I have a notion of writing out the argument of the "Origin" in systematic shape as a sort of primer of Darwinismus. I have not much stuff left in me, and it would be as good a way of using what there is as I know of. What do you think?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply to this Sir J. Hooker was inclined to make the biographer alone responsible for the confusion noted in the obituary of Asa Gray. He writes:—

March 27, 1888.

Dear Huxley,

Dana's Gray arrived yesterday, and I turned to pages 19 and 20. I see nothing Anti-Darwinian in the passages, and I do not gather from them that Gray did.

I did not follow Gray into his later comments on Darwinism, and I never read his "Darwiniana." My recollection of his attitude after acceptance of the doctrine, and during the first few years of his active promulgation of it, is that he understood it clearly, but sought to harmonise it with his prepossessions, without disturbing its physical principles in any way.

He certainly showed far more knowledge and appreciation of the contents of the "Origin" than any of the reviewers and than any of the commentators, yourself excepted.

Latterly he got deeper and deeper into theological and metaphysical wanderings, and finally formulated his ideas in an illogical fashion.

...Be all this as it may, Dana seems to be in a muddle on page 20, and quite a self-sought one.

Ever yours,

J.D. Hooker.

The following is a letter of thanks to Mrs. Humphry Ward for her novel "Robert Elsmere."]

Bournemouth, March 15, 1888.

My dear Mrs. Ward,

My wife thanked you for your book which you were so kind as to send us. But that was grace before meat, which lacks the "physical basis" of after-thanksgiving—and I am going to supplement it, after my most excellent repast.

I am not going to praise the charming style, because that was in the blood and you deserve no sort of credit for it. Besides, I should be stepping beyond my last. But as an observer of the human ant-hill—quite impartial by this time—I think your picture of one of the deeper aspects of our troubled time admirable.

You are very hard on the philosophers. I do not know whether Langham or the Squire is the more unpleasant—but I have a great deal of sympathy with the latter, so I hope he is not the worst.

If I may say so, I think the picture of Catherine is the gem of the book. She reminds me of her namesake of Siena—and would as little have failed in any duty, however gruesome. You remember Sodoma's picture.

Once more, many thanks for a great pleasure.

My wife sends her love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Meanwhile, he had been making no progress towards health; indeed, was going slowly downhill. He makes fun of his condition when writing to condole with Mr. Spencer on falling ill again after the unwonted spell of activity already mentioned; but a few weeks later discovered the cause of his weakness and depression in an affection of the heart. This was not immediately dangerous, though he looked a complete wreck. His letters from April onwards show how he was forced to give up almost every form of occupation, and even to postpone his visit to Switzerland, until he had been patched up enough to bear the journey.]

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, March 9, 1888.

My dear Spencer,

I am very sorry to hear from Hooker that you have been unwell again. You see if young men from the country will go plunging into the dissipations of the metropolis nemesis follows.

Until two days ago, the weather cocks never overstepped North on the one side and East on the other ever since you left. Then they went west with sunshine and most enjoyable softness—but next South with a gale and rain—all ablowin' and agrowin' at this present.

I have nothing to complain of so long as I do nothing; but although my hair has grown with its usual rapidity I differ from Samson in the absence of a concurrent return of strength. Perhaps that is because a male hairdresser, and no Delilah, cut it last! But I waste Biblical allusions upon you.

My wife and Nettie, who is on a visit, join with me in best wishes.

Please let me have a line to say how you are—Gladstonianly on a post-card.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 7, 1888.

My dear Foster,

"Let thy servant's face be white before thee." The obituary of Darwin went to Rix yesterday! [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society.] It is not for lack of painstaking if it is not worth much, but I have been in a bad vein for work of any kind, and I thought I should never get even this simple matter ended.

I have been bothered with praecordial uneasiness and intermittent pulse ever since I have been here, and at last I got tired of it and went home the day before yesterday to get carefully overhauled. Hames tells me there is weakness and some enlargement of the left ventricle, which is pretty much what I expected. Luckily the valves are all right.

I am to go and devote myself to coaxing the left ventricle wall to thicken pro rata—among the mountains, and to have nothing to do with any public functions or other exciting bedevilments. So the International Geological Congress will not have the pleasure of seeing its Honorary President in September. I am disgusted at having to break an engagement, but I cannot deny that Hames is right. At present the mere notion of the thing puts me in a funk.

I wish I could get out of the chair of the M.B.A. Also...I know that you and Evans and Dyer will do your best, but you are all eaten up with other occupations.

Just turn it over in your mind—there's a dear good fellow—just as if you hadn't any other occupations.

With which eminently reasonable and unselfish request believe me,

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 10, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I send by this post the last—I hope for your sake and for that of the recording angel—of —. [The "Heathen Deutscheree". A paper of his, contributed to the Royal Society, had been under revision.] I agree to all Brady's suggestions.

With all our tinkering I feel inclined to wind up the affair after the manner of Mr. Shandy's summing up of the discussion about Tristram's breeches—"And when he has got 'em he'll look a beast in 'em."

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[April 12. To the same:—]

I am quite willing to remain at the M.B.A. till the opening. If Evans will be President I shall be happy.

— is a very good man, but you must not expect too much of the "wild-cat" element, which is so useful in the world, in him.

I am disgusted with myself for letting everything go by the run, but there is no help for it. The least thing bowls me over just now.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 12, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

I plead not guilty. [In the matter of sending out no notices for a meeting of the x Club.] It was agreed at the last meeting that there should be none in April—I suppose by reason of Easter, so I sent no notice. This is what Frankland told me in his letter of the 2nd. However, I see you were present, so I can't make it out.

My continual absence makes me a shocking bad Treasurer, and I am sorry to say that things will be worse instead of better. Ever since this last pleuritic business I have been troubled with praecordial uneasiness. [After an account of his symptoms he continues] so I am off (with my wife) to Switzerland at the end of this month, and shall be away all the summer. We have not seen the Engadine and Tyrol yet, so we shall probably make a long circuit. It is a horrid nuisance to be exiled in this fashion. I have hardly been at home one month in the last ten. But it is of no use to growl.

Under these circumstances, would you mind looking after the x while I am away? There is nothing to do but to send the notices on Saturday previous to the meeting.

I am very grieved to hear about Hirst—though to say truth, the way he has held out for so long has been a marvel to me. The last news I had of Spencer was not satisfactory.

Eheu! the "Table Round" is breaking up. It's a great pity; we were such pleasant fellows, weren't we?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 18, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I am cheered by your liking of the notice of Darwin. I read the "Life and Letters," and the "Origin," Krause's "Life," and some other things over again in order to do it. But I have not much go in me, and I was a scandalous long time pottering over the writing.

I have sent the proof back with a variety of interpolations. I would have brought the "Spirula" notes down here to see what I could do, but I felt pretty sure that if I brought two things I should not do one. Nobody could do anything with it but myself. I will try what I can do when I go to town. How much time is there before the wind-up of the Challenger?

We go up to town Monday next, and I am thinking of being off the Monday following (April 30). I have come to the same conclusion as yourself, that Glion would be better than Grindelwald. I should like very much to see you. Just drop me a line to say when you are likely to turn up.

Poor Arnold's death has been a great shock [Matthew Arnold died suddenly of heart disease at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter on her return from America.]—rather for his wife than himself—I mean on her account than his. I have always thought sudden death to be the best of all for oneself, but under such circumstances it is terrible for those who are left. Arnold told me years ago that he had heart disease. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of an immediate catastrophe in my own case. I should not go abroad if there were. Imagine the horror of leaving one's wife to fight all the difficulties of sudden euthanasia in a Swiss hotel! I saw enough of that two years ago at Arolla.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, April 25, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

All my beautiful Swiss plans are knocked on the head—at any rate for the present—in favour of horizontality and Digitalis here. The journey up on Monday demonstrated that travelling, at present, was impracticable.

Hames is sanguine I shall get right with rest, and I am quite satisfied with his opinion, but for the sake of my belongings he thinks it right to have Clark's opinion to fortify him.

It is a bore to be converted into a troublesome invalid even for a few weeks, but I comfort myself with my usual reflection on the chances of life, "Lucky it is no worse." Any impatience would have been checked by what I heard about Moseley this morning—that he has sunk into hopeless idiocy. A man in the prime of life!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, May 4, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

Best thanks for your note and queries.

I remember hearing what you say about Darwin's father long ago, I am not sure from what source. But if you look at page 20 of the "Life and Letters" you will see that Darwin himself says his father's mind "was not scientific." I have altered the passage so as to use these exact words.

