At odd times lately my mind has been a good deal exercised about the Royal Society. I am quite willing to go on in the Chair if the Council and the Society wish it. But it is quite possible that the Council who chose me when the choice was limited to their own body, might be disposed to select some one else when the range of choice is extended to the whole body of the Society. And I am very anxious that the Council should be made to understand, when the question comes forward for discussion after the recess, that the fact of present tenancy constitutes no claim in my eyes.
The difficulty is, how is this to be done? I cannot ask the Council to do as they please, without reference to me, because I am bound to assume that that is what they will do, and it would be an impertinence to assume the contrary.
On the other hand, I should at once decline to be put in nomination again, if it could be said that by doing so I had practically forced myself either upon the Council or upon the Society.
Heaven be praised I have not many enemies, but the two or three with whom I have to reckon don't stick at trifles, and I should not like by any inadvertance to give them a handle.
I have had some thought of writing a letter to Evans [Sir John Evans, K.C.B., then Treasurer of the Royal Society.], such as he could read to the Council at the first meeting in October, at which I need not be present.
The subject could then be freely discussed, without any voting or resolution on the minutes, and the officers could let me know whether in their judgment it is expedient I should be nominated or not.
In the last case I should withdraw on the ground of my other occupations—which, in fact, is a very real obstacle, and one which looms large in my fits of blue-devils, which have been more frequent of late than they should be in holiday time.
Now, will you turn all this over in your mind? Perhaps you might talk it over with Stokes.
Of course I am very sensible of the honour of being P.R.S., but I should be much more sensible of the dishonour of being in that place by a fluke, or in any other way, than by the free choice of the Council and Society.
In fact I am inclined to think that I am morbidly sensitive on the last point; and so, instead of acting on my own impulse, as I have been tempted to do, I submit myself to your worship's wisdom.
I am not sure that I should not have been wiser if I had stuck to my original intention of holding office only till St. Andrew's Day.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Secretary of State, Home Department, October 3, 1883.
My dear Foster,
There was an Irish bricklayer who once bet a hodman he would not carry him up to the top of an exceeding high ladder in his hod. The hod man did it, but Paddy said, "I had great hopes, now, ye'd let me fall just about six rounds from the top."
I told the story before when I was up for the School Board, but it is so applicable to the present case that I can't help coming out with it again.
If you, dear good hodmen, would have but let me fall!
However, as the thing is to be, it is very pleasant to find Evans and
Williamson and you so hearty in the process of elevation, and in spite
of blue-devils I will do my best to "do my duty in the state of life
I'm called to."
But I believe you never had the advantage of learning the Church
Catechism.
If there is any good in what is done you certainly deserve the credit of it, for nothing but your letter stopped me from kicking over the traces at once. Do you see how Evolution is getting made into a bolus and oiled outside for the ecclesiastical swallow? [This refers to papers read before the Church Congress that year by Messrs. W.H. Flower and F. Le Gros Clarke.]
Ever thine,
Thomas, P.R.S.
[The same feeling appears in his anxiety as President to avoid the slightest appearance of committing the Society to debatable opinions which he supported as a private individual. Thus, although he had "personally, politically, and philosophically" no liking for Charles Bradlaugh, he objected on general grounds to the exclusion of Mrs. Besant and Miss Bradlaugh from the classes at University College, and had signed a memorial in their favour. On the other hand, he did not wish it to be asserted that the Royal Society, through its president, had thrown its influence into what was really a social and political, not a scientific question. He writes to Sir M. Foster on July 18:—]
It is very unlucky for me that I signed the memorial requesting the
Council of University College to reconsider their decision about Mrs.
Besant and Miss Bradlaugh when I was quite innocent of any possibility
of holding the P.R.S.
I must go to the meeting of members to-day and define my position in the matter with more care, under the circumstances.
Mrs. Besant was a student in my teacher's class here last year, and a very well-conducted lady-like person; but I have never been able to get hold of the "Fruits of Philosophy," and do not know to what doctrine she has committed herself.
They seem to have excluded Miss Bradlaugh simply on the noscitur a sociis principle.
It will need all the dexterity I possess to stand up for the principle of religious and philosophical freedom, without giving other people a hold for saying I that have identified myself with Bradlaugh.
[It was the same a little later with the Sunday Society, which had offered him its presidency. He writes to the Honorary Secretary on February 11, 1884:—]
I regret that it is impossible for me to accept the office which the
Sunday Society honours me by offering.
It is not merely a disinclination to add to the work which already falls to my share which leads me to say this. So long as I am President of the Royal Society, I shall feel bound to abstain from taking any prominent part in public movements as to the propriety of which the opinions of the Fellows of the Society differ widely.
My own opinions on the Sunday question are exactly what they were five-and-twenty years ago. They have not been hid under a bushel, and I should not have accepted my present office if I had felt that so doing debarred me from reiterating them whenever it may be necessary to do so.
But that is a different matter from taking a step which would, in the eyes of the public, commit the Royal Society, through its President, to one side of the controversy in which you are engaged, and in which I, personally, hope you may succeed as warmly as ever I did.
[One other piece of work during the first half of the year remains to be mentioned, namely, the Rede Lecture, delivered at Cambridge on June 12. This was a discourse on Evolution, based upon the consideration of the Pearly Nautilus.
He first traced the evolution of the individual from the ovum, and replied to the three usual objections raised to evolution, that it is impossible, immoral, and contrary to the argument of design, by replying to the first, that it does occur in every individual; to the second, that the morality which opposes itself to truth commits suicide; and to the third that Paley—the most interesting Sunday reading allowed him when a boy—had long since answered this objection.
Then he proceeded to discuss the evolution of the 100 species, all extinct but two, of Nautilus. The alternative theory of new construction, a hundred times over, is opposed alike to tradition and to sane science. On the other hand, evolution, tested by paleontology, proves a sound hypothesis. The great difficulty of science is in tracing every event to those causes which are in present operation; the hypothesis of evolution is analogous to what is going on now.
