Business first, my sweet girl secretary with the curly front; and now for private affairs, though as your mother is covering reams with them, I can only mention a few of the more important which she will forget.
The first is that she has a habit of hiding my shirts so that I am unable to find them when we go away, and the chambermaid comes rushing after us with the garment shamefully displayed.
The second is that she will cover all the room with her things, and I am obliged to establish a military frontier on the table.
The third is that she insists on my buying an Italian cloak. So you will see your venerable pater equipped in this wise. [Sketch of a cloaked figure like a brigand of melodrama.] except in these two particulars, she behaves fairly well to me.
In point of climate, so far, Italy has turned out a fraud. We dare not face Venice, and Mr. Fenili will weep over my defection; but that is better than that we should cough over his satisfaction.
I am quite pleased to hear of the theological turn of the family. It must be a drop of blood from one of your eight great-grandfathers, for none of your ancestors that I have known would have developed in this way.
…Best love to Nettie and Harry. Tell the former that cabbages do not cost 5 shillings apiece, and the latter that 11 P.M. is the cloture.
Ever your affectionate Pater.
Hotel Brittanique, Naples, November 30, 1884.
My dear Foster,
Which being St. Andrew's Day, I think the expatriated P. ought to give you some account of himself.
We had a prosperous journey to Locarno, but there plumped into bitter cold weather, and got chilled to the bone as the only guests in the big hotel, though they did their best to make us comfortable. I made a shot at bronchitis, but happily failed, and got all right again.
Pallanza was as bad. At Milan temperature at noon 39 degrees F., freezing at night. Verona much the same. Under these circumstances, we concluded to give up Venice and made for Bologna. There found it rather colder. Next Ravenna, where it snowed. However, we made ourselves comfortable in the queer hotel, and rejoiced in the mosaics of that sepulchral marsh.
At Bologna I had assurances that the Sicilian quarantine was going to be taken off at once, and as the reports of the railway travelling and hotels in Calabria were not encouraging, I determined to make for Naples, or rather, by way of extra caution, for Castellamare. All the way to Ancona the Apennines were covered with snow, and much of the plain also. Twenty miles north of Ancona, however, the weather changed to warm summer, and we rejoiced accordingly. At Foggia I found that the one decent hotel that used to exist was non-extant, so we went on to Naples.
Arriving at 10.30 very tired, got humbugged by a lying Neapolitan, who palmed himself off as the commissaire of the Hotel Bristol, and took us into an omnibus belonging to another hotel, that of the Bristol being, as he said, "broke." After a drive of three miles or so got to the Bristol and found it shut up! After a series of adventures and a good deal of strong language on my part, knocked up the people here, who took us in, though the hotel was in reality shut up like most of those in Naples. [Owing to the cholera and consequent dearth of travellers.]
As usual the weather is "unusual"—hot in the sun, cold round the corner and at night. Moreover, I found by yesterday's paper that the beastly Sicilians won't give up their ten days' quarantine. So all chance of getting to Catania or Palermo is gone. I am not sure whether we shall stay here for some time or go to Rome, but at any rate we shall be here a week.
Dohrn is away getting subsidies in Germany for his new ship. We inspected the Aquarium this morning. Eisig and Mayer are in charge. Madame is a good deal altered in the course of the twelve years that have elapsed since I saw her, but says she is much better than she was.
As for myself, I got very much better when in North Italy in spite of the piercing cold. But the fatigue of the journey from Ancona here, and the worry at the end of it, did me no good, and I have been seedy for a day or two. However, I am picking up.
I see one has to be very careful here. We had a lovely drive yesterday out Pausilippo, but the wife got chilled and was shaky this morning. However, we got very good news of our daughter this evening, and that has set us both up.
My blessing for to-morrow will reach you after date. Let us hear how everything went off.
Your return in May project is really impracticable on account of the Fishery Report. I cannot be so long absent from the Home Office whatever I might manage with South Kensington.
With our love to Mrs. Foster and you.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This letter, as he says a week later, was written when he] "was rather down in the mouth from the wretched cold weather, and the wife being laid up with a bad cold," [besides his own ailments.]
I find I have to be very careful about night air, but nothing does me so much good as six or seven miles' walk between breakfast and lunch—at a good sharp pace. So I conclude that there cannot be much the matter, and yet I am always on the edge, so to speak, of that infernal hypochondria.
We have settled down here very comfortably, and I do not think we shall care to go any further south. Madame Dohrn and all the people at the stazione are very kind, and want to do all sorts of things for us. The other day we went in the launch to Capri, intending next day to go to Amalfi. But it threatened bad weather, so we returned in the evening. The journey knocked us both up, and we had to get out of another projected excursion to Ischia to-day. The fact is, I get infinitely tired with talking to people and can't stand any deviation from regular and extremely lazy habits. Fancy my being always in bed by ten o'clock and breakfasting at nine!
[On the 10th, writing to Sir John Evans, who as Vice-President, was acting in his stead at the Royal Society, he says:—]
In spite of snow on the ground we had three or four days at Ravenna—which is the most interesting deadly lively sepulchre of a place I was ever in in my life. The evolution of modern from ancient art is all there in a nutshell…
I lead an altogether animal life, except that I have renewed my old love for Italian. At present I am rejoicing in the Autobiography of that delightful sinner, Benvenuto Cellini. I have some notion that there is such a thing as science somewhere. In fact I am fitting myself for Neapolitan nobility.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Hotel Brittanique, Naples, December 22, 1884.