I used "malice" rather in the French sense, which is more innocent than ours, but "irony" would be better if "malice" in any way suggests malignity. "Chaff" is unfortunately beneath the dignity of a Royal Society obituary.

I am going to add a short note about Erasmus Darwin's views.

It is a great comfort to me that you like the thing. I am getting nervous over possible senility—63 to-day, and nothing of your evergreen ways about me.

I am decidedly mending, chiefly to all appearance by allowing myself to be stuffed with meat and drink like a Strasburg goose. I am also very much afraid that abolishing tobacco has had something to do with my amendment.

But I am mindful of your maxim—keep a tight hold over your doctor.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S. 1.—Can't say I have sacrificed anything to penmanship, and am not at all sure about lucidity!

P.S. 2.—It is "Friday"—there is a dot over the i—reopened my letter to crow!

[The following letter to Mr. Spencer is in answer to a note of condolence on his illness, in which the following passage occurs:—]

I was grieved to hear of so serious an evil as that which [Hirst] named. It is very depressing to find one's friends as well as one's self passing more and more into invalid life.

Well, we always have one consolation, such as it is, that we have made our lives of some service in the world, and that, in fact, we are suffering from doing too much for our fellows. Such thoughts do not go far in the way of mitigation, but they are better than nothing.

4 Marlborough Place, May 8, 1888.

My dear Spencer,

I have been on the point of writing to you, but put it off for lack of anything cheerful to say.

After I had recovered from my pleurisy, I could not think why my strength did not come back. It turns out that there is some weakness and dilatation of the heart, but lucky no valvular mischief. I am condemned to the life of a prize pig—physical and mental idleness, and corporeal stuffing with meat and drink, and I am certainly improving under the regimen.

I am told I have a fair chance of getting all right again. But I take it as a pretty broad hint to be quiet for the rest of my days. At present I have to be very quiet, and I spend most of my time on my back.

You and I, my dear friend, have had our innings, and carry our bats out while our side is winning. One could not reasonably ask for more. And considering the infinite possibilities of physical and moral suffering which beset us, I, for my part, am well pleased that things are no worse.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 1, 1888.

My dear Knowles,

I have been living the life of a prize pig for the last six weeks—no exercise, much meat and drink, and as few manifestations of intelligence as possible, for the purpose of persuading my heart to return to its duty.

I am astonished to find that there is a kick left in me—even when your friend Kropotkin pitches into me without the smallest justification. Vide 19, June, page 820.

Just look at 19, February, page 168. I say, "AT THE PRESENT TIME, the produce of the soil does not suffice," etc.

I did not say a word about the capabilities of the soil if, as part and parcel of a political and social revolution on the grandest scale, we all took to spade husbandry.

As a matter of fact, I did try to find out a year or two ago, whether the soil of these islands could, under any circumstances, feed its present population with wheat. I could not get any definite information, but I understood Caird to think that it could.

In my argument, however, the question is of no moment. There must be some limit to the production of food by a given area, and there is none to population.

What a stimulus vanity is!—nothing but the vain dislike of being thought in the wrong would have induced me to trouble myself or bore you with this letter. Bother Kropotkin!

I think his article very interesting and important nevertheless.

I am getting better but very slowly.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply, Mr. Knowles begged him to come to lunch and a quiet talk, and further suggested, "as an ENTIRELY UNBIASSED person," that he ought to answer Kropotkin's errors in the "Nineteenth Century," and not only in a private letter behind his back.

The answer is as follows:—]

4 Marlborough Place, June 3, 1888.

My dear Knowles,

Your invitation is tantalising. I wish I could accept it. But it is now some six weeks that my excursions have been limited to a daily drive. The rest of my time I spend on the flat of my back, eating, drinking, and doing absolutely nothing besides, except taking iron and digitalis.

I meant to have gone abroad a month ago, but it turned out that my heart was out of order, and though I am getting better, progress is slow, and I do not suppose I shall get away for some weeks yet.

I have neither brains nor nerves, and the very thought of controversy puts me in a blue funk!

My doctors prophesy good things, as there is no valvular disease, only dilatation. But for the present I must subscribe myself (from an editorial point of view).

Your worthless and useless and bad-hearted friend,

T.H. Huxley.

[The British Association was to meet at Plymouth this year; and Mr. W.F. Collier (an uncle of John Collier, his son-in-law) invited Huxley and any friend of his to be his guest at Horrabridge.]

4 Marlborough Place, June 13, 1888.

My dear Mr. Collier,

It would have been a great pleasure to me to be your guest once more, but the Fates won't have it this time.

Dame Nature has given me a broad hint that I have had my innings, and, for the rest of my time, must be content to look on at the players.

It is not given to all of us to defy the doctors and go in for a new lease, as I am glad to hear you are doing. I declare that your open invitation to any friend of mine is the most touching mark of confidence I ever received. I am going to send it to my great ally Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society. I do not know whether he has made any other arrangements, and I am not quite sure whether he and his wife are going to Plymouth. But I hope they may be able to accept, for you will certainly like them, and they will certainly like you. I will ask him to write directly to you to save time.

With very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I forgot to say that I am mending as fast as I can expect to do.

CHAPTER 3.4.

1888.

[It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up sufficiently by the doctors for him to start for the Engadine. His first stage was to Lugano; the second by Menaggio and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to the Maloja. The summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he could scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that it was a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their surprise was the greater when, after a couple of months, they saw him walking his ten miles and going up two thousand feet without difficulty. As far as his heart was concerned, the experiment of sending him to the mountains was perfectly justified. With returning strength he threw himself once more into the pursuit of gentians, being especially interested in their distribution and hybridism, and the possibility of natural hybrids explaining the apparent connecting links between species. No doubt, too, he felt some gratification in learning from his friend Mr. (now Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer, that the results he had already obtained in pursuing this hobby had been of real value:—

Your important paper "On Alpine Gentians" (writes the latter) has begun to attract the attention of botanists. It has led Baillon, who is the most acute of the French people, to make some observations of his own.

At the Maloja he stayed twelve weeks, but it was not until nearly two months had elapsed that he could write of any decided improvement, although even then his anticipations for the future were of the gloomiest. The "secret" alluded to in the following letter is the destined award to him of the Copley medal:—]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, Ober Engadine, August 17, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I know you will be glad to hear that, at last, I can report favourably of my progress. The first six weeks of our stay here the weather was cold, foggy, wet, and windy—in short, everything it should not be. If the hotel had not been as it is, about the most comfortable in Switzerland, I do not know what I should have done. As it was, I got a very bad attack of "liver," which laid me up for ten days or so. A Brighton doctor—Bluett by name, and well up to his work—kindly looked after me.

With the early days of August the weather changed for the better, and for the last fortnight we have had perfect summer—day after day. I soon picked up my walking power, and one day got up to Lake Longhin, about 2000 feet up. That was by way of an experiment, and I was none the worse for it, but usually my walks are of a more modest description. To-day we are all clouds and rain, and my courage is down to zero, with praecordial discomfort. It seems to me that my heart is quite strong enough to do all that can reasonably be required of it—if all the rest of the machinery is in good order, and the outside conditions are favourable. But the poor old pump cannot contend with grit or want of oil anywhere.

I mean to stay here as long as I can; they say it is often very fine up to the middle of September. Then we shall migrate lower, probably on the Italian side, and get home most likely in October. But I really am very much puzzled to know what to do.

My wife has not been very well lately, and Ethel has contrived to sprain her ankle at lawn-tennis. Collier has had to go to Naples, but we expect him back in a few days.

With our united love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I was very pleased to hear of a secret my wife communicated to me. So long as I was of any use, I did not care much about having the fact recognised, but now that I am used up I like the feather in my cap. "Fuimus." Let us have some news of you.

[Sir M. Foster, who was kept in England by the British Association till September 10, wrote that he was going abroad for the rest of September, and proposed to spend some time at Menaggio, whence he hoped to effect a meeting. He winds up with a jest at his recent unusual occupation:—"I have had no end of righteousness accounted to me for helping to entertain Bishops at Cambridge." Hence the postcript in reply:—]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 2, 1888.

My dear Foster,

A sharp fall of snow has settled our minds, which have been long wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ultimately leave till the 22nd.]

All the wiseacres tell us that there are fresher breezes (vento di Lecco) at Menaggio than anywhere else in the Como country, and at any rate we are going to try whether we can exist there. If it does not answer, we will leave a note for you there to say where we are gone. It would be very jolly to forgather.