The summer was passed at Milford, near Godalming, in a house at the very edge of the heather country which from there stretches unbroken past Hindhead and into Wolmer Forest. So well did he like the place that he took it again the following year. But his holiday was like to have been spoilt at the beginning by the strain of an absurd adventure which involved much fatigue and more anxiety.]
I came back only last night [he writes to Sir M. Foster on August 1] from Paris, where I sped on Sunday night, in a horrid state of alarm from a cursed blundering telegram which led me to believe that Leonard (you know he got his first class to our great joy) who had left for the continent on Saturday, was ill or had had an accident.
[It was indeed a hurried journey. On receipt of the telegram, he rushed to Victoria only to miss the night mail. The booking-clerk suggested that he should drive to London Bridge, take train to Lewes, and thence take a fly to Newhaven, where he ought to catch a later boat. The problem was to catch the London Bridge train. There was barely a quarter of an hour, but thanks to a good horse and the Sunday absence of traffic, the thing was done, establishing, I believe, what the modern mind delights in, a record in cab-driving. Happily the anxiety at not finding his son in Paris was soon allayed by another telegram from home, where his son-in-law, the innocent sender of the original message, had meanwhile arrived. He writes to Sir M. Foster:—]
Judging by my scrawl, which is worse than usual, I should say the anxiety had left its mark, but I am none the worse otherwise.
[This was indeed the case. Other letters to Sir M. Foster show that he was unusually well, perhaps because he was really making holiday to some extent. Thus on August 16, he writes:—]
This is a lovely country, and I have been reading novels and walking about for the last four days. I must be all right, wind and limb, for I walked over twenty miles the day before yesterday, and except a blister on one heel, was none the worse.
[And again on September 12:—]
Have been very lazy lately, which means that I have done a great many things that I need not have done, and have left undone those which I ought to have done. Nowadays that seems to me to be the real definition of a holiday.
[For once he was not doing very much holiday work, though he was filing at the Rede Lecture to get it into shape for publication. The examinations for the Science and Art Department were over, and indeed he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]
Don't bother your head about the balance—now or hereafter. To tell you the truth I do so little in the Examiner business that I am getting ashamed of taking even the retaining fee, and you will do me a favour if you will ease my conscience.
[A week of fishery business in South Wales and Devon had] "a good deal of holiday in it." [for the rest:—]
I have just been put on Senate of University of London [a Crown nomination]. I tried hard to get Lord Granville to let me off—in fact I told him I could not attend the meetings except now and then, but there was no escape. I must have a talk with you about what is to be done there.
Item:
There is a new Fishery Commission that I also strongly objected to, but had to cave in so far as I agreed to attend some meetings in latter half of September.
[On this occasion Lord Granville had written back:—
11 Carlton House Terrace, July 28, 1883.
My dear Professor Huxley,
Clay, the great whist player, once made a mistake and said to his partner, "My brain is softening," the latter answered "Never mind, I will give you ten thousand pounds down for it, just as it is."
On that principle and backed up by Paget I shall write to Harcourt on
Monday.
Yours sincerely,
Granville.
The Commission of course cut short the stay at Milford, and on
September 12, he writes:—]
We shall leave this on Friday as my wife has some fal-lals to look after before we start for the north on Monday.
The worst of it is that it is not at all certain that the Commission will meet and do any work. However I am pledged to go, and I daresay that Brechin Castle is a very pleasant place to stay in.
[Lastly, he was thinking over the obituary notice of Darwin which he had undertaken to write for the Royal Society—though it did not appear till 1888—that on F. Balfour being written by Sir M. Foster.]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 27, 1883.
My dear Foster,
I do not see anything to add or alter to what you have said about Balfour, except to get rid of that terrible word "urinogenital," which he invented, and I believe I once adopted, out of mere sympathy I suppose.
Darwin is on my mind, and I will see what can be done here by and by. Up to the present I have been filing away at the Rede Lecture. I believe that getting things into shape takes me more and more trouble as I get older—whether it is a loss of faculty or an increase of fastidiousness I can't say—but at any rate it costs me more time and trouble to get things finished—and when they are done I should prefer burning to publishing them.
Haven't you any suggestions to offer for Anniversary address? I think the Secretaries ought to draw it up, like a Queen's speech.
Mind we have a talk some day about University of London. I suppose you want an English Sorbonne. I have thought of it at times, but the Philistines are strong.
Weather jolly, but altogether too hot for anything but lying on the grass "under the tegmination of the patulous fage," as the poet observes.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The remaining letters of this year are for the most part on Royal Society business, some of which, touching the anniversary dinner, may be quoted:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 10, 1883.
My dear Foster,
…I have been trying to get some political and other swells to come to the dinner. Lord Mayor is coming—thought I would ask him on account of City and Guilds business—Lord Chancellor, probably, Courtney, M.P., promised, and I made the greatest blunder I ever made in all my life by thoughtlessly writing to ask Chamberlain (!!!) utterly forgetting the row with Tyndall. [Concerning the Lighthouses.]
By the mercy of Providence he can't come this year, though I must ask him next (if I am not kicked out for my sins before that), as he is anxious to come. Science ought to be in league with the Radicals…
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[He had made prompt confession as soon as he discovered his mistake, to Tyndall himself, who ultimately came to the dinner and proposed the health of his old friend Hirst.]
4 Marlborough Place, November 9, 1883.
My dear Tyndall,
I have been going to write to you for two or three days to ask you to propose Hirst's health as Royal Medallist on the 30th November. I am sure your doing so would give an extra value to the medal to him.
But now I realise the position of those poor devils I have seen in lunatic asylums and who believed they have committed the unforgivable sin. It came upon me suddenly in Waterloo Place this evening, that I had done so; and I went straight to the Royal Institution to make confession, and if possible get absolution. But I heard you had gone to Hindhead, and so I write.
Yesterday I was sending some invitations to the dinner on the 30th, and thinking to please the Society I made a shot at some ministers. The only two I know much about are Harcourt and Chamberlain, and the devil (in whom I now firmly believe) put it into my head to write to both.