But we have had no letters from home for a week…Moreover, if we don't hear to-day or to-morrow we shall begin to speculate on the probability of an earthquake having swallowed up 4 Marlborough Place "with all the young barbarians at play—And I their sire trying to get a Roman holiday" (Byron). For we are going to Rome to-morrow, having had enough of Naples, the general effect of which city is such as would be produced by the sight of a beautiful woman who had not washed or dressed her hair for a month. Climate, on the whole, more variable than that of London.
We had a lovely drive three days ago to Cumae, a perfect summer's day; since then sunshine, heat, cold wind, calms all durcheinander, with thunder and lightning last night to complete the variety.
The thermometer and barometer are not fixed to the walls here, as they would be jerked off by the sudden changes. At first, it is odd to see them dancing about the hall. But you soon get used to it, and the porter sees that they don't break themselves.
With love to Nettie and Harry, and hopes that the pudding will be good.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[In January 1885 he went to Rome, whence he writes:—]
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, Rome, January 8, 1885.
My dear Foster,
We have been here a fortnight very well lodged—south aspect, fireplace, and all the rest of the essentials except sunshine. Of this last there is not much more than in England, and the grey skies day after day are worthy of our native land. Sometimes it rains cats and dogs all day by way of a change—as on Christmas Day—but it is not cold. "Quite exceptional weather," they tell us, but that seems to be the rule everywhere. We have done a respectable amount of gallery-slaving, and I have been amusing myself by picking up the topography of ancient Rome. I was going to say Pagan Rome, but the inappropriateness of the distinction strikes me, papal Rome being much more stupidly and childishly pagan than imperial. I never saw a sadder sight than the kissing a wretched bedizened doll of a Bambino that went on in the Ara Coeli on Twelfth Day. Your puritan soul would have longed to arise and slay…
As to myself, though it is a very unsatisfactory subject and one I am very tired of bothering my friends about, I am like the farmer at the rent-dinner, and don't find myself much "forrarder." That is to say, I am well for a few days and then all adrift, and have to put myself right by dosing with Clark's pills, which are really invaluable. They will make me believe in those pills I saw advertised in my youth, and which among other things were warranted to cure "the indecision of juries." I really can't make out my own condition. I walked seven or eight miles this morning over Monte Mario and out on the Campagna without any particular fatigue, and yesterday I was as miserable as an owl in sunshine. Something perhaps must be put down to the relapse which our poor girl had a week ago, and which became known to us in a terrible way. She had apparently quite recovered, and arrangements were made for their going abroad, and now everything is upset. I warned her husband that this was very likely, but did not sufficiently take the warning to myself.
You are taking a world of trouble for me, and Donnelly writes I am to do as I like so far as they are concerned. I have heard nothing from the Home Office, and I suppose it would be proper for me to write if I want any more leave. I really hardly know what to do. I can't say I feel very fit for the hurly-burly of London just now, but I am not sure that the wholesomest thing for me would not be at all costs to get back to some engrossing work. If my poor girl were well, I could perhaps make something of the dolce far niente, but at present one's mind runs to her when it is not busy in something else.
I expect we shall be here a week or ten days more—at any rate, this address is safe—afterwards to Florence.
What am I to do in the Riviera? Here and at Florence there is always some distraction. You see the problem is complex.
My wife, who is very lively, thanks you for your letter (which I have answered) and joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[Writing on the same day to Sir J. Evans, he proposed a considerable alteration in the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society.]
You know that I served a seven years' apprenticeship as Secretary, and that experience gave me very solid grounds for the conviction that, with the present arrangements, a great deal of the time of the Secretaries is wasted over the almost mechanical drudgery of proof-reading.
[He suggests new arrangements, and proceeds:—]
At the same time it would be very important to adopt some arrangement by which the "Transactions" papers can be printed independently of one another.
Why should not the papers be paged independently and be numbered for each year. Thus—"Huxley Idleness and Incapacity in Italy." "Phil. Trans." 1885 6.
People grumble at the delay in publication, and are quite right in doing so, though it is impossible under the present system to be more expeditious, and it is not every senior secretary who would slave at the work as Stokes does…
But it is carrying coals to Newcastle to talk of such business arrangements as these to you.
The only thing I am strong about, is the folly of going on cutting blocks with our Secretarial razors any longer.
I am afraid I cannot give a very good account of myself.
The truth of the answer to Mallock's question "Is life worth living?"—that depends on the liver—is being strongly enforced upon me in the hepatic sense of liver, and I must confess myself fit for very little. A week hence we shall migrate to Florence and try the effect of the more bracing air. The Pincio is the only part of Rome that is fit to live in, and unfortunately the Government does not offer to build me a house there.
However, I have got a great deal of enjoyment out of ancient Rome—papal Rome is too brutally pagan (and in the worst possible taste too) for me.
[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]
January 11, 1885.
We have now had nearly three weeks in Rome. I am sick of churches, galleries, and museums, and meanly make M— go and see them and tell me about them. As we are one flesh, it is just the same as if I had seen them.
Since the time of Constantine there has been nothing but tawdry rubbish in the shape of architecture [For his appreciation of the great dome of the Pantheon, see below.]—the hopeless bad taste of the Papists is a source of continual gratification to me as a good Protestant (and something more). As for the skies, they are as changeable as those of England—the only advantage is the absence of frost and snow—(raining cats and dogs this Sunday morning).