I am sorry to leave this most comfortable of hotels, but I do not think that cold would suit either of us. I am marvellously well so long as I am taking sharp exercise, and I do my nine or ten miles without fatigue. It is only when I am quiet that I know that I have a heart.

I do not feel at all sure how matters may be 4000 feet lower, but what I have gained is all to the good in the way of general health. In spite of all the bad weather we have had, I have nothing but praise for this place—the air is splendid, excellent walks for invalids, capital drainage, and the easiest to reach of all places 6000 feet up.

My wife sends her love, and thanks Mrs. Foster for her letter, and looks forward to meeting her.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Wash yourself clean of all that episcopal contamination or you may infect me!

[But adverse circumstances prevented the meeting.]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 24, 1888.

My dear Foster,

As ill luck would have it, we went over to Pontresina to-day (for the first time), and have only just got back (5.30). I have just telegraphed to you.

All our plans have been upset by the Fohn wind, which gave us four days' continuous downpour here—upset the roads, and flooded the Chiavenna to Colico Railway. We hear that the latter is not yet repaired.

I was going to write to you at the Vittoria, but thought you could have hardly got there yet. We took rooms there a week ago, and then had to countermand them. If there are any letters kicking about for us, will you ask them to send them on?

By way of an additional complication, my poor wife gave herself an unlucky strain this morning, and even if the railway is mended I do not think she will be fit to travel for two or three days. We are very disappointed. What is to be done?

I am wonderfully better. So long as I am taking active exercise and the weather is dry, I am quite comfortable, and only discover that I have a heart when I am kept quiet by bad weather or get my liver out of order. Here I can walk nine or ten miles up hill and down dale without difficulty or fatigue. What I may be able to do elsewhere is doubtful.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

It would do you and Mrs. Foster a great deal of good to come up here. Not out of your way at all! Oh dear no!

Zurich, October 4, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I should have written to you at Stresa, but I had mislaid your postcard, and it did not turn up till too late.

We made up our minds after all that we would as soon not go down to the Lakes—where the ground would be drying up after the inundations—so we went the other way over the Julier to Tiefenkasten, and from T. to Ragatz, where we stayed a week. Ragatz was hot and steamy at first—cold and steamy afterwards—but earlier in the season, I should think, it would be pleasant.

Last Monday we migrated here, and have had the vilest weather until to-day. All yesterday it rained cats and dogs.

To-day we are off to Neuhausen (Schweitzerhof) to have a look at the Rhine falls. If it is pleasant we may stop there a few days. Then we go to Stuttgart, on our way to Nuremberg, which neither of us have seen. We shall be at the "Bavarian Hotel," and a letter will catch us there, if you have anything to say, I daresay up to the middle of the month. After that Frankfort, and then home.

We do not find long railway journeys very good for either of us, and I am trying to keep within six hours at a stretch.

I am not so vigorous as I was at Maloja, but still infinitely better than when I left England.

I hope the mosquitoes left something of you in Venice. When I was there in October there were none!

My wife joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some friendly chaff in Sir M. Foster's reply to the latter contains at least a real indication of the way in which Huxley became the centre of the little society at the Maloja:—]

You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service this summer. At most table d'hotes in the Lakes I overheard people talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on account of their intimacy with "Professor Huxley"!!

[But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected quarter. This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer, with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English representatives of that science who came to the hotel.

A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:—]

In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in sunshine I felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years. It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions. Four thousand feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return. Quite certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth. I like the place, but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.

I should be very glad if we could be within reach of you and help to cheer you up, but I cannot say anything definite at present about our winter doings...

My wife sends her kindest regards. She is much better than when we left, which is lucky for me, as I have no mind, and could not make it up if I had any. The only vigour I have is in my legs, and that only when the sun shines.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[A curious incident on this journey deserves recording, as an instance of a futile "warning." On the night of October 6-7, Huxley woke in the night and seemed to hear an inward voice say, "Don't go to Stuttgart and Nuremberg; go straight home." All he did was to make a note of the occurrence and carry out his original plan, whereupon nothing happened.

The following to his youngest daughter, who had gone back earlier from the Maloja, refers to her success in winning the prize for modelling at the Slade School of Art.]

Schweitzerhof, Neuhausen, October 7, 1888.

Dearest Babs,

I will sit to you like "Pater on a monument smiling at grief" for the medallion. As to the photographs, I will try to get them done to order either at Stuttgart or Nuremberg, if we stay at either place long enough. But I am inclined to think they had better be done at home, and then you could adjust the length of the caoutchouc visage to suit your artistic convenience.

We have been crowing and flapping our wings over the medal and trimmings. The only thing I lament is that "your father's influence" was not brought to bear; there is no telling what you might have got if it had been. Thoughtless—very!!

So sorry we did not come here instead of stopping at Ragatz. The falls are really fine, and the surrounding country a wide tableland, with the great snowy peaks of the Oberland on the horizon. Last evening we had a brilliant sunset, and the mountains were lighted up with the most delicate rosy blush you can imagine.

To-day it rains cats and dogs again. You will have seen in the papers that the Rhine and the Aar and the Rhone and the Arve are all in flood. There is more water here in the falls than there has been these ten years. However, we have got to go, as the hotel shuts up to-morrow, and there seems a good chance of reaching Stuttgart without water in the carriage.

Long railway journeys do not seem to suit either of us, and we have fixed the maximum at six hours. I expect we shall be home some time in the third week of this month.

Love to Hal and anybody else who may be at home.

Ever your Pater.

4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We got back on Thursday, and had a very good passage, and took it easy by staying the night at Dover. The "Lord Warden" gave us the worst dinner we have had for four months, at double the price of the good dinners. I wonder why we cannot manage these things better in England.

We are both very glad to be at home again, and trust we may be allowed to enjoy our own house for a while. But, oh dear, the air is not Malojal! not even at Hempstead, whither I walked yesterday, and the pump labours accordingly.

I found the first part of the fifth edition of the Text-book among the two or three hundredweight of letters and books which had accumulated during four months. Gratulire!

By the way, South Kensington has sent me some inquiry about Examinations, which I treat with contempt, as doubtless you have a duplicate.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On October 25 he announces his return to Sir Joseph Hooker, and laments his loss of vigour at the sea-level:—]

Hames won't let me stay here in November, and I think we shall go to Brighton. Unless on the flat of my back, in bed, I shall not have been at home a month all this year.

I have been utterly idle. There was a lovely case of hybridism, Gentiana lutea and G. punctata, in a little island in the lake of Sils; but I fell ill and was confined to bed just after I found it out. It would be very interesting if somebody would work out Distribution five miles round the Maloja as a centre. There are the most curious local differences.

You asked me to send you a copy of my obituary of Darwin. So I put one herewith, though no doubt you have seen it in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society."

I should like to know what you think of 17 to 27. If ever I am able to do anything again I will enlarge on these heads.

[In these pages of the Obituary Notice ("Proceedings of the Royal Society" 44 Number 269) he endeavours:—]

to separate the substance of the theory from its accidents, and to show that a variety, not only of hostile comments, but of friendly would-be improvements lose their raison d'etre to the careful student...

It is not essential to Darwin's theory that anything more should be assumed than the facts of heredity, variation, and unlimited multiplication; and the validity of the deductive reasoning as to the effect of the last (that is, of the struggle for existence which it involves) upon the varieties resulting from the operation of the former. Nor is it essential that one should take up any particular position in regard to the mode of variation, whether, for example, it takes place per saltum or gradually; whether it is definite in character or indefinite. Still less are those who accept the theory bound to any particular views as to the causes of heredity or of variation.

[The remaining letters of the year trace the gradual bettering of health, from the "no improvement" of October to the almost complete disappearance of bad symptoms in December. He had renounced Brighton, which he detested, in favour of Eastbourne, where the keen air of the downs and the daily walk over Beachy Head acted as a tolerable substitute for the Alps. Though he would not miss the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, when he was to receive the Copley medal, one more link binding him to his old friend Hooker, he did not venture to stay for the dinner in the evening.

This autumn also he resigned his place on the board of Governors of Eton College.] "I think it must be a year and a half," [he writes,] "since I attended a meeting, and I am not likely to do better in the future."