The enormous stupidity of which I had been guilty in asking Chamberlain under the circumstances, and the sort of construction you and others might put upon it, never entered my head till this afternoon. It really made me ill, and I went straight to find you. If Providence is good to me the letter will miscarry and he won't come. But anyhow I want you to know that I have been idiotically stupid, and that I shall wish the Presidency and the dinner and everything connected with it at the bottom of the sea, if you are as much disgusted with me as you have a perfect right to be.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following refers to the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society at Newcastle, which had invited him to become one of its vice-presidents:—]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., December 30, 1883.
My dear Morley,
The Newcastle people wrote to me some time ago telling me that Sir W. Armstrong was going to be their President. [The actual words of the Secretary were "We have asked Sir W. Armstrong to be President," and Huxley was mistaken in supposing this intimation to imply that, as generally happens in such cases, Sir William had previously intimated his willingness to accept the position if formally asked.] Armstrong is an old friend of mine, so I wrote to him to make inquiries. He told me that he was not going to be President, and knew nothing about the people who were getting up the Society. So I declined to have anything to do with it.
However, the case is altered now that you are in the swim. You have no gods to swear by, unfortunately; but if you will affirm, in the name of X, that under no circumstances shall I be called upon to do anything, they may have my name among the V.-P.'s and much good may it do them.
All our good wishes to you and yours. The great thing one has to wish for as time goes on is vigour as long as one lives, and death as soon as vigour flags.
It is a curious thing that I find my dislike to the thought of extinction increasing as I get older and nearer the goal.
It flashes across me at all sorts of times with a sort of horror that in 1900 I shall probably know no more of what is going on than I did in 1800. I had sooner be in hell a good deal—at any rate in one of the upper circles where the climate and company are not too trying. I wonder if you are plagued in this way.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letters, to his family or to intimate friends, are in lighter vein. The first is to Sir M. Foster; the concluding item of information in reply to several inquiries. The Royal Society wished some borings made in Egypt to determine the depth of the stratum of Nile mud:—]
The Egyptian exploration society is wholly archaeological—at least from the cut of it I have no doubt it is so—and they want all their money to find out the pawnbrokers' shops which Israel kept in Pithom and Rameses—and then went off with the pledges.
This is the real reason why Pharaoh and his host pursued them; and then Moses and Aaron bribed the post-boys to take out the linch pins.
That is the real story of the Exodus—as detailed in a recently discovered papyrus which neither Brugsch nor Maspero have as yet got hold of.
[To his youngest daughter:—]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., April 12, 1883.
Dearest Pabelunza,
I was quite overcome to-day to find that you had vanished without a parting embrace to your "faded but fascinating" parent. [A fragment of feminine conversation overheard at the Dublin meeting of the British Association, 1878. "Oh, there comes Professor Huxley: faded, but still fascinating."] I clean forgot you were going to leave this peaceful village for the whirl of Gloucester dissipation this morning—and the traces of weeping on your visage, which should have reminded me of our imminent parting, were absent.
My dear, I should like to have given you some good counsel. You are but a simple village maiden—don't be taken by the appearance of anybody. Consult your father—inclosing photograph and measurement (in inches)—in any case of difficulty.
Also give my love to the matron your sister, and tell her to look sharp after you. Treat her with more respect than you do your venerable P.—whose life will be gloom hidden by a film of heartless jests till you return.
Item.—Kisses to Ria and Co.
Your desolated Pater.
[To his eldest daughter:—]
4 Marlborough Place, May 6, 1883.
Dearest Jess,
Best thanks for your good wishes—considering all things, I am a hale old gentleman. But I had to speak last night at the Academy dinner, and either that or the quantity of cigars I smoked, following the bad example of our friend "Wales," has left me rather shaky to-day. It was trying, because Jack's capital portrait was hanging just behind me—and somebody remarked that it was a better likeness of me than I was. If you begin to think of that it is rather confusing.
I am grieved to have such accounts of Ethel, and have lectured her accordingly. She threatens reprisals on you—and altogether is in a more saucy and irrepressible state than when she left.
M— is still in bed, though better—I am afraid she won't be able to go to Court next week. You see we are getting grand.
I hear great accounts of the children (Ria and Buzzer) and mean to cut out T'other Governor when you bring them up.
As we did not see Fred the other day, the family is inclined to think that the salmon disagreed with him!
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, May 10, 1883.
My dear Mrs. Tyndall,
If you will give me a bit of mutton at one o'clock I shall be very much your debtor, but as I have business to attend to afterwards at the Home Office I must stipulate that my intellect be not imperilled by those seductive evil genii who are apt to make their appearance at your lunch table. [This is accompanied by a sketch of a champagne bottle in the character of a demon.]
M. is getting better, but I cannot let her be out at night yet. She thinks she is to be allowed to go to the International Exhibition business on Saturday; but if the temperature does not rise very considerably I shall have two words to say to that.
Ever yours very sincerely,
T.H. Huxley.
I shall be alone. Do you think that I am "subdued to that I work in," and like an oyster, carry my brood about beneath my mantle?
CHAPTER 2.15.
1884.
[From this time forward the burden of ill-health grew slowly and steadily. Dyspepsia and the hyperchondriacal depression which follows in its train, again attacked Huxley as they had attacked him twelve years before, though this time the physical misery was perhaps less. His energy was sapped; when his official work was over, he could hardly bring himself to renew the investigations in which he had always delighted. To stoop over the microscope was a physical discomfort; he began to devote himself more exclusively to the reading of philosophy and critical theology. This was the time of which Sir M. Foster writes that "there was something working in him which made his hand, when turned to anatomical science, so heavy that he could not lift it. Not even that which was so strong within him, the duty of fulfilling a promise, could bring him to the work."
Up to the beginning of October, he went on with his official work, the lectures at South Kensington, the business as President of the Royal Society, and ex officio Trustee of the British Museum; the duties connected with the Inspectorship of Fisheries, the City and Guilds Technical Education Committee, and the University of London, and delivered the opening address at the London Hospital Medical School, on "The State and the Medical Profession" ["Collected Essays" 3 323), his health meanwhile growing less and less satisfactory. He dropped minor offices, such as the Presidency of the National Association of Science Teachers, which, he considered, needed more careful supervision than he was able to give, and meditated retiring from part at least of his main duties, when he was ordered abroad at a moment's notice for first one, then another, and yet a third period of two months. But he did not definitely retire until this rest had proved ineffectual to fit him again for active work.