But down to the time of Constantine, Rome is endlessly interesting, and if I were well I should like to spend some months in exploring it. As it is, I do very little, though I have contrived to pick up all I want to know about pagan Rome and the Catacombs, which last are my especial weakness.
My master and physician is bothered a good deal with eczema—otherwise very lively. All the chief collections in Rome are provided with a pair of her spectacles, which she leaves behind. Several new opticians' shops are set up on the strength of the purchases in this line she is necessitated to make.
I want to be back at work, but I am horribly afraid I should be no good yet. We are thinking of going to Florence at the end of this week to see what the drier and colder air there will do.
With our dear love to you all—we are wae for a sight of you.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, January 16, 1885.
My dear Foster,
It seems to me that I am giving my friends a world of trouble…
I have had a bad week of it, and the night before last was under the impression that I was about to succumb shortly to a complication of maladies, and moreover, that a wooden box that my wife had just had made would cost thousands of pounds in the way of payment for extra luggage before we reached home. I do not know which hypochondriacal possession was the most depressing. I can laugh at it now, but I really was extraordinarily weak and ill.
We had made up our minds to bolt from Rome to Florence at once, when I suddenly got better, and to-day am all right. So as we hear of snow at Florence we shall stop where we are. It has been raining cats and dogs here, and the Tiber rose 40 feet and inundated the low grounds. But "cantabit elevatus"; it can't touch us, and at any rate the streets are washed clean.
The climate is mild here. We have a capital room and all the sunshine that is to be had, plus a good fire when needful, and at worst one can always get a breezy walk on the Pincio hard by.
However, about the leave. Am I to do anything or nothing? I am dying to get back to steady occupation and English food, and the sort of regimen one can maintain in one's own house. On the other hand, I stand in fear of the bitter cold of February and early March, and still more of the thousand and one worries of London outside one's work. So I suppose it will be better if I keep away till Easter, or at any rate to the end of March. But I must hear something definite from the Home Office. I have written to Donnelly to the same effect. My poor Marian's relapse did not do us any good, for all that I expected it. However the last accounts are very favourable.
I wrote to Evans the other day about a re-arrangement of the duties of the Secretary and Assistant Secretary. I thought it was better to write to him than to you on that subject, and I begged him to discuss the matter with the officers. It is quite absurd that Stokes and you should waste your time in press drudgery.
We are very prudent here, and the climate suits us both, especially my wife, who is so vigorous that I depute her to go and see the Palazzi, and tell me all about them when she comes back. Old Rome is endlessly interesting to me, and I can always potter about and find occupation. I think I shall turn antiquary—it's just the occupation for a decayed naturalist, though you need not tell the Treasure I say so.
With our love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, January 18, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
Official sentence of exile for two months more (up to May 12) arrived yesterday. So if my lords will be so kind as to concur I shall be able to disport myself with a clear conscience. I hope their lordships won't think that I am taking things too easy in not making a regular application, and I will do so if you think it better. But if it had rested with me I think I should have got back in February and taken my chance. That energetic woman that owns me, and Michael Foster, however, have taken the game out of my hands, and I have nothing to do but to submit.
On the whole I feel it is wise. I shall have more chance if I escape not only the cold but the bother of London for a couple of months more.
I was very bad a week ago, but I have taken to dosing myself with quinine, and either that or something else has given me a spurt for the last two days, so that I have been more myself than any time since I left, and begin to think that there is life in the old dog yet. If one could only have some fine weather! To-day there is the first real sunshine we have been favoured with for a week.
We are just back from a great function at St. Peter's. It is the festa of St. Peter's chair, and the ex-dragoon Cardinal Howard has been fugleman in the devout adorations addressed to that venerable article of furniture, which, as you ought to know, but probably don't, is inclosed in a bronze double and perched up in a shrine of the worst possible taste in the Tribuna of St. Peter's. The display of man-millinery and lace was enough to fill the lightest-minded woman with envy, and a general concert—some of the music very good—prevented us from feeling dull, while the ci-devant guardsman—big, burly, and bullet-headed—made God and then eat him.
[A reminiscence of Browning in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb":—
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long.]
I must have a strong strain of Puritan blood in me somewhere, for I am possessed with a desire to arise and slay the whole brood of idolators whenever I assist at one of these ceremonies. You will observe that I am decidedly better, and have a capacity for a good hatred still.
The last news about Gordon is delightful. The chances are he will rescue Wolseley yet.
With our love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his eldest son.]
Rome, January 20, 1885.
I need hardly tell you that I find Rome wonderfully interesting, and the attraction increases the longer one stays. I am obliged to take care of myself and do but little in the way of sight-seeing, but by directing one's attention to particular objects one can learn a great deal without much trouble. I begin to understand Old Rome pretty well, and I am quite learned in the Catacombs, which suit me, as a kind of Christian fossils out of which one can reconstruct the body of the primitive Church. She was a simple maiden enough and vastly more attractive than the bedizened old harridan of the modern Papacy, so smothered under the old clothes of Paganism which she has been appropriating for the last fifteen centuries that Jesus of Nazareth would not know her if he met her.