4 Marlborough Place, October 28, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

Best thanks for your suggestion about the cottage, namely "that before you decide on Brighton Mrs. Huxley should come down and look at the cottage below my house" at Sunningdale, but I do not see my way to adopting it. A house, however small, involves servants and ties one to one place. The conditions that suit me do not seem to be found anywhere but in the high Alps, and I can't afford to keep a second house in the country and pass the summer in Switzerland as well.

We are going to Brighton (not because we love it, quite t'other) on account of the fine weather that is to be had there in November and December. We shall be back for some weeks about Christmas, and then get away somewhere else—Malvern possibly—out of the east winds of February and March.

I do not like this nomadic life at all, but it appears to be Hobson's choice between that and none.

I am sorry to hear you are troubled by your ears. I am so deaf that I begin to fight shy of society. It irritates me not to hear; it irritates me still more to be spoken to as if I were deaf, and the absurdity of being irritated on the last ground irritates me still more.

I wish you would start that business of giving a competent young botanist with good legs 100 pounds to go and study distribution in the Engadine—from the Maloja as centre—in a circle of a radius of eight or ten miles. The distribution of the four principal conifers, Arolla pine, larch, mountain pine and spruce, is most curious, the why and wherefore nowise apparent.

I am very sorry I cannot be at x on Thursday, but they won't let me be out at night at present.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, October 28, 1888.

My dear Foster,

No fear of my trying to stop in London. Hames won't have it. He came and overhauled me the other day. As I expected, the original mischief is just as it was. One does not get rid either of dilatation or its results at my time of life. The only thing is to keep the pipes clear by good conditions of existence.

After endless discussion we have settled on Brighton for November and December. It is a hateful place to my mind, but there is more chance of sunshine there (at this time) than anywhere else. We shall come up for a week or two on this side of Christmas, and then get away somewhere else out of the way of the east winds of February and March.

I do not think that the Hazlemere country would do for us, nor indeed any country place so long as we cannot regularly set up house.

Heaven knows I don't want to bother about anything at present. But I should like to convince — that he does not yet understand the elements of his subject. What a copious ink-spilling cuttlefish of a writer he is!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., November 2, 1888.

My dear Skelton,

Best thanks for the second volume of "Maitland of Lethington." I have been in the Engadine for the last four months, trying to repair the crazy old "house I live in," and meeting with more success than I hoped for when I left home.

Your volume turned up amidst a mountain of accumulated books, papers, and letters, and I can only hope it has not been too long without acknowledgment.

I have been much interested in your argument about the "Casket letters." The comparison of Crawford's deposition with the Queen's letter leaves no sort of doubt that the writer of one had the other before him; and under the circumstances I do not see how it can be doubted that the Queen's letter is forged.

But though thus wholly agreeing with you in substance, I cannot help thinking that your language on page 341 may be seriously pecked at.

My experience of reporters leads me to think that there would be no discrepancy at all comparable to that between the two accounts, and I speak from the woeful memories of the many Royal Commissions I have wearied over. The accuracy of a good modern reporter is really wonderful.

And I do not think that "the two documents were drawn by the same hand." I should say that the writer of the letter had Crawford's deposition before him, and made what he considered improvements here and there.

You will say this letter is like Falstaff's reckoning, with but a pennyworth of thanks to this monstrous quantity of pecking.

But the gratitude is solid and the criticism mere two-dimension stuff. It is a charming book.

With kind remembrances to Mrs. Skelton.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 9, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We came here on Tuesday, on which day, by ill luck, the east wind also started, and has been blowing half a gale ever since. We are in the last house but one to the west, and as high up as we dare go—looking out on the sea. The first day we had to hold on to our chairs to prevent being blown away in the sitting-room, but we have hired a screen and can now croon over the fire without danger.

A priori, the conditions cannot be said to have been promising for two people, one of whom is liable to bronchitis and rheumatism and the other to pleurisy, but, as I am so fond of rubbing into Herbert Spencer, a priori reasonings are mostly bosh, and we are thriving.

With three coats on I find the air on Beachy Head eminently refreshing, and there is so much light in the southern quarter just now, that we confidently hope to see the sun once more in the course of a few days.

As I told you in my official letter, I am going up for the 30th. But I am in a quandary about the dinner, partly by reason of the inevitable speech, and partly the long sitting. I should very much like to attend, and I think I could go through with it. On the other hand, my wife declares it would be very imprudent, and I am not quite sure she is wrong. I wish you would tell me exactly what you think about the matter.

The way I pick up directly I get into good air makes me suspect myself of malingering, and yet I certainly had grown very seedy in London before we left.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 13, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We are very sorry to hear about Michael Junior. [Sir M. Foster's son was threatened with lung trouble, and was ordered to live abroad. He proposed to carry his medical experience to the Maloja and practise there during the summer. Huxley offered to give him some introductions.] Experto crede; of all anxieties the hardest to bear is that about one's children. But considering the way you got off yourself and have become the hearty and bucolic person you are, I think you ought to be cheery. Everybody speaks well of the youngster, and he is bound to behave himself well and get strong as swiftly as possible.

Though very loth, I give up the dinner. But unless I am on my back I shall turn up at the meeting. I think that is a compromise very creditable to my prudence.

Though it is blowing a gale of wind from south-west to-day there is real sunshine, and it is fairly warm. I am very glad we came here instead of that beastly Brighton.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 15, 1888.

My dear Evans,

I am very sorry to have missed you. I told my doctor that while the weather was bad it was of no use to go away, and when it was fine I might just as well stop at home; but he did not see the force of my reasoning, and packed us off here.

The award of the Copley is a kindness I feel very much...

The Congress [The International Geological Congress, at which he was to have presided.] seems to have gone off excellently. I consider that my own performance of the part of dummy was distinguished.

So the Lawes business is fairly settled at last! "Lawes Deo," as the Claimant might have said. But the pun will be stale, as you doubtless have already made all possible epigrams and punnigrams on the topic.

My wife joins with me in kindest regards to Mrs. Evans and yourself. If Mrs. Evans had only come up to the Maloja, she would have had real winter and no cold.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 15, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

You would have it that the Royal Society broke the law in giving you the Copley, and they certainly violated custom in giving it to me the year following. Whoever heard of two biologers getting it one after another? It is very pleasant to have our niches in the Pantheon close together. It is getting on for forty years since we were first "acquent," and considering with what a very considerable dose of tenacity, vivacity, and that glorious firmness (which the beasts who don't like us call obstinacy) we are both endowed, the fact that we have never had the shadow of a shade of a quarrel is more to our credit than being ex-Presidents and Copley medallists.

But we have had a masonic bond in both being well salted in early life. I have always felt I owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of things gained in the old "Rattlesnake".

I am getting on pretty well here, though the weather has been mostly bad. All being well I shall attend the meeting of the Society on the 30th, but not the dinner. I am very sorry to miss the latter, but I dare not face the fatigue and the chances of a third dose of pleurisy.

My wife sends kindest regards and thanks for your congratulations.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 17, 1888.

My dear Flower,

...Many thanks for taking my troublesomeness in good part. My friend will be greatly consoled to know that you have the poor man "in your eye." Schoolmaster, naturalist, and coal merchant used to be the three refuges for the incompetent. Schoolmaster is rapidly being eliminated, so I suppose the pressure on Natural History and coals will increase.

I am glad you have got the Civil Service Commissioners to listen to common sense. I had an awful battle with them (through the Department) over Newton, who is now in your paleontological department. If I recollect rightly, they examined him inter alia on the working of the Poor Laws!

The Royal Society has dealt very kindly with me. They patted me on the back when I started thirty-seven years ago, and it was a great encouragement. They give me their best, now that my race is run, and it is a great consolation. At the far end of life all one's work looks so uncommonly small, that the good opinion of one's contemporaries acquires a new value.

We have a summer's day, and I am writing before an open window! Yesterday it blew great guns.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter to Lady Welby, the point of which is that to be "morally convinced" is not the same thing as to offer scientific proof, refers to an article in the "Church Quarterly" for October called "Truthfulness in Science and Religion," evoked by Huxley's "Nineteenth Century" article on "Science and the Bishops."]

November 27, 1888.

Dear Lady Welby,

Many thanks for the article in the "Church Quarterly", which I return herewith. I am not disposed to bestow any particular attention upon it; as the writer, though evidently a fair-minded man, appears to me to be entangled in a hopeless intellectual muddle, and one which has no novelty. Christian beliefs profess to be based upon historical facts. If there was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth, and if His biography given in the Gospels is a fiction, Christianity vanishes.