The President of the Royal Society is, as mentioned above, an ex officio Trustee of the British Museum, so that now, as again in 1888, circumstances at length brought about the state of affairs which Huxley had once indicated—half jestingly—to Robert Lowe, who inquired of him what would be the best course to adopt with respect to the Natural History collections of the British Museum:—] "Make me a Trustee and Flower director." [At this moment, the question of an official residence for the Director of the Natural History Museum was under discussion with the Treasury, and he writes:—]
February 29, 1884.
My dear Flower,
I am particularly glad to hear your news. "Ville qui parle et femme qui ecoute se rendent," says the wicked proverb—and it is true of Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A pendent to this is a letter of congratulation to Sir Henry Roscoe on his knighthood:—]
Science and Art Department, South Kensington, July 7, 1884.
My dear Roscoe,
I am very glad to see that the Government has had the grace to make some acknowledgment of their obligation to you, and I wish you and "my lady" long enjoyment of your honours. I don't know if you are gazetted yet, so I don't indicate them outside.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.
I wrote some weeks ago to the Secretary of the National Association of Science Teachers to say that I must give up the Presidency. I had come to the conclusion that the Association wants sharp looking after, and that I can't undertake that business.
P.S. 2.
Shall I tell you what your great affliction henceforward will be? It will be to hear yourself called Sr'enery Roscoe by the flunkies who announce you.
Her Ladyship will please take note of this crumpled rose leaf—I am sure of its annoying her.
[The following letter, with its comparison of life to a whirlpool and its acknowledgment of the widespread tendency in mankind to make idols, was written in answer to some inquiries from Lady Welby:—]
April 8, 1884.
Your letter requires consideration, and I have had very little leisure lately. Whether motion disintegrates or integrates is, I apprehend, a question of conditions. A whirlpool in a stream may remain in the same spot for any imaginable time. Yet it is the effect of the motion of the particles of the water in that spot which continually integrate themselves into the whirlpool and disintegrate themselves from it. The whirlpool is permanent while the conditions last, though its constituents incessantly change. Living bodies are just such whirlpools. Matter sets into them in the shape of food,—sets out of them in the shape of waste products. Their individuality lies in the constant maintenance of a characteristic form, not in the preservation of material identity. I do not know anything about "vitality" except as a name for certain phenomena like "electricity" or "gravitation." As you get deeper into scientific questions you will find that "Name ist Schall und Rauch" even more emphatically than Faust says it is in Theology. Most of us are idolators, and ascribe divine powers to the abstractions "Force," "Gravity," "Vitality," which our own brains have created. I do not know anything about "inert" things in nature. If we reduce the world to matter and motion, the matter is not "inert," inasmuch as the same amount of motion affects different kinds of matter in different ways. To go back to my own illustration. The fabric of the watch is not inert, every particle of it is in violent and rapid motion, and the winding-up simply perturbs the whole infinitely complicated system in a particular fashion. Equilibrium means death, because life is a succession of changes, while a changing equilibrium is a contradiction in terms. I am not at all clear that a living being is comparable to a machine running down. On this side of the question the whirlpool affords a better parallel than the watch. If you dam the stream above or below, the whirlpool dies; just as the living being does if you cut off its food, or choke it with its own waste products. And if you alter the sides or bottom of the stream you may kill the whirlpool, just as you kill the animal by interfering with its structure. Heat and oxidation as a source of heat appear to supply energy to the living machine, the molecular structure of the germ furnishing the "sides and bottom of the stream," that is, determining the results which the energy supplied shall produce.
Mr. Ashby writes like a man who knows what he is talking about. His exposition appears to me to be essentially sound and extremely well put. I wish there were more sanitary officers of the same stamp. Mr. Spencer is a very admirable writer, and I set great store by his works. But we are very old friends, and he has endured me as a sort of "devil's advocate" for thirty-odd years. He thinks that if I can pick no holes in what he says he is safe. But I pick a great many holes, and we agree to differ.
[Between April and September, Fishery business took him out of London for no less than forty-three days, first to Cornwall, then in May to Brixham, in June to Cumberland and Yorkshire, in July to Chester, and in September to South Devon, Cornwall, and Wales. A few extracts from his letters home may be given. Just before starting, he writes from Marlborough Place to Rogate, where his wife and one of his daughters were staying:—]
April 8.
The weather turned wonderfully muggy here this morning, and turned me into wet paper. But I contrived to make a "neat and appropriate" in presenting old Hird with his testimonial. Fayrer and I were students under him forty years ago, and as we stood together it was a question which was the greyest old chap.
April 14.
I have almost given up reading the Egyptian news, I am so disgusted with the whole business. I saw several pieces of land to let for building purposes about Falmouth, but did not buy. [This was to twit his wife with her constant desire that he should buy a bit of land in the country to settle upon in their old age.]
April 18.
You don't say when you go back, so I direct this to Rogate. I shall expect to see you quite set up. We must begin to think seriously about getting out of the hurly-burly a year or two hence, and having an Indian summer together in peace and quietness.
April 15, Sunday, Falmouth.
I went out at ten o'clock this morning, and did not get back till near seven. But I got a cup of tea and some bread and butter in a country village, and by the help of that and many pipes supported nature. There was a bitter east wind blowing, but the day was lovely otherwise, and by judicious dodging in coves and creeks and sandy bays, I escaped the wind and absorbed a prodigious quantity of sunshine.
I took a volume of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" with me. I had not read the famous 15th and 16th chapters for ages, and I lay on the sands and enjoyed them properly. A lady came and spoke to me as I returned, who knew L. at Oxford very well—can't recollect her name—and her father and mother are here, and I have just been spending an hour with them. Also a man who sat by me at dinner knew me from Jack's portrait. So my incognito is not very good. I feel quite set up by my day's wanderings.
May 11, Torquay.