I have been to several great papistical functions—among others to the festa of the Cathedra Petri in St. Peter's last Sunday, and I confess I am unable to understand how grown men can lend themselves to such elaborate tomfooleries—nothing but mere fetish worship—in forms of execrably bad taste, devised, one would think, by a college of ecclesiastical man-milliners for the delectation of school-girls. It is curious to notice that intellectual and aesthetic degradation go hand in hand. You have only to go from the Pantheon to St. Peter's to understand the great abyss which lies between the Roman of paganism and the Roman of the papacy. I have seen nothing grander than Agrippa's work—the popes have stripped it to adorn their own petrified lies, but in its nakedness it has a dignity with which there is nothing to compare in the ill-proportioned, worse decorated tawdry stone mountain on the Vatican.
The best thing, from an aesthetic point of view, that could be done with Rome would be to destroy everything except St. Paolo fuori le Mure, of later date than the fourth century.
But you will have had enough of my scrawl, and your mother wants to add something. She is in great force, and is gone prospecting to some Palazzo or other to tell me if it is worth seeing.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, January 25, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
Best thanks for the telegram which arrived the day before yesterday and set my mind at ease.
I have been screwing up the old machine which I inhabit, first with quinine and now with a form of strychnia (which Clark told me to take) for the last week, and I have improved a good deal—whether post hoc or proper hoc in the present uncertainty of medical science I decline to give any opinion.
The weather is very cold for Rome—ice an eighth of an inch thick in the Ludovisi Garden the other morning, and every night it freezes, but mostly fine sunshine in the day. (This is a remarkable sentence in point of grammar, but never mind.) The day before yesterday we came out on the Campagna, and it then was as fresh and bracing a breeze as you could get in Northumberland.
We are very comfortable and quiet here, and I hold on—till it gets warmer. I am told that Florence is detestable at present. As for London, our accounts make us shiver and cough.
News about the dynamiting gentry just arrived. A little more mischief and there will be an Irish massacre in some of our great towns. If an Irish Parnellite member were to be shot for every explosion I believe the thing would soon stop. It would be quite just, as they are practically accessories.
I think — would do it if he were Prime Minister. Nothing like a thorough Radical for arbitrary acts of power!
I must be getting better, as my disgust at science has ceased, and I have begun to potter about Roman geology and prehistoric work. You may be glad to learn that there is no evidence that the prehistoric Romans had Roman noses. But as I cannot find any particular prevalence of them among the modern—or ancient except for Caesar—Romani, the fact is not so interesting as it might appear, and I would not advise you to tell — of it.
Behold a Goak—feeble, but promising of better things.
My wife unites with me with love to Mrs. Donnelly and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter refers to the fourth edition of the "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," in the preparation of which Dr. Foster had been helping during the summer:—]
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, February 1, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Anything more disgraceful than the way in which I have left your letter of more than a fortnight ago unanswered, I don't know. I thought the wife had written about the leave (and she thought I had, as she has told you), but I knew I had not answered the questions about the title, still less considered the awful incubus (x 10,000 dinners by hepatic deep objection) of the preface.
There is such a thing as justice in this world—not much of it, but still some—and it is partly on that ground and partly because I want you, in view of future eventualities, to have a copyright in the book, that I proposed we should join our names.
Of course, if you would really rather not, for any good reason you may have, I have nothing further to say. But I don't think that the sentimental reason is a good one, and unless you have a better, I wish you would let the original proposal stand.
However, having stated the case afresh I leave it for you to say yes or no, and shall abide by your decision without further discussion.
As to the Preface. If I am to write it, please send me the old Preface. I think the book was published in 1864, or was it 1866? [In 1866.] and it ought to be come of age or nearly so.
You might send me the histological chapter, not that I am going to alter anything, but I should like to see how it looks. I will knock the Preface off at once, as soon as I hear from you.
The fact is, I have been much better in the course of the last few days. The weather has been very sunshiny but cool and bracing, and I have taken to quinine. Tried Clark's strychnine, but it did not answer so well.
I am in hopes that I have taken a turn for the better, and that there may yet be the making of something better than a growling hypochondriacal old invalid about me. But I am most sincerely glad that I am not obliged to be back 10 days hence—there is not much capital accumulated yet.
I find that the Italians have been doing an immense deal in prehistoric archaeology of late years, and far more valuable work than I imagined. But it is very difficult to get at, and as Loescher's head man told me the other day when I asked for an Italian book published in Rome, "Well, you see it is so difficult to get Roman books in Rome."
I am ashamed to be here two months without paying my respects to the Lincei, and I am going to-day. The unaccountable creatures meet at 1 o'clock—lunch time!
Best love from my wife and self to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Rome, February 14, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Voila the preface—a work of great labour! and which you may polish and alter as you like, ALL BUT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. You see I have caved in. I like your asking to have your own way "for once." My wife takes the same line, does whatever she pleases, and then declares I leave her no initiative.
If I talk of public affairs, I shall simply fall a-blaspheming. I see the "Times" holds out about Gordon, and does not believe he is killed. Poor fellow! I wish I could believe that his own conviction (as he told me) is true, and that death only means a larger government for him to administer. Anyhow, it is better to wind up that way than to go growling out one's existence as a ventose hypochondriac, dependent upon the condition of a few square inches of mucous membrane for one's heaven or hell.