Now the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of history is just as much a question of pure science as the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of geology, and the value of evidence in the two cases must be tested in the same way. If any one tells me that the evidence of the existence of man in the miocene epoch is as good as that upon which I frequently act every day of my life, I reply that this is quite true, but that it is no sort of reason for believing in the existence of miocene man.

Surely no one but a born fool can fail to be aware that we constantly, and in very grave conjunctions, are obliged to act upon extremely bad evidence, and that very often we suffer all sorts of penalties in consequence. And surely one must be something worse than a born fool to pretend that such decision under the pressure of the enigmas of life ought to have the smallest influence in those judgments which are made with due and sufficient deliberation. You will see that these considerations go to the root of the whole matter. I regret that I cannot discuss the question more at length and deal with sundry topics put forward in your letter. At present writing is a burden to me.

[A letter to Professor Ray Lankester mixes grave and gay in a little homily, edged by personal experience, on the virtues and vices of combativeness.]

10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, December 6, 1888.

I think it would be a very good thing both for you and for Oxford if you went there. Oxford science certainly wants stirring up, and notwithstanding your increase in years and wisdom, I think you would bear just a little more stirring down, so that the conditions for a transfer of energy are excellent!

Seriously, I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. Science might say to you as the Staffordshire collier's wife said to her husband at the fair, "Get thee foighten done and come whoam." You have a fair expectation of ripe vigour for twenty years; just think what may be done with that capital.

No use to tu quoque me. Under the circumstances of the time, warfare has been my business and duty.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Two more letters of the year refer to the South Kensington examinations, for which Huxley was still nominally responsible. As before, we see him reluctant to sign the report upon papers which he had not himself examined; yet at the same time doing all that lay in his power to assist by criticising the questions and thinking out the scheme of teaching on which the examination was to be based. He replies to some proposed changes in a letter to Sir M. Foster of December 12:—]

I am very sorry I cannot agree with your clients about the examination. They should recollect the late Master of Trinity's aphorism that even the youngest of us is not infallible.

I know exactly upon what principles I am going, and so far as I am at present informed that advantage is peculiar to my side. Two points I am quite clear about—one is the exclusion of Amphioxus, and the other the retention of so much of the Bird as will necessitate a knowledge of Sauropsidan skeletal characters and the elements of skeletal homologies in skull and limbs.

I have taken a good deal of pains over drawing up a new syllabus—including dogfish—and making room for it by excluding Amphioxus and all of bird except skeleton. I have added Lamprey (cranial and spinal skeleton, NOT face cartilages), so that the intelligent student may know what a notochord means before he goes to embryology. I have excluded Distoma and kept Helix.

The Committee must now settle the matter. I have done with it.

[On December 27 he writes:—]

I have been thinking over the Examinership business without coming to any very satisfactory result. The present state of things is not satisfactory so far as I am concerned. I do not like to appear to be doing what I am not doing.

— would of course be the successor indicated, if he had not so carefully cut his own throat as an Examiner...He would be bringing an action against the Lord President before he had been three years in office!...As I told Forster, when he was Vice-President, the whole value of the Examiner system depends on the way the examiners do their work. I have the gravest doubt about — steadily plodding through the disgustful weariness of it as you and I have done, or observing any regulation that did not suit his fancy.

[With this may be compared the letter of May 19, 1889, to Sir J. Donnelly, when he finally resolved to give up the "sleeping partnership" in the examination.

His last letter of the year was written to Sir J. Hooker, when transferring to him the "archives" of the x Club, as the new Treasurer.]

4 Marlborough Place, December 29, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

All good wishes to you and yours, and many of them.

Thanks for the cheque. You are very confiding to send it without looking at the account. But I have packed up the "Archives," which poor dear Busk handed over to me, and will leave them at the Athenaeum for you. Among them you will find the account book. There are two or three cases, when I was absent, in which the names are not down. I have no doubt Frankland gave them to me by letter, but the book was at home and they never got set down. Peccavi!

I have been picking up in the most astonishing way during the last fortnight or three weeks at Eastbourne. My doctor, Hames, carefully examined my heart yesterday, and told me that though some slight indications were left, he should have thought nothing of them if he had not followed the whole history of the case. With fresh air and exercise and careful avoidance of cold and night air I am to be all right again in a few months.

I am not fond of coddling; but as Paddy gave his pig the best corner in his cabin—because "shure, he paid the rint"—I feel bound to take care of myself as a household animal of value, to say nothing of any other grounds. So, much as I should like to be with you all on the 3rd, I must defer to the taboo.

The wife got a nasty bronchitic cold as soon as she came up. She is much better now. But I shall be glad to get her down to Eastbourne again.

Except that, we are all very flourishing, as I hope you are.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.5.

1889.

[The events to be chronicled in this year are, as might be expected, either domestic or literary. The letters are full of allusions to his long controversy in defence of Agnosticism, mainly with Dr. Wace, who had declared the use of the name to be a "mere evasion" on the part of those who ought to be dubbed infidels (Apropos of this controversy, a letter may be cited which appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1884, in answer to certain inquiries from the editor as to the right definition of Agnosticism:—]

Some twenty years ago, or thereabouts, I invented the word "Agnostic" to denote people who, like myself, confess themselves to be hopelessly ignorant concerning a variety of matters, about which metaphysicians and theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, dogmatise with the utmost confidence, and it has been a source of some amusement to me to watch the gradual acceptance of the term and its correlate, "Agnosticism" (I think the "Spectator" first adopted and popularised both), until now Agnostics are assuming the position of a recognised sect, and Agnosticism is honoured by especial obloquy on the part of the orthodox. Thus it will be seen that I have a sort of patent right in "Agnostic" (it is my trade mark), and I am entitled to say that I can state authentically what was originally meant by Agnosticism. What other people may understand by it, by this time, I do not know. If a General Council of the Church Agnostic were held, very likely I should be condemned as a heretic. But I speak only for myself in answering these questions.

1. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.

2. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of popular anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.

3. I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of existing religions. On trial of any so-called miracle the verdict of science is "Not proven." But true Agnosticism will not forget that existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the intelligible universe, which "are not dreamt of in our philosophy." The theological "gnosis" would have us believe that the world is a conjurer's house; the anti-theological "gnosis" talks as if it were a "dirt-pie," made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may be behind phenomena.); [to the building of the new house at Eastbourne, and to the marriage in quick succession of his two youngest daughters, whereby, indeed, the giving up of the house in London and definite departure from London was made possible.

All the early part of the year, till he found it necessary to go to Switzerland again, he stayed unwillingly in Eastbourne, from time to time running up to town, or having son or daughter to stay with him for a week, his wife being too busy to leave town, with the double preparations for the weddings on hand, so that he writes to her:] "I feel worse than the 'cowardly agnostic' I am said to be—for leaving you to face your botherations alone." [One can picture him still firm of tread, with grizzled head a little stooped from his square shoulders, pacing the sea wall with long strides, or renewing somewhat of his strength as it again began to fail, in the keener air of the downs, warmly defended against chill by a big cap—for he had been suffering from his ears—and a long rough coat. He writes (February 22):] "I have bought a cap with flaps to protect my ears. I look more 'doggy' than ever." [And on March 3:—]

We have had a lovely day, quite an Italian sky and sea, with a good deal of Florentine east wind. I walked up to the Signal House, and was greatly amused by a young sheep-dog whose master could hardly get him away from circling round me and staring at me with a short dissatisfied bark every now and then. It is the undressed wool of my coat bothers all the dogs. They can't understand why a creature which smells so like a sheep should walk on its hind legs. I wish I could have relieved that dog's mind, but I did not see my way to an explanation.

From this time on, the effects of several years' comparative rest became more perceptible. His slowly returning vigour was no longer sapped by the unceasing strain of multifarious occupations. And if his recurrent ill-health sometimes seems too strongly insisted on, it must be remembered that he had always worked at the extreme limit of his powers—the limit, as he used regretfully to say, imposed on his brain by his other organs—and that after his first breakdown he was never very far from a second. When this finally came in 1884, his forces were so far spent that he never expected to recover as he did.

In the marriage this year of his youngest daughter, Huxley was doomed to experience the momentary little twinge which will sometimes come to the supporter of an unpopular principle when he first puts it into practice among his own belongings.

Athenaeum Club, January 14, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I have just left the x "Archives" here for you. I left them on my table by mischance when I came here on the x day.

I have a piece of family news for you. My youngest daughter Ethel is going to marry John Collier.