We went over to Brixham yesterday to hold an inquiry, getting back here to an eight o'clock or nearer nine dinner…Dalhousie has discovered that the officer now in command of the "Britannia" is somebody whom he does NOT know, so we gave up going to Dartmouth and agreed to have a lazy day here. It is the most exquisite summer weather you can imagine, and I have been basking in the sun all the morning and dreamily looking over the view of the lovely bay which is looking its best—but take it all round it does not come up to Lynton. Dalhousie is more likeable than ever, and I am just going out for a stroll with him.
June 24.
I left Keswick this morning for Cockermouth, took the chair at my meeting punctually at twelve, sat six mortal hours listening to evidence, nine-tenths of which was superfluous—and turning my lawyer faculty to account in sifting the grains of fact out of the other tenth.
June 25, Leeds.
…We had a long drive to a village called Harewood on the Wharfe. There is a big Lord lives there—Earl of Harewood—and he and his ancestors must have taken great care of their tenants, for the labourers' houses are the best I ever saw…I cut out the enclosed from the "Standard" the other day to amuse you, but have forgotten to send it before [Apparently announcing that he was about to accept a title. I have not been able to trace the paragraph.] I think we will be "Markishes," the lower grades are getting common.
June 27.
…I had a long day's inspection of the Wharfe yesterday, attended a meeting of the landed proprietors at Ottley to tell them what they must do if they would get salmon up their river…
I shall leave here to-morrow morning, go on to Skipton, whence seven or eight miles' drive will take me to Linton where there is an obstruction in the river I want to see. In the afternoon I shall come home from Skipton, but I don't know exactly by what train. As far as I see, I ought to be home by about 10.30, and you may have something light for supper, as the "course of true feeding is not likely to run smooth"—to-morrow.
[In August he went again to the corner of Surrey which he had enjoyed so much the year before. Here, in the intervals of suffering under the hands of the dentist, he worked at preparing a new edition of the "Elementary Physiology" with Sir M. Foster, alternating with fresh studies in critical theology.
The following letters reflect his occupations at this time, together with his desire, strongly combated by his friend, of resigning the Presidency of the Royal Society immediately.]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 9, 1884.
My dear Foster,
I had to go up to town on Friday, and yesterday I went and had all my remaining teeth out, and came down here again with a shrewd suspicion that I was really drunk and incapable, however respectable I might look outwardly. At present I can't eat at all, and I CAN'T SMOKE WITH ANY COMFORT. For once I don't mind using italics.
Item.—I send the two cuts.
Heaven be praised! I had brought down no copy of Physiology with me, so could not attend to your proof. Got it yesterday, so I am now at your mercy.
But I have gone over the proofs now, and send you a deuce of a lot of suggestions.
Just think over additions to smell and taste to bring these into harmony.
The Saints salute you. I am principally occupied in studying the gospels.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 26, 1884.
Dearly Beloved,
I have been going over the ear chapter this morning, and, as you will see, have suggested some additions. Those about the lamina spiralis are certainly necessary—illus. substitution of trihedral for triangular. [(On September 8, he writes:—] "I have been laughing over my 'trihedron.' It is a regular bull.") I want also very much to get into heads of students that in sensation it is all modes of motion up to and in sensorium, and that the generation of feeling is the specific reaction of a particle of the sensorium when stimulated, just as contraction, etc., is the specific reaction of a muscular fibre when stimulated by its nerve. The psychologists make the fools of themselves they do because they have never mastered this elementary fact. But I am not sure whether I have put it well, and I wish you would give your mind to it. As for me I have not had much mind to give lately—a fortnight's spoon-meat reduced me to inanity, and I am only just picking up again. However, I walked ten miles yesterday afternoon, so there is not much the matter.
I will see what I can do about the histology business. ("Most of our examinees" [he writes on September 5] "have not a notion of what histology means at present. I think it will be good for other folks to get it into their heads that it is not all sections and carmine.") I wanted to re-write it, but I am not sure yet whether I shall be able.
Between ourselves, I have pretty well made up my mind to clear out of everything next year, Royal Society included. I loathe the thought of wasting any more of my life in endless distractions—and so long as I live in London there is no escape for me. I have half a mind to live abroad for six months in the year.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I enclose letter from Deutsch lunatic to go before Council and be answered by Foreign Secretary.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 29, 1884.
Dearly Beloved,
I enclose the proofs, having mustered up volition enough to go over them at once. I think the alterations will be great improvements. I see you interpret yourself about the movements of the larynx.
As to the histology, I shall have a shot at it, but if I do not send you manuscript in a week's time, go ahead. I am perplexed about the illustrations, but I see nothing for it but to have new ones in all the cases which you have marked. Have you anybody in Cambridge who can draw the things from preparations?
You are like Trochu with your "plan," and I am anxious to learn it. But have you reflected, 1st, that I am getting deafer and deafer, and that I cannot hear what is said at the council table and in the Society's rooms half the time people are speaking? and 2nd, that so long as I am President, so long must I be at the beck and call of everything that turns up in relation to the interests of science. So long as I am in the chair, I cannot be a faineant or refuse to do anything and everything incidental to the position.
My notion is to get away for six months, so as to break with the "world, the flesh, and the devil" of London, for all which I have conceived a perfect loathing. Six months is long enough for anybody to be forgotten twice over by everybody but personal friends.
I am contemplating a winter in Italy, but I shall keep on my house for Harry's sake and as a pied a terre in London, and in the summer come and look at you at Burlington House, as the old soap-boiler used to visit the factory. I shall feel like the man out of whom the legion of devils departed when he looked at the gambades of the two thousand pigs going at express speed for the waters of Tiberias.
By the way, did you ever read that preposterous and immoral story carefully? It is one of the best attested of the miracles…
When I have retired from the chair (which I must not scandalise) I shall write a lay sermon on the text. It will be impressive.
My wife sends her love, and says she has her eye on you. She is all for retirement.
Ever yours,
I am very sorry to hear of poor Mangles' death, but I suppose there was no other chance.
T.H.H.