As to private affairs, I think I am getting solidly, but very slowly, better. In fact, I can't say there is much the matter with me, except that I am weaker than I ought to be, and that a sort of weary indolence hangs about me like a fog. M— is wonderfully better, and her husband has taken a house for them at Norwood. If I could be rejoiced at anything, I should be at that; but it seems to me as if since that awful journey when I first left England, "the springs was broke," as that vagabond tout said at Naples.
It has turned very cold here, and we are uncertain when to leave for Florence, but probably next week. The Carnival is the most entirely childish bosh I have ever met with among grown people. Want to finish this now for post, but will write again speedily. Moseley's proposition is entirely to my mind, and I have often talked to it. The Royal Society rooms ought to be house-of-call and quasi-club for all F.R.S. in London.
Wife is bonny, barring a cold. It is as much as I can do to prevent her sporting a mask and domino!
With best love,
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, February 16, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
I have had it on my mind to write to you for the last week—ever since the hideous news about Gordon reached us. But partly from a faint hope that his wonderful fortune might yet have stood him in good stead, and partly because there is no great satisfaction in howling with rage, I have abstained.
Poor fellow! I wonder if he has entered upon the "larger sphere of action" which he told me was reserved for him in case of such a trifling accident as death. Of all the people whom I have met with in my life, he and Darwin are the two in whom I have found something bigger than ordinary humanity—an unequalled simplicity and directness of purpose—a sublime unselfishness.
Horrible as it is to us, I imagine that the manner of his death was not unwelcome to himself. Better wear out than rust out, and better break than wear out. The pity is that he could not know the feeling of his countrymen about him.
I shall be curious to see what defence the super-ingenious Premier has to offer for himself in Parliament. I suppose, as usual, the question will drift into a brutal party fight, when the furious imbecility of the Tories will lead them to spoil their case. That is where we are; on the one side, timid imbecility "waiting for instructions from the constituencies"; furious imbecility on the other, looking out for party advantage. Oh! for a few months of William Pitt.
I see you think there may be some hope that Gordon has escaped yet. I am afraid the last telegram from Wolseley was decisive. We have been watching the news with the greatest anxiety, and it has seemed only to get blacker and blacker.
…
[Touching a determined effort to alter the management of certain
Technical Education business.]
I trust he may succeed, and that the unfitness of these people to be trusted with anything may be demonstrated. I regret I am not able to help in the good work. Get the thing out of their hands as fast as possible. The prospect of being revenged for all the beastly dinners I sat out and all the weary discussions I attended to no purpose, really puts a little life into me. Apropos of that, I am better in various ways, but curiously weak and washed out; and I am afraid that not even the prospect of a fight would screw me up for long. I don't understand it, unless I have some organic disease of which nobody can find any trace (and in which I do not believe myself), or unless the terrible trouble we have had has accelerated the advent of old age. I rather suspect that the last speculation is nearest the truth. You will be glad to hear that my poor girl is wonderfully better, and, indeed, to all appearance quite well. They are living quietly at Norwood.
I shall be back certainly by the 12th April, probably before. We have found very good quarters here, and have waited for the weather to get warmer before moving; but at last we have made up our minds to begin nomadising again next Friday. We go to Florence, taking Siena, and probably Pisa, on our way, and reaching Florence some time next week. Address—Hotel Milano, Via Cerretani.
For the last week the Carnival has been going on. It strikes me as the most elaborate and dreariest tomfoolery I have ever seen, but I doubt if I am in the humour to judge it fairly. It is only just to say that it entertains my vigorous wife immensely. I have been expecting to see her in mask and domino, but happily this is the last day, and there is no sign of any yet. I have never seen any one so much benefited by rest and change as she is, and that is a good thing for both of us.
After Florence we shall probably make our way to Venice, and come home by the Lago di Garda and Germany. But I will let you know when our plans are settled.
With best love from we two to you two.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Siena, February 23, 1885.
Dearest Ethel,
The cutting you sent me contains one of the numerous "goaks" of a Yankee performing donkey who is allowed to disport himself in one of the New York papers. I confess it is difficult to see the point of the joke, but there is one if you look close. I don't think you need trouble to enlighten the simple inquirer. He probably only wanted the indignant autograph which he won't get.
The Parker Museum must take care of itself. The public ought to support it, not the men of science.
As a grandfather, I am ashamed of my friends who are of the same standing; but I think they would take it as a liberty if, in accordance with your wish, I were to write to expostulate.
After your mother had exhausted the joys of the Carnival, she permitted me to leave Rome for this place, where we arrived last Friday evening. My impression is that if we had stayed in Rome much longer we should never have left. There is something idle and afternoony about the air which whittles away one's resolution.
The change here is wonderfully to the good. We are perched more than a thousand feet above the sea, looking over the Tuscan hills for twenty or thirty miles every way. It is with them enough sit with the window wide open and yet the air is prior and more bracing than in any place we have visited. Moreover, the hotel (Grande Albergo) is very comfortable.
Then there is one of the most wonderful cathedrals to be seen in all North Italy—free from all the gaudy finery and atrocious bad taste which have afflicted me all over South Italy. The town is the quaintest place imaginable—built of narrow streets on several steep hills to start with, and then apparently stirred up with a poker to prevent monotony of effect.
Moreover, there is Catherine of Siena, of whom I am reading a delightful Catholic life by an Italian father of the Oratory. She died 500 years ago, but she was one of twenty-five children, and I think some of them must have settled in Kent and allied themselves with the Heathorns. Otherwise, I don't see why her method of writing to the Pope should have been so much like the way my daughters (especially the youngest) write to their holy father.