I have always been a great advocate for the triumph of common sense and justice in the "Deceased Wife's Sister" business—and only now discover, that I had a sneaking hope that all of my own daughters would escape that experiment!

They are quite suited to one another and I would not wish a better match for her. And whatever annoyances and social pin-pricks may come in Ethel's way, I know nobody less likely to care about them.

We shall have to go to Norway, I believe, to get the business done.

In the meantime, my wife (who has been laid up with bronchitic cold ever since we came home) and I have had as much London as we can stand, and are off to-morrow to Eastbourne again, but to more sheltered quarters.

I hope Lady Hooker and you are thriving. Don't conceal the news from her, as my wife is always accusing me of doing.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

To Mr. W.F. Collier.

4 Marlborough Place, January 24, 1889.

Many thanks for your kind letter. I have as strong an affection for Jack as if he were my own son, and I have felt very keenly the ruin we involuntarily brought upon him—by our poor darling's terrible illness and death. So that if I had not already done my best to aid and abet other people in disregarding the disabilities imposed by the present monstrous state of the law, I should have felt bound to go as far as I could towards mending his life. Ethel is just suited to him...Of course I could have wished that she should be spared the petty annoyances which she must occasionally expect. But I know of no one less likely to care for them.

Your Shakespere parable is charming—but I am afraid it must be put among the endless things that are read IN to the "divine Williams" as the Frenchman called him. [The second part of the letter replies to the question whether Shakespeare had any notion of the existence of the sexes in plants and the part played in their fertilisation by insects, which, of course, would be prevented from visiting them by rainy weather, when he wrote in the "Midsummer Night's Dream":—

The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye, And when she weeps, weeps every little flower Lamenting some enforced chastity.]

There was no knowledge of the sexes of plants in Shakespere's time, barring some vague suggestion about figs and dates. Even in the 18th century, after Linnaeus, the observations of Sprengel, who was a man of genius, and first properly explained the action of insects, were set aside and forgotten.

I take it that Shakespere is really alluding to the "enforced chastity" of Dian (the moon). The poets ignore that little Endymion business when they like!

I have recovered in such an extraordinary fashion that I can plume myself on being an "interesting case," though I am not going to compete with you in that line. And if you look at the February "Nineteenth" I hope you will think that my brains are none the worse. But perhaps that conceited speech is evidence that they are.

We came to town to make the acquaintance of Nettie's fiance, and I am happy to say the family takes to him. When it does not take to anybody, it is the worse for that anybody.

So, before long, my house will be empty, and as my wife and I cannot live in London, I think we shall pitch our tent in Eastbourne. Good Jack offers to give us a pied-a-terre when we come to town. To-day we are off to Eastbourne again. Carry off Harry, who is done up from too zealous Hospital work. However, it is nothing serious.

The following is in reply to a request that he would write a letter, as he describes it elsewhere, "about the wife's sister business—for the edification of the peers."

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 12, 1889.

My dear Donnelly,

I feel "downright mean," as the Yankees say, that I have not done for the sake of right and justice what I am moved to do now that I have a personal interest in the matter of the directest kind; and I rather expect that will be thrown in my teeth if my name is at the bottom of anything I write.

On the other hand, I loathe anonymity. However, we can take time to consider that point.

Anyhow I will set to work on the concoction of a letter, if you will supply me with the materials which will enable me to be thoroughly posted up in the facts.

I have just received your second letter. Pity you could not stay over yesterday—it was very fine.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The letter in question is as follows:—]

April 30, 1889.

Dear Lord Hartington,

I am assured by those who know more about the political world than I do, that if Lord Salisbury would hold his hand and let his party do as they like about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill which is to come on next week, it would pass. Considering the irritation against the bishops and a certain portion of the lay peers among a number of people who have the means of making themselves heard and felt, which is kept up and aggravated, as time goes on, by the action of the Upper House in repeatedly snubbing the Lower, about this question, I should have thought it (from a Conservative point of view) good policy to heal the sore.

The talk of Class versus Mass is generally mere clap-trap; but, in this case, there is really no doubt that a fraction of the Classes stands in the way of the fulfilment of a very reasonable demand on the part of the Masses.

A clear-headed man like Lord Salisbury would surely see this if it were properly pressed on his attention.

I do not presume to say whether it is practicable or convenient for the Leader of the Liberal Unionist party to take any steps in this direction; and I should hardly have ventured to ask you to take this suggestion into consideration if the interest I have always taken in the D.W.S. Bill had not recently been quickened by the marriage of one of my daughters as a Deceased Wife's Sister.

I am, etc.

[Meantime the effect of Eastbourne, which Sir John Donnelly had induced him to try, was indeed wonderful. He found in it the place he had so long been looking for. References to his health read very differently from those of previous years. He walked up Beachy Head regularly without suffering from any heart symptoms. And though Beachy Head was not the same thing as the Alps, it made a very efficient substitute for a while, and it was not till April that the need of change began to make itself felt. And so he made up his mind to listen no more to the eager friends who wished him to pitch his tent near them at either end of Surrey, but to settle down at Eastbourne, and, by preference, to build a house of the size and on the spot that suited himself, rather than to take any existing house lower down in the town. He must have been a trifle irritated by unsolicited advice when he wrote the following:—]

It is very odd that people won't give one credit for common sense. We have tried one winter here, and if we tried another we should be just as much dependent upon the experience of longer residents as ever we were. However, as I told X. I was going to settle matters to-morrow, there won't be any opportunity for discussing that topic when he comes. If we had taken W.'s house, somebody would have immediately told us that we had chosen the dampest site in winter and the stuffiest in summer, and where, moreover, the sewage has to be pumped up into the main drain.

[He finally decided upon a site on the high ground near Beachy Head, a little way back from the sea front, at the corner of the Staveley and Buxton Roads, with a guarantee from the Duke of Devonshire's agent that no house should be built at the contiguous end of the adjoining plot of land in the Buxton Road, a plot which he himself afterwards bought. The principal rooms were planned for the back of the house, looking south-west over open gardens to the long line of downs which culminate in Beachy Head, but with due provision against southerly gales and excess of sunshine.

On May 29 the builder's contract was accepted, and for the rest of the year the progress of the house, which was designed by his son-in-law, F.W. Waller, afforded a constant interest.

Meantime, with the improvement in his general health, the old appetite for work returned with increased and unwonted zest. For the first time in his life he declares that he enjoyed the process of writing. As he wrote somewhat later to his newly married daughter from Eastbourne, where he had gone again very weary the day after her wedding: "Luckily the bishops and clergy won't let me alone, so I have been able to keep myself pretty well amused in replying." The work which came to him so easily and pleasurably was the defence of his attitude of agnosticism against the onslaught made upon it at the previous Church Congress by Dr. Wace, the Principal of King's College, London, and followed up by articles in the "Nineteenth Century" from the pen of Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr. Laing, the effect of which upon him he describes to Mr. Knowles on December 30, 1888:—]

I have been stirred up to the boiling pitch by Wace, Laing, and Harrison in re Agnosticism, and I really can't keep the lid down any longer. Are you minded to admit a goring article into the February "Nineteenth"?

[As for his health, he adds:—]

I have amended wonderfully in the course of the last six weeks, and my doctor tells me I am going to be completely patched up—seams caulked and made seaworthy, so the old hulk may make another cruise.

We shall see. At any rate I have been able and willing to write lately, and that is more than I can say for myself for the first three-quarters of the year.

...I was so pleased to see you were in trouble about your house. Good for you to have a taste of it for yourself.

[To this controversy he contributed four articles; three directly in defence of Agnosticism, the fourth on the value of the underlying question of testimony to the miraculous.

The first article, "Agnosticism," appeared in the February number of the "Nineteenth Century". No sooner was this finished than he began a fresh piece of work, "which," he writes, "is all about miracles, and will be rather amusing." This, on the "Value of Testimony to the Miraculous," appeared in the following number of the "Nineteenth Century". It did not form part of the controversy on hand, though it bore indirectly upon the first principles of agnosticism. The question at issue, he urges, is not the possibility of miracles, but the evidence to their occurrence, and if from preconceptions or ignorance the evidence be worthless the historical reality of the facts attested vanishes. The cardinal point, then, "is completely, as the author of Robert Elsmere says, the value of testimony."