[In September he hails with delight some intermission of the constant depression under which he has been labouring, and writes:—]
So long as I sit still and write or read I am all right, otherwise not good for much, which is odd, considering that I eat, drink, and sleep like a top. I suppose that everybody starts with a certain capital of life-stuff, and that expensive habits have reduced mine.
[And again:—]
I have been very shaky for the last few weeks, but I am picking up again, and hope to come up smiling for the winter's punishment.
There was nothing to drink last night, so I had some tea! with my dinner—smoked a pipe or two—slept better than usual, and woke without blue devils for the first time for a week!!! Query, is that the effect of tea or baccy? I shall try them again. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, especially in the stomach—which is altogether past finding out.
[Still, his humour would flash out in the midst of his troubles; he writes in answer to a string of semi-official inquiries from Sir J. Donnelly:—]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming.
Sir,
In reply to your letter of the 9th August (666), I have the honour to state:—
1. That I am here.
2. That I have (a) had all my teeth out; (b) partially sprained my right thumb; (c) am very hot; (d) can't smoke with comfort; whence I may leave even official intelligence to construct an answer to your second inquiry.
3. Your third question is already answered under 2a. Not writing might be accounted for by 2b, but unfortunately the sprain is not bad enough—and "laziness, sheer laziness" is the proper answer.
I am prepared to take a solemn affidavit that I told you and Macgregor where I was coming many times, and moreover that I distinctly formed the intention of leaving my address in writing—according to those official instructions which I always fulfil.
If the intention was not carried out, its blood be upon its own head—I wash my hands of it, as Pilate did.
4. As to the question whether I WANT my letters I can sincerely declare that I don't—would in fact much rather not see them. But I suppose for all that they had better be sent.
5. I hope Macgregor's question is not a hard one—spoon-meat does not carry you beyond words of one syllable.
On Friday I signalised my last dinner for the next three weeks by going to meet the G.O.M. I sat next him, and he was as lively as a bird.
Very sorry to hear about your house. You will have to set up a van with a brass knocker and anchor on our common.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[By the beginning of September he had made up his mind that he ought before long to retire from active life. The first person to be told of his resolution was the head of the Science and Art Department, with whom he had worked so long at South Kensington.]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, September 3, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
I was very glad to have news of you yesterday. I gather you are thriving, notwithstanding the appalling title of your place of refuge. I should have preferred "blow the cold" to "Cold blow"—but there is no accounting for tastes.
I have been going and going to write to you for a week past to tell you of a notion that has been maturing in my mind for some time, and that I ought to let you know of before anybody else. I find myself distinctly aged—tired out body and soul, and for the first time in my life fairly afraid of the work that lies before me in the next nine months. Physically, I have nothing much to complain of except weariness—and for purely mental work, I think I am good for something yet. I am morally and mentally sick of society and societies—committees, councils—bother about details and general worry and waste of time.
I feel as if more than another year of it would be the death of me. Next May I shall be sixty, and have been thirty-one mortal years in my present office in the School. Surely I may sing my nunc dimittis with a good conscience. I am strongly inclined to announce to the Royal Society in November that the chair will be vacant that day twelve month—to resign my Government posts at mid-summer, and go away and spend the winter in Italy—so that I may be out of reach of all the turmoil of London.
The only thing I don't like is the notion of leaving you without such support as I can give in the School. No one knows better than I do how completely it is your work and how gallantly you have borne the trouble and responsibility connected with it. But what am I to do? I must give up all or nothing—and I shall certainly come to grief if I do not have a long rest.
Pray tell me what you think about it all.
My wife has written to Mrs. Donnelly and told her the news.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Read Hobbes if you want to get hard sense in good English.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, September 10, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
Many thanks for your kind letter. I feel rather like a deserter, and am glad of any crumbs of comfort.
Cartwright has done wonders for me, and I can already eat most things (I draw the line at tough crusts). I have not even my old enemy, dyspepsia—but eat, drink, and sleep like a top.
And withal I am as tired as if I were hard at work, and shirk walking.
So far as I can make out there is not the slightest sign of organic disease anywhere, but I will get Clark to overhaul me when I go back to town. Sometimes I am inclined to suspect that it is all sham and laziness—but then why the deuce should I want to sham and be lazy.
Somebody started a charming theory years ago—that as you get older and lose volition, primitive evil tendencies, heretofore mastered, come out and show themselves. A nice prospect for venerable old gentlemen!
Perhaps my crust of industry is denuded, and the primitive rock of sloth is cropping out.
But enough of this egotistical invalidism.
How wonderfully Gordon is holding his own. I should like to see him lick the Mahdi into fits before Wolseley gets up. You despise the Jews, but Gordon is more like one of the Maccabees of Bar-Kochba than any sort of modern man.
My wife sends love to both of you, and says you are (in feminine language) "a dear thing in friends."
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Home Office, September 18, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
We have struck our camp at Milford, and I am going down to Devonshire and Cornwall to-morrow—partly on Fishery business, partly to see if I can shake myself straighter by change of air. I am possessed by seven devils—not only blue, but of the deepest indigo—and I shall try to transplant them into a herd of Cornish swine.
The only thing that comforts me is Gordon's telegrams. Did ever a poor devil of a Government have such a subordinate before? He is the most refreshing personality of this generation.
I shall be back by 30th September—and I hope in better condition for harness than now.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Replying to General Donnelly's arguments against his resigning all his official posts, he writes:—]
Dartmouth, September 21, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
Your letters, having made a journey to Penzance (where I told my wife I should go last Friday, but did not, and brought up here instead) turned up this morning.
I am glad to have seen Lord Carlingford's letter, and I am very much obliged to him for his kind expressions. Assuredly I will not decide hastily.
Now for your letter—I am all for letters in these matters. Not that we are either of us "impatient and irritable listeners"—oh dear, no! "I have my faults," as the miser said, "but AVARICE is not one of them"—and we have our faults too, but notoriously they lie in the direction of long-suffering and apathy.
Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said for writing. MINE is itself a discipline in patience for my correspondent.
Imprimis. I scorn all your chaff about Society. My great object for years has been to keep out of it, not to go into it. Just you wait till the Misses Donnelly grow up—I trust there may be five or ten of them—and see what will happen to you. But apart from this, so long as I live in London, so long will it be practically impossible for me to keep out of dining and giving of dinners—and you know that just as well as I do.