I wish she had not had the stigmata—I am afraid there must have been a LEETLE humbug about the business—otherwise she was a very remarkable person, and you need not be ashamed of the relationship.
I suppose we shall get to Florence some time this week; the address was sent to you before we left Rome—Hotel Milano, Via Cerretani. But I am loth to leave this lovely air in which, I do believe, I am going to pick up at last. The misfortune is that we did not intend to stay here more than three days, and so had letters sent to Florence. Everybody told us it would be very cold, and, as usual, everybody told taradiddles.
M— unites in fondest love to you all.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his son.]
Siena, February 25, 1885.
…If you had taken to physical science it would have been delightful for me for us to have worked together, and I am half inclined to take to history that I may earn that pleasure. I could give you some capital wrinkles about the physical geography and prehistoric history (excuse bull) of Italy for a Roman History primer! Joking apart, I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it a process of evolution—intelligible to the young. The Italians have been doing wonders in the last twenty years in prehistoric archaeology, and I have been greatly interested in acquainting myself with the general results of their work.
We moved here last Friday, and only regret that the reports of the weather prevented us from coming sooner. More than 1000 feet above the sea, in the midst of a beautiful hill country, and with the clearest and purist air we have met with in Italy, Siena is perfectly charming. The window is wide open and I look out upon a vast panorama, something like that of the Surrey hills, only on a larger scale—"Raw Siena," "Burnt Siena," in the foreground, where the colour of the soil is not hidden by the sage green olive foliage, purple mountains in the distance.
The old town itself is a marvel of picturesque crookedness, and the cathedral a marvel. M. and I have been devoting ourselves this morning to St. Catarina and Sodoma's pictures.
I am reading a very interesting life of her by Capecelatro, and if my liver continues out of order, may yet turn Dominican.
However, the place seems to be doing me good, and I may yet, like another person, decline to be a monk.
[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]
March 8.
The great merit of Rome is that you have never seen the end of it. M. and I have not worked very hard at our galleries and churches, but I have got so far as a commencing dislike for the fine arts generally. Perhaps after a week or two I shall take to science out of sheer weariness.
Hotel de Milano, Florence, March 12, 1885.
My dear Foster,
My wife and I send you our hearty good wishes (antedated by four days). I am not sure we ought not to offer our best thanks to your mother for providing us with as staunch a friend as people ever were blessed with. It is possible that she did not consider that point nine and forty years ago; but we are just as grateful as if she had gone through it all on our own account.
We start on our way homeward to-morrow or next day, by Bologna to Venice, and then to England by the way we came—taking it easy. The Brenner is a long way round and I hear very cold. I think we may stay a few days at Lugano, which I liked very much when there before. Florence is very charming, but there is not much to be said for the climate. My wife has been bothered with sore throat, to which she is especially liable, ever since we have been here. Old residents console her with the remark that Florentine sore throat is a regular thing in the spring. The alternations of heat and cold are detestable. So we stand thus—Naples, bad for both—Rome, good for her, bad for me—Florence, bad for her, baddish for me. Venice has to be tried, but stinks and mosquitoes are sure to render it impossible as soon as the weather is warm. Siena is the only place that suited both of us, and I don't think that would exactly answer to live in. Nothing like foreign travel for making one content with home.
I shall have to find a country lot suited to my fortunes when I am paid off. Couldn't you let us have your gardener's cottage? my wife understands poultry and I shall probably have sufficient strength to open the gate and touch my hat to the Dons as they drive up. I am afraid E. is not steady enough for waiting-maid or I would offer her services.
…I am rejoiced to hear that the lessons and the questions are launched. [The new edition of the "Elementary Physiology."] They loom large to me as gigantic undertakings, in which a dim and speculative memory suggests I once took part, but probably it is a solar myth, and I am too sluggish to feel much compunction for the extra trouble you have had.
Perhaps I shall revive when my foot is on my native heath in the shady groves of the Evangelist. [St. John's Wood.]
My wife is out photograph hunting—nothing diminishes her activity—otherwise she would join in love and good wishes to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The two worst and most depressing periods of this vain pilgrimage in pursuit of health were the stay at Rome and at Florence. At the latter town he was inexpressibly ill and weak; but his daily life was brightened by the sympathy and active kindness of Sir Spencer Walpole, who would take him out for short walks, talking as little as possible, and shield him from the well-meant but tactless attentions of visitors who would try to] "rouse him and do him good" [by long talks on scientific questions.
His physical condition, indeed, was little improved.]
As for my unsatisfactory carcass [he writes on March 6, to Sir J. Donnelly], there seems nothing the matter with it now except that the brute objects to work. I eat well, drink well, sleep well, and have no earthly ache, pain or discomfort. I can walk for a couple of hours or more without fatigue. But half an hour's talking wearies me inexpressibly, and "saying a few words," would finish me for the day. For all that, I do not mean to confess myself finally beaten till I have had another try.
[That is to say, he was still bent upon delivering his regular course of lectures at South Kensington as soon as he returned, in spite of the remonstrances of his wife and his friends.