[The March number also contained replies from Dr. Wace and Bishop Magee on the main question, and an article by Mrs. Humphry Ward on a kindred subject to his own, "The New Reformation." Of these he writes on February 27:—]

The Bishop and Wace are hammering away in the "Nineteenth". Mrs. Ward's article very good, and practically an answer to Wace. Won't I stir them up by and by.

[And a few days later:—]

Mrs. Ward's service consists in her very clear and clever exposition of critical results and methods.

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 29, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I have just been delighted with Mrs. Ward's article. She has swept away the greater part of Wace's sophistries as a dexterous and strong-wristed housemaid sweeps away cobwebs with her broom, and saved a lot of time.

What in the world does the Bishop mean by saying that I have called Christianity "sorry stuff" (page 370)? To my knowledge I never so much as thought anything of the kind, let alone saying it.

I shall challenge him very sharply about this, and if, as I believe, he has no justification for his statement, my opinion of him will be very considerably lowered.

Wace has given me a lovely opening by his profession of belief in the devils going into the swine. I rather hoped I should get this out of him.

I find people are watching the game with great interest, and if it should be possible for me to give a little shove to the "New Reformation," I shall think the fag end of my life well spent.

After all, the reproach made to the English people that "they care for nothing but religion and politics" is rather to their credit. In the long run these are the two things that ought to interest a man more than any others.

I have been much bothered with ear-ache lately, but if all goes well I will send you a screed by the middle of March.

Snowing hard! They have had more snow within the last month than they have known for ten years here.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[He set to work immediately, and within ten days despatched his second contribution, "Agnosticism, a Rejoinder," which appeared in the April number of the "Nineteenth Century".

On March 3 he writes:—]

I am possessed by a writing demon, and have pretty well finished in the rough another article for Knowles, whose mouth is wide open for it.

[And on the 9th:—]

I sent off another article to Knowles last night—a regular facer for the clericals. You can't think how I enjoy writing now for the first time in my life.

[He writes at greater length to Mr. Knowles]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 10, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

There's a Divinity that shapes the ends (of envelopes!) rough-hew them how we will. This time I went and bought the strongest to be had, and sealed him up with wax in the shop. I put no note inside, meaning to write to you afterwards, and then I forgot to do so.

I can't understand Peterborough nohow. However, so far as the weakness of the flesh would permit me to abstain from smiting him and his brother Amalekite, I have tried to turn the tide of battle to matters of more importance.

The pith of my article is the proposition that Christ was not a Christian. I have not ventured to state my thesis exactly in that form—fearing the Editor—but, in a mild and proper way, I flatter myself I have demonstrated it. Really, when I come to think of the claims made by orthodox Christianity on the one hand, and of the total absence of foundation for them on the other, I find it hard to abstain from using a phrase which shocked me very much when Strauss first applied it to the Resurrection, "Welthistorischer Humbug!"

I don't think I have ever seen the portrait you speak of. I remember the artist—a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I forget—but I do not think I saw his finished work. Some of these days I will ask to see it.

I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here the next day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to come with me. If she does not knock up I shall be pleasantly surprised. The young couple are flourishing in Paris. I like what I have seen of him very much.

What is the "Cloister scheme"? [It referred to a plan for using the cloisters of Westminster Abbey to receive the monuments of distinguished men, so as to avoid the necessity of enlarging the Abbey itself.] Recollect how far away I am from the world, the flesh and the d—.

Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of Eginhard and Emma? What good pictures you will have in your monastery church!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again, a few days later:—]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne; March 15, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am sending my proof back to Spottiswoode's. I did not think the manuscript would make so much, and I am afraid it has lengthened in the process of correction.

You have a reader in your printer's office who provides me with jokes. Last time he corrected, where my manuscript spoke of the pigs as unwilling "porters" of the devils, into "porkers." And this time, when I, writing about the Lord's Prayer, say "current formula," he has it "canting formula." If only Peterborough had got hold of that! And I am capable of overlooking anything in a proof.

You see we have got to big questions now, and if these are once fairly before the general mind all the King's horses and all the King's men won't put the orthodox Humpty Dumpty where he was before.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[After the article came out he wrote again to Mr. Knowles:—]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., April 14, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am going to try and stop here, desolate as the house is now all the chicks have flown, for the next fortnight. Your talk of the inclemency of Torquay is delightfully consoling. London has been vile.

I am glad you are going to let Wace have another "go." My object, as you know, in the whole business has been to rouse people to think...

Considering that I got named in the House of Commons last night as an example of a temperate and well-behaved blasphemer, I think I am attaining my object. [In the debate upon the Religious Prosecutions Abolition Bill, Mr. Addison said "the last article by Professor Huxley in the "Nineteenth Century" showed that opinion was free when it was honestly expressed."—"Times" April 14.]

Of course I go for a last word, and I am inclined to think that whatever Wace may say, it may be best to get out of the region of controversy as far as possible and hammer in two big nails—(1) that the Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more about the spiritual world than anybody else, and (2) that Newman's doctrine of "Development" is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did not dream.

I have been reading some of his works lately, and I understand now why Kingsley accused him of growing dishonesty.

After an hour or two of him I began to lose sight of the distinction between truth and falsehood.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

If you are at home any day next week I will look in for a chat.

[The controversy was completed by a third article, "Agnosticism and Christianity," in the June number of the "Nineteenth Century". There was a humorous aspect of this article which tickled his fancy immensely, for he drove home his previous arguments by means of an authority whom his adversaries could not neglect, though he was the last man they could have expected to see brought up against them in this connection—Cardinal Newman. There is no better evidence for ancient than for modern miracles, he says in effect; let us therefore accept the teachings of the Church which maintains a continuous tradition on the subject. But there is a very different conclusion to be drawn from the same premises; all may be regarded as equally doubtful, and so he writes on May 30 to Sir J. Hooker:—]

By the way, I want you to enjoy my wind-up with Wace in this month's "Nineteenth" in the reading as much as I have in the writing. It's as full of malice [I.e. in the French sense of the word.] as an egg is full of meat, and my satisfaction in making Newman my accomplice has been unutterable. That man is the slipperiest sophist I have ever met with. Kingsley was entirely right about him.

Now for peace and quietness till after the next Church Congress!

[Three other letters to Mr. Knowles refer to this article.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 4, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am at the end of my London tether, and we go to Eastbourne (3 Jevington Gardens again) on Monday.

I have been working hard to finish my paper, and shall send it to you before I go.

I am astonished at its meekness. Being reviled, I revile not; not an exception, I believe, can be taken to the wording of one of the venomous paragraphs in which the paper abounds. And I perceive the truth of a profound reflection I have often made, that reviling is often morally superior to not reviling.

I give up Peterborough. His "Explanation" is neither straightforward, nor courteous, nor prudent. Of which last fact, it may be, he will be convinced when he reads my acknowledgment of his favours, which is soft, not with the softness of the answer which turneth away wrath, but with that of the pillow which smothered Desdemona.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I shall try to stand an hour or two of the Academy dinner, and hope it won't knock me up.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 6, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

If I had not gone to the Academy dinner I might have kept my promise about sending you my paper to-day. I indulged in no gastronomic indiscretions, and came away after H.R.H.'s speech, but I was dead beat all yesterday, nevertheless.

We are off to Eastbourne, and I will send the manuscript from there; there is very little to do.

Such a waste! I shall have to omit a paragraph that was really a masterpiece.

For who should I come upon in one of the rooms but the Bishop! As we shook hands, he asked whether that was before the fight or after; and I answered, "A little of both." Then we spoke our minds pretty plainly; and then we agreed to bury the hatchet. [As he says ("Collected Essays" 5 210), this chance meeting ended "a temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking and no less respect."]

So yesterday I tore up THE paragraph. It was so appropriate I could not even save it up for somebody else!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I sent back my proof last evening. I shall be in town Friday afternoon to Monday morning next, having a lot of things to do. So you may as well let me see a revise of the whole. Did you not say to me, "sitting by a sea-coal fire" (I say nothing about a "parcel gilt goblet"), that this screed was to be the "last word"? I don't mind how long it goes on so long as I have the last word. But you must expect nothing from me for the next three or four months. We shall be off abroad, not later than the 8th June, and among the everlasting hills, a fico for your controversies! Wace's paper shall be waste paper for me. Oh! This is a "goak" which Peterborough would not understand.

I think you are right about the wine and water business—I had my doubts—but it was too tempting. All the teetotalers would have been on my side.

