,] "always to drink tea and eat hot cake at 4.30. I have persevered, however against my will, and last night had no dreams, but slept like a top." [Two hours' writing in the morning were followed by two hours' sharp walking; in the afternoon he first took two hours' walking or strolling if the weather were decent;] "then Clark's prescription diligently taken" [(i.e. tea and a pipe) and a couple of hours more writing; after dinner reading and to bed before eleven.]

I am working away (he writes) in a leisurely comfortable manner at my chapter for Ward's Jubilee book, and have got the first few pages done, which is always my greatest trouble.

December 8.

...Canon Milman wrote to me to come to the opening of the New Buildings for Sion College, which the Prince is going to preside over on the 15th. I had half a mind to accept, if only for the drollery of finding myself among a solemn convocation of the city clergy. However, I thought it would be opening the floodgates, and I prudently declined.

[One more letter may perhaps be quoted as illustrating the clearness of vision in administrative matters which made it impossible for him to sit quietly by and see a tactical blunder being committed, even though his formal position might not seem to warrant his interference. This is his apologia for such a step.]

December 16, 1886.

My dear Foster,

On thinking over this morning's Committee work [Some Committee of the Royal Society.], it strikes my conscience that being neither President or Chairman nor officer I took command of the boat in a way that was hardly justifiable.

But it occurred to me that our sagacious — for once was going astray and playing into —'s hands, without clearly seeing what he was doing, and I be thought me of "salus Societatis suprema lex," and made up my mind to stop the muddle we were getting into at all costs. I hope he was not disgusted nor you either. X. ought to have cut in, but he did not seem inclined to do so.

I am clearly convinced it was the right thing to do—anyhow.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The chronicle of the year may fitly close with a letter from Ilkley to Dr. Dohrn, apropos of his recommendation of a candidate for a biological professorship. The] "honest sixpence got by hard labour," [refers to a tour in the Highlands which he had once taken with Dr. Dohrn, when, on a rough day, they were being rowed across Loch Leven to Mary Stuart's castle. The boatman, unable to make head single-handed against the wind, asked them each to take an oar; but when they landed and Huxley tendered the fare, the honest fellow gave him back two sixpences, saying, "I canna tak' it: you have wrocht as hard as I." Each took a coin; and Huxley remarked that this was the first sixpence he had earned by manual labour. Dr. Dohrn, I believe, still carries his sixpence in memory of the occasion.]

Wells House, Ilkley, Yorkshire, December 1, 1886.

My dear Dohrn,

You see by my address that I am en retraite, for a time. As good catholics withdraw from the world now and then for the sake of their souls—so I, for the sake of my body (and chiefly of my liver) have retired for a fortnight or so to the Yorkshire moors—the nearest place to London where I can find dry air 1500 feet above the sea, and the sort of uphill exercise which routs out all the unoxygenated crannies of my organism. Hard frost has set in, and I had a walk over the moorland which would have made all the blood of the Ost-see pirates—which I doubt not you have inherited—alive, and cleared off the fumes of that detestable Capua to which you are condemned. I should like to have seen the nose of one of your Neapolitan nobilissimes after half-an-hour's exposure to the north wind, clear and sharp as a razor, which very likely looked down on Loch Leven a few hours ago.

Ah well! "fuimus"—I am amused at the difficulty you find in taking up the position of a "grave and reverend senior"; because I can by no means accustom myself to the like dignity. In spite of my grey hairs "age hath not cooled the Douglas blood" altogether, and I have a gratifying sense that (liver permitting) I am still capable of much folly. All this, however, has not much to do with poor Dr. — to whom, I am sorry to say, your letter could do no good, as it arrived after my colleagues and I had settled the business.

But there were a number of strong candidates who had not much chance. If it is open to me to serve him hereafter, however, your letter will be of use to him, for I know you do not recommend men lightly.

After some eighteen months of misery—the first thing that did me any good was coming here. But I was completely set up by six or seven weeks at Arolla in the Valais. The hotel was 6400 feet up, and the wife and daughters and I spent most of our time in scrambling about the 2000 feet between that and the snow. Six months ago I had made up my mind to be an invalid, but at Arolla I walked as well as I did when you and I made pilgrimages—and earned the only honest sixpence (I, at any rate) ever got for hard labour. Three months in London brought me down again, so I came here to be "mended."

You know English literature so well that perhaps you have read Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone." I am in that country, within walk of Bolton Abbey.

Please remember me very kindly to the Signora—and thank her for copying the letter in such a charmingly legible hand. I wish mine were like it.

If I am alive we shall go to Arolla next summer. Could we not meet there? It is a fair half-way.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

THE END