2nd. I mean to give up the Presidency, but don't see my way to doing so next St. Andrew's Day. I wish I could—but I must deal fairly by the Society.
3rd. The suggestion of the holiday at Christmas is the most sensible thing you have said. I could get six weeks under the new arrangement ("Botany," January and half February) without interfering with my lectures at all. But then there is the blessed Home Office to consider. There might be civil war between the net men and the rod men in six weeks, all over the country, without my mild influence.
4th. I must give up my Inspectorship. The mere thought of having to occupy myself with the squabbles of these idiots of country squireens and poachers makes me sick—and is, I believe, the chief cause of the morbid state of my mucous membranes.
All this week shall I be occupied in hearing one Jackass contradict another Jackass about questions which are of no importance.
I would almost as soon be in the House of Commons.
Now see how reasonable I am. I agree with you (a) that I must get out of the hurly-burly of society; (b) that I must get out of the Presidency; (c) that I must get out of the Inspectorship, or rather I agree with myself on that matter, you having expressed no opinion.
That being so, it seems to me that I must, willy-nilly, give up South Kensington. For—and here is the point you had in your mind when you lamented your possible impatience about something I might say—I swear by all the gods that are not mine, nothing shall induce me to apply to the Treasury for anything but the pound of flesh to which I am entitled.
Nothing ever disgusted me more than being the subject of a battle with the Treasury over the Home Office appointment—which I should have thrown up if I could have done so with decency to Harcourt.
It's just as well for me I couldn't, but it left a nasty taste.
I don't want to leave the School, and should be very glad to remain as Dean, for many reasons. But what I don't see is how I am to do that and make my escape from the thousand and one entanglements—which seem to me to come upon me quite irrespectively of any office I hold—or how I am to go on living in London as a (financially) decayed philosopher.
I really see nothing for it but to take my pension and go and spend the winter of 1885-86 in Italy. I hear one can be a regular swell there on 1000 pounds a year.
Six months' absence is oblivion, and I shall take to a new line of work, and one which will greatly meet your approval.
As to X— I am not a-going to—not being given to hopeless enterprises. That rough customer at Dublin is the only man who occurs to me. I can't think of his name, but that is part of my general unfitness.
…I suppose I shall chaff somebody on my death-bed. But I am out of heart to think of the end of the lunches in the sacred corner.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the 21st he writes home about the steps he had begun to take with respect to giving up part of his official work.]
I have had a long letter from Donnelly. He had told Lord Carlingford of my plans, and encloses a letter from Lord Carlingford to him, trusting I will not hastily decide, and with some pretty phrases about "support and honour" I give to the School. Donnelly is very anxious I should hold on to the School, if only as Dean, and wants me in any case to take two months' holiday at Christmas. Of course he looks on the Royal Society as the root of all evil. Foster per contra looks on the School as the deuce, but would have me stick by the Royal Society like grim death.
The only moral obligation that weighs with me is that which I feel under, to deal fairly by Donnelly and the School. You must not argue against this, as rightly or wrongly I am certain that if I deserted the School hastily, or if I did not do all that I can to requite Donnelly for the plucky way in which he has stood by it and me for the last dozen years, I should never shake off the feeling that I had behaved badly. And as I am much given to brooding over my misdeeds, I don't want you to increase the number of my hell-hounds. You must help me in this…and if I am Quixotic, play Sancho for the nonce.
CHAPTER 2.16.
1884-1885.
[Towards the end of September he went to the West country to try to improve his health before the session began again in London. Thus he writes, on September 26, to Mr. W.F. Collier, who had invited him to Horrabridge, and on the 27th to Sir M. Foster:—]
Fowey, September 26, 1884.
Many thanks for the kind offer in your letter, which has followed me here. But I have not been on the track you might naturally have supposed I had followed. I have been trying to combine hygiene with business, and betook myself, in the first place, to Dartmouth, afterwards to Totnes, and then came on here. From this base of operations I could easily reach all my places of meeting. To-morrow I have to go to Bodmin, but I shall return here, and if the weather is fine (raining cats and dogs at present), I may remain a day or two to take in stock of fresh air before commencing the London campaign.
I am very glad to hear that your health has improved so much. You must feel quite proud to be such an interesting "case." If I set a good example myself I would venture to warn you against spending five shillings worth of strength on the ground of improvement to the extent of half-a-crown.
I am not quite clear as to the extent to which my children have colonised Woodtown at present. But it seems to me that there must be three or four Huxleys (free or in combination, as the chemists say) about the premises. Please give them the paternal benediction; and with very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier, believe me,
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Fowey Hotel, Fowey, Cornwall, September 27, 1884.
My dear Foster,
I return your proof, with a few trifling suggestions here and there…
I fancy we may regard the award as practically settled, and a very good award it will be.
The address is beginning to loom in the distance. I have half a mind to devote some part of it to a sketch of the recent novelties in histology touching the nucleus question and molecular physiology.
My wife sent me your letter. By all means let us have a confabulation as soon as I get back and settle what is to be done with the "aged P."
I am not sure that I shall be at home before the end of the week. My lectures do not begin till next week, and the faithful Howes can start the practical work without me, so that if I find myself picking up any good in these parts, I shall probably linger here or hereabouts. But a good deal will depend on the weather—inside as well as outside. I am convinced that the prophet Jeremiah (whose works I have been studying) must have been a flatulent dyspeptic—there is so much agreement between his views and mine.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[But the net result of this holiday is summed up in a note, of October 5, to Sir M. Foster:—]
I got better while I was in Cornwall and Wales, and, at present, I don't think there is anything the matter with me except a profound disinclination to work. I never before knew the proper sense of the term "vis inertiae."
[And writing in the same strain to Sir J. Evans, he adds:]
But I have a notion that if I do not take a long spell of absolute rest before long I shall come to grief. However, getting into harness again may prove a tonic—it often does, e.g. in the case of cab-horses.