There is no more curious example of the influence of education than the respect with which this poor bit of conjuring is regarded. Your genuine pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig. I trust you have properly enjoyed the extracts from Newman. That a man of his intellect should be brought down to the utterance of such drivel—by Papistry, is one of the strongest of arguments against that damnable perverter of mankind, I know of.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Shortly afterwards, he received a long and rambling letter in connection with this subject. Referring to the passage in the first article, "the apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly' should be the rule of life of a true agnostic," the writer began by begging him "to 'suffer gladly' one fool more," and after several pages wound up with a variation of the same phrase. It being impossible to give any valid answer to his hypothetical inquiries, Huxley could not resist the temptation to take the opening thus offered him, and replied:—]

Sir,

I beg leave to acknowledge your letter. I have complied with the request preferred in its opening paragraph.

Faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter also arises out of this controversy:—

Its occasion (writes Mr. Taylor) was one which I had written on seeing an article in which he referred to the Persian sect of the Babis. I had read with much interest the account of it in Count Gobineau's book, and was much struck with the points of likeness to the foundation of Christianity, and the contrast between the subsequent history of the two; I asked myself how, given the points of similarity, to account for the contrast; is it due to the Divine within the one, or the human surroundings? This question I put to Professor Huxley, with many apologies for intruding on his leisure, and a special request that he would not suffer himself to be further troubled by any reply.]

To Mr. Robert Taylor.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 8, 1889.

Sir,

In looking through a mass of papers, before I leave England for some months among the mountains in search of health, I have come upon your letter of 7th March. As a rule I find that out of the innumerable letters addressed to me, the only ones I wish to answer are those the writers of which are considerate enough to ask that they may receive no reply, and yours is no exception.

The question you put is very much to the purpose: a proper and full answer would take up many pages; but it will suffice to furnish the heads to be filled up by your own knowledge.

1. The Church founded by Jesus has NOT made its way; has NOT permeated the world—but DID become extinct in the country of its birth—as Nazarenism and Ebionism.

2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the 4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under new or old names.

3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on—those who "feared God"—and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together for all purposes—the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.

If these things are so—and I appeal to your knowledge of history that they are so—what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter was written in reply to one from Mr. Clodd on the first of the articles in this controversy. This article, it must be remembered, not only replied to Dr. Wace's attack, but at the same time bantered Mr. Frederic Harrison's pretensions on behalf of Positivism at the expense alike of Christianity and Agnosticism.]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 19, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

I am very much obliged to you for your cheery and appreciative letter. If I do not empty all Harrison's vials of wrath I shall be astonished! But of all the sickening humbugs in the world, the sham pietism of the Positivists is to me the most offensive.

I have long been wanting to say my say about these questions, but my hands were too full. This time last year I was so ill that I thought to myself, with Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But my wiry constitution has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I have every reason to believe that with renunciation of the devil and all his works (i.e. public speaking, dining and being dined, etc.) my faculties may be unimpaired for a good spell yet. And whether my lease is long or short, I mean to devote them to the work I began in the paper on the Evolution of Theology.

You will see in the next "Nineteenth" a paper on the Evidence of Miracles, which I think will be to your mind.

Hutton is beginning to drivel! There really is no other word for it. [This refers to an article in the "Spectator" on "Professor Huxley and Agnosticism," February 9, 1889, which suggests, with regard to demoniac possession, that the old doctrine of one spirit driving out another is as good as any new explanation, and fortifies this conclusion by a reference to the phenomena of hypnotism.]

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[To the same:—]

4 Marlborough Place, April 15, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

The adventurous Mr. C. wrote to me some time ago. I expressed my regret that I could do nothing for the evolution of tent-pegs. What wonderful people there are in the world!

Many thanks for calling my attention to "Antiqua Mater." I will look it up. I have such a rooted objection to returning books, that I never borrow one or allow anybody to lend me one if I can help it.

I hear that Wace is to have another innings, and I am very glad of it, as it will give me the opportunity of putting the case once more as a connected argument.

It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with those who take up a new idea.

I have had for some time the notion of dealing with the "Three great myths"—1. Creation; 2. Fall; 3. Deluge; but I suspect I am getting to the end of my tether physically, and shall have to start for the Engadine in another month's time.

Many thanks for your congratulations about my daughter's marriage. No two people could be better suited for one another, and there is a charming little grand-daughter of the first marriage to be cared for.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[One more piece of writing dates from this time. He writes to his wife on March 2:—]

A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad taste of some of the notices, I have done that. I shall show it you before it goes back to Engel in proof.

This sketch of his life is the brief autobiography which is printed at the beginning of volume 1 of the "Collected Essays". He was often pressed, both by friends and by strangers, to give them some more autobiography; but moved either by dislike of any approach to egotism, or by the knowledge that if biography is liable to give a false impression, autobiography may leave one still more false, he constantly refused to do so, especially so long as he had capacity for useful work. I found, however, among his papers, an entirely different sketch of his early life, half-a-dozen sheets describing the time he spent in the East end, with an almost Carlylean sense of the horrible disproportions of life. I cannot tell whether this was a first draft for the present autobiography, or the beginnings of a larger undertaking.

Several letters of miscellaneous interest were written before the move to the Engadine took place. They touch on such points as the excessive growth of scientific clubs, the use of alcohol for brain workers, advice to one who was not likely to "suffer fools gladly" about applying for the assistant secretaryship of the British Association, and the question of the effects of the destruction of immature fish, besides personal matters.]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 22, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I suppose the question of amalgamation with the Royal is to be discussed at the Phil. Club. The sooner something of the kind takes place the better. There is really no raison d'etre left for the Phil. Club, and considering the hard work of scientific men in these days, clubs are like hypotheses, not to be multiplied beyond necessity.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, March 26, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

The only science to which X. has contributed, so far as I know, is the science of self-advertisement; and of that he is a master.

When you and I were youngsters, we thought it the great thing to exorcise the aristocratic flunkeyism which reigned in the Royal Society—the danger now is that of the entry of seven devils worse than the first, in the shape of rich engineers, chemical traders, and "experts" (who have sold their souls for a good price), and who find it helps them to appear to the public as if they were men of science.

If the Phil Club had kept pure, it might have acted as a check upon the intrusion of the mere trading element. But there seems to be no reason now against Jack and Tom and Harry getting in, and the thing has become an imposture.

So I go with you for extinction, before we begin to drag in the mud.

I wish I could take some more active part in what is going on. I am anxious about the Society altogether. But though I am wonderfully well so long as I live like a hermit, and get out into the air of the Downs, either London, or bother, and still more both combined, intimate respectfully but firmly, that my margin is of the narrowest.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following is to his daughter in Paris. Of course it was the Tuileries, not the Louvre, which was destroyed in 1871.]

I think you are quite right about French women. They are like French dishes, uncommonly well cooked and sent up, but what the dickens they are made of is a mystery. Not but what all womenkind are mysteries, but there are mysteries of godliness and mysteries of iniquity.

Have you been to see the sculptures in the Louvre?—dear me, I forgot the Louvre's fate. I wonder where the sculpture is? I used to think it the best thing in the way of art in Paris. There was a youthful Bacchus who was the main support of my thesis as to the greater beauty of the male figure!

Probably I had better conclude.

To Mr. E.T. Collings (of Bolton).

4 Marlborough Place, April 9, 1889.

Dear Sir,

I understand that you ask me what I think about "alcohol as a stimulant to the brain in mental work"?

Speaking for myself (and perhaps I may add for persons of my temperament), I can say, without hesitation, that I would just as soon take a dose of arsenic as I would of alcohol, under such circumstances. Indeed on the whole, I should think the arsenic safer, less likely to lead to physical and moral degradation. It would be better to die outright than to be alcoholised before death.

If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work—it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker.

The circumstances of my life have led me to experience all sorts of conditions in regard to alcohol, from total abstinence to nearly the other end of the scale, and my clear conviction is the less the better, though I by no means feel called upon to forgo the comforting and cheering effect of a little.

But for no conceivable consideration would I use it to whip up a tired or sluggish brain. Indeed, for me there is no working time so good as between breakfast and lunch, when there is not a trace of alcohol in my composition.

4 Marlborough Place, May 6, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I meant to have turned up at the x on Thursday, but I was unwell and, moreover, worried and bothered about Collier's illness at Venice, and awaiting an answer to a telegram I sent there. He has contrived to get scarlatina, but I hope he will get safe through it, as he seems to be going on well. We were getting ready to go out until we were reassured on that point.

I thought I would go to the Academy dinner on Saturday, and that if I did not eat and drink and came away early, I might venture.