In the same letter he contrasts Florence with Siena and its] "fresh, elastic air," [its] "lovely country that reminds one of a magnified version of the Surrey weald." [The Florentine climate was trying. (A week later he writes to Sir J. Evans—] "I begin to look forward with great satisfaction to the equability of English weather—to that dear little island where doors and windows shut close—where fires warm without suffocating—where the chief business of the population in the streets is something else than expectoration—and where I shall never see fowl with salad again. You perceive I am getting better by this prolonged growl…But half an hour's talking knocks me up, and I am such an effete creature that I think of writing myself p.R.S. With a small p.") "And then there is the awful burden of those miles of 'treasures of art.'" [He had been to the Uffizii;] "and there is the Pitti staring me in the face like drear fate. Why can't I have the moral courage to come back and say I haven't seen it? I should be the most distinguished of men."
[There is another reference to Gordon:—]
What an awful muddle you are all in in the bright little, tight little island. I hate the sight of the English papers. The only good thing that has met my eye lately is a proposal to raise a memorial to Gordon. I want to join in whatever is done, and unless it will be time enough when I return, I shall be glad if you will put me down for 5 pounds to whatever is the right scheme.
[The following to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, describes the stay in
Florence.]
Hotel de Milano, Florence, March 7, 1885.
We have been here more than a week and have discovered two things, first that the wonderful "art treasures," of which all the world has heard, are a sore burden to the conscience if you don't go to see them, and an awful trial to the back and legs if you do; and thirdly, that the climate is productive of a peculiar kind of relaxed throat. M.'s throat discovered it, but on inquiry, it proved to be a law of nature, at least, so the oldest inhabitants say. We called on them to-day.
But it is a lovely place for all that, far better than Rome as a place to live in, and full of interesting things. We had a morning at the Uffizii the other day, and came back with minds enlarged and backs broken. To-morrow we contemplate attacking the Pitti, and doubt not the result will be similar. By the end of the week our minds will probably be so large, and the small of the back so small that we should probably break if we stayed any longer, so think it prudent to be off to Venice. Which Friday is the day we go, reaching Venice Saturday or Sunday. Pension Suisse, Canal Grande, as before. And mind we have letters waiting for us there, or your affectionate Pater will emulate the historical "cocky."
I got much better at Siena, probably the result of the medicinal nature of the city, the name of which, as a well-instructed girl like you knows, is derived from the senna, which grows wild there, and gives the soil its peculiar pigmentary character.
But unfortunately I forgot to bring any with me, and the effect went off during the first few days of our residence here, when I was, as the Italians say, "molto basso nel bocca." However I am picking up again now, and if people wouldn't call upon us, I feel there might be a chance for me.
I except from that remark altogether the dear Walpoles who are here and as nice as ever. Mrs. Walpole's mother and sister live here, and the W's are on a visit to them but leave on Wednesday. They go to Venice, but only for two or three days.
We shall probably stay about a fortnight in Venice, and then make our way back by easy stages to London. We are wae to see you all again.
Doctor M— [Mrs. Huxley] has just been called in to a case of sore throat in the person of a young lady here, and is quite happy. The young lady probably will not be, when she finds herself converted into a sort of inverted mustard-pot, with the mustard outside! She is one of a very nice family of girls, who (by contrast) remind us of own.
Ever your loving (to all) father,
Pater.
Mrs. M.— has just insisted on seeing this letter.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Hotel Beau Sejour, San Remo, March 30, 1885.
Dearest Babs,
We could not stand "beautiful Venice the pride of the sea" any longer. It blew and rained and colded for eight-and-forty hours consecutively. Everybody said it was a most exceptional season, but that did not make us any warmer or prevent your mother from catching an awful cold. So as soon as she got better we packed up and betook ourselves here by way of Milan and Genoa. At Milan it was so like London on a wet day, that except for the want of smoke we might have been in our dear native land. At Genoa we arrived late one afternoon and were off early in the morning—but by dint of taking a tram after dinner (not a dram) and going there and back again we are able to say we have seen that city of palaces. The basements we saw through the tram windows by mixed light of gas and moon may in fact all have belonged to palaces. We are not in a position to say they did not.
The quick train from Genoa here is believed to go fully twenty-five miles an hour, but starts at 7 A.M., but the early morning air being bad for the health, we took the slow train at 9.30, and got here some time in the afternoon. But mind you it is a full eighty miles, and when we were at full speed between the stations—very few donkeys could have gone faster. But the coast scenery is very pretty, and we didn't mind.
Here we are very well off and as nearly warm as I expect to be before reaching England. You can sit out in the sun with satisfaction, though there is a little knife-edge of wind just to remind us of Florence. Everybody, however, tells us it is quite an exceptional season, and that it ought to be the most balmy air imaginable. Besides there are no end of date-palms and cactuses and aloes and odorous flowers in the garden—and the loveliest purple sea you can imagine.
Well, we shall stop some days and give San Remo a chance—at least a week, unless the weather turns bad.
As to your postcards which have been sent on from Venice and are really shabby, I am not going to any dinners whatsoever, either Middle Temple or Academy. Just write to both that "Mr. H. regrets he is unable to accept the invitation with which — have honoured him." (It's like putting the shutters up," [he said sadly to his wife, when he felt unable to attend the Royal Academy dinner as he had done for many years.])
I have really nothing the matter with me now—but my stock of strength is not great, and I can't afford to spend any on dinners.
The blessedest thing now will be to have done with the nomadic life of the last five months—and see your ugly faces (so like their dear father) again. I believe it will be the best possible tonic for me.