[Three days later he found himself ordered to leave England immediately, under pain of a hopeless breakdown.]
4 Marlborough Place, October 8, 1884.
My dear Foster,
We shall be very glad to see you on Friday. I came to the conclusion that I had better put myself in Clark's hands again, and he has been here this evening overhauling me for an hour.
He says there is nothing wrong except a slight affection of the liver and general nervous depression, but that if I go on the latter will get steadily worse and become troublesome. He insists on my going away to the South and doing nothing but amuse myself for three or four months.
This is the devil to pay, but I cannot honestly say that I think he is wrong. Moreover, I promised the wife to abide by his decision.
We will talk over what is to be done.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, October 13, 1884.
My dear Morley,
I heartily wish I could be with you on the 25th, but it is aliter visum to somebody, whether Dis or Diabolis, I can't say.
The fact is, the day after I saw you I had to put myself in Clark's hands, and he ordered me to knock off work and go and amuse myself for three or four months, under penalties of an unpleasant kind.
So I am off to Venice next Wednesday. It is the only tolerably warm place accessible to any one whose wife will not let him go within reach of cholera just at present.
If I am a good boy I am to come back all sound, as there is nothing organic the matter; but I have had enough of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and shall extricate myself from that Trinity as soon as may be. Perhaps I may get within measurable distance of Berkeley ("English Men of Letters" edited by J.M.) before I die!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, October 18, 1884.
My dear Foster,
Best thanks for your letter and route. I am giving you a frightful quantity of trouble; but as the old woman (Irish) said to my wife, when she gave her a pair of my old trousers for her husband, "I hope it may be made up to ye in a better world."
She is clear, and I am clear, that there is no reason on my part for
not holding on if the Society really wishes I should. But, of course,
I must make it easy for the Council to get rid of a faineant
President, if they prefer that course.
I wrote to Evans an unofficial letter two days ago, and have had a very kind, straightforward letter from him. He is quite against my resignation. I shall see him this afternoon here. I had to go to my office (Fishery).
Clark's course of physic is lightening my abdominal troubles, but I am preposterously weak with a kind of shabby broken-down indifference to everything.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The "Indian summer" to which he looked forward was not to be reached without passing through a season of more than equinoctial storms and tempests. His career had reached its highest point only to be threatened with a speedy close. He himself did not exceed more than two or three years' longer lease of life, and went by easy stages to Venice, where he spent eight days.] "No place," [he writes,] "could be better fitted for a poor devil as sick in body and mind as I was when I got there."]
Venice itself [he writes to Dr. Foster] just suited me. I chartered a capital gondolier, and spent most of my time exploring the Lagoons. Especially I paid a daily visit to the Lido, and filled my lungs with the sea air, and rejoiced in the absence of stinks. For Venice is like her population (at least the male part of it), handsome but odorous. Did you notice how handsome the young men are and how little beauty there is among the women?
I stayed eight days in Venice and then returned by easy stages first to Padua, where I wanted to see Giotto's work, then to Verona, and then here (Lugano). Verona delighted me more than anything I have seen, and we will spend two other days there as we go back.
As for myself, I really have no positive complaint now. I eat well and I sleep well, and I should begin to think I was malingering, if it were not for a sort of weariness and deadness that hangs about me, accompanied by a curious nervous irritability.
I expect that this is the upshot of the terrible anxiety I have had about my daughter M—.
I would give a great deal to be able to escape facing the wedding, for my nervous system is in the condition of that of a frog under opium.
But my R. must not go off without the paternal benediction.
[For the first three weeks he was alone, his wife staying to make preparations for the third daughter's wedding on November 6th, for which occasion he was to return, afterwards taking her abroad with him. Unfortunately, just as he started, news was brought him at the railway station that his second daughter, whose brilliant gifts and happy marriage seemed to promise everything for her future, had been stricken by the beginnings of an insidious and, as he too truly feared, hopeless disease. Nothing could have more retarded his own recovery. It was a bitter grief, referred to only in his most intimate letters, and, indeed, for a time kept secret even from the other members of the family. Nothing was to throw a shade over the brightness of the approaching wedding.
But on his way home, he writes of that journey:—]
I had to bear my incubus, not knowing what might come next, until I reached Luzern, when I telegraphed for intelligence, and had my mind set at ease as to the measures which were being adopted.
I am a tough subject, and have learned to bear a good deal without crying out; but those four-and-twenty hours between London and Luzern have taught me that I have yet a good deal to learn in the way of "grinning and bearing."
[And although he writes,] "I would give a good deal not to face a lot of people next week,"…"I have the feelings of a wounded wild beast and hate the sight of all but my best friends," [he hid away his feelings, and made this the occasion for a very witty speech, of which, alas! I remember nothing but a delightfully mixed polyglot exordium in French, German, and Italian, the result, he declared, of his recent excursion to foreign parts, which had obliterated the recollection of his native speech.
During his second absence he appointed his youngest daughter secretary to look after necessary correspondence, about which he forwarded instructions from time to time.
The chief matters of interest in the letters of this period are accounts of health and travel, sometimes serious, more often jesting, for the letters were generally written in the bright intervals between his dark days: business of the Royal Society, and the publication of the new edition of the "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," upon which he and Dr. Foster had been at work during the autumn. But the four months abroad were not productive of very great good; the weather was unpropitious for an invalid—] "as usual, a quite unusual season" [—while his mind was oppressed by the reports of his daughter's illness. Under these circumstances recovery was slow and travel comfortless; all the Englishman's love of home breaks out in his letter of April 8, when he set foot again on English soil.]
Hotel de Londres, Verona, November 18, 1884.
Dearest Babs,
1. Why, indeed, do they ask for more? Wait till they send a letter of explanation, and then say that I am out of the country and not expected back for several years.
2. I wholly decline to send in any name to Athenaeum. But don't mention it.
3. Society of Arts be bothered, also —.
4. Write to Science and Art Club to engage three of the prettiest girls as partners for evening. They will look very nice as wallflowers.
5. Penny dinners? declined with thanks.
6. Ask the meeting of Herts N.H. Society to come here after next Thursday, when we shall be in Bologna.