M— has not got rid of her cold yet, but a few warm days here will, I hope, set her up.
I met Lady Whitworth on the esplanade to-day—she is here with Sir Joseph, and this afternoon we went to call on her. The poor old man is very feeble and greatly altered since I saw him last.
Write here on receiving this. We shall take easy stages home, but I don't know that I shall be able to give you any address.
M— sends heaps of love to all (including Charles [The cat.]).
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Tell the "Micropholis" man that it is a fossil lizard with an armour of small scales.
CHAPTER 2.17.
1885.
[On April 8, he landed at Folkestone, and stayed there a day or two before going to London. Writing to Sir J. Donnelly, he remarks with great satisfaction at getting home:—]
We got here this afternoon after a rather shady passage from Boulogne, with a strong north wind in our teeth all the way, and rain galore. For all that, it is the pleasantest journey I have made for a long time—so pleasant to see one's own dear native mud again. There is no foreign mud to come near it.
[And on the same day he sums up to Sir M. Foster the amount of good he has gained from his expedition, and the amount of good any patient is likely to get from travel:—]
As for myself I have nothing very satisfactory to say. By the oddest chance we met Andrew Clark in the boat, and he says I am a very bad colour—which I take it is the outward and visible sign of the inward and carnal state. I may sum that up by saying that there is nothing the matter but weakness and indisposition to do anything, together with a perfect genius for making mountains out of molehills.
After two or three fine days at Venice, we have had nothing but wet or cold—or hot and cold at the same time, as in that prodigious imposture the Riviera. Of course it was the same story everywhere, "perfectly unexampled season."
Moral.—If you are perfectly well and strong, brave Italy—but in search of health stop at home.
It has been raining cats and dogs, and Folkestone is what some people would call dreary. I could go and roll in the mud with satisfaction that it is English mud.
It will be jolly to see you again. Wife unites in love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To return home was not only a great pleasure; it gave him a fillip for the time, and he writes to Sir M. Foster, April 12:—]
It is very jolly to be home, and I feel better already. Clark has just been here overhauling me, and feels very confident that he shall screw me up.
I have renounced dining out and smoking (!!!) by way of preliminaries. God only knows whether I shall be permitted more than the smell of a mutton chop for dinner. But I have great faith in Andrew, who set me straight before when other "physicians' aid was vain."
[But his energy was fitful; lassitude and depression again invaded him. He was warned by Sir Andrew Clark to lay aside all the burden of his work. Accordingly, early in May, just after his sixtieth birthday, he sent in his formal resignation of the Professorship of Biology, and the Inspectorship of Salmon Fisheries; while a few days later he laid his resignation of the Presidency before the Council of the Royal Society. By the latter he was begged to defer his final decision, but his health gave no promise of sufficient amendment before the decisive Council meeting in October.
He writes on May 27:—]
I am convinced that what with my perennial weariness and my deafness I ought to go, whatever my kind friends may say.
[A curious effect of his illness was that for the first time in his life he began to shrink involuntarily from assuming responsibilities and from appearing on public occasions; thus he writes on June 16:—]
I am sorry to say that the perkiness of last week was only a spurt [I.e. at the unveiling of the Darwin statue at South Kensington.], and I have been in a disgusting state of blue devils lately. Can't mark out what it is, for I really have nothing the matter, except a strong tendency to put the most evil construction upon everything.
I am fairly dreading to-morrow [i.e. receiving the D.C.L. degree at Oxford] but why I don't know—probably an attack of modesty come on late in life and consequently severe.
Very likely it will do me good and make me "fit" for Thursday [(i.e.
Council and ordinary meetings of Royal Society).
And a month later:—]
I have been idling in the country for two or three days—but like the woman with the issue, "I am not better but rather worse"—blue devils and funk—funk and blue devils. Liver, I expect. [(An ailment of which he says to Professor Marsh,] "I rather wish I had some respectable disease—it would be livelier.")
And again:—]
Everybody tells me I look so much better, that I am really ashamed to go growling about, and confess that I am continually in a blue funk and hate the thought of any work—especially of scientific or anything requiring prolonged attention.
[At the end of July he writes to Sir W. Flower:—]
4 Marlborough Place, July 27, 1885.
My dear Flower,
I am particularly glad to hear that things went right on Saturday, as my conscience rather pricked me for my desertion of the meeting. [British Museum Trustees, July 25.] But it was the only chance we had of seeing our young married couple before the vacation—and you will rapidly arrive at a comprehension of the cogency of THAT argument now.
I will think well of your kind words about the Presidency. If I could only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to hold in Devonshire!
P.R.S. in a continual blue funk is not likely to be either dignified or useful; and unless I am in a better frame of mind in October I am afraid I shall have to go.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A few weeks at Filey in August did him some good at first; and he writes cheerfully of his lodgings in] "a place with the worst-fitting doors and windows, and the hardest chairs, sofas, and beds known to my experience."
[He continues:—]
I am decidedly picking up. The air here is wonderful, and as we can set good cookery against hard lying (I don't mean in the Munchausen line) the consequent appetite becomes a mild source of gratification. Also, I have not met with more than two people who knew me, and that in my present state is a negative gratification of the highest order.
[Later on he tried Bournemouth; being no better, he thought of an entirely new remedy.]
The only thing I am inclined to do is to write a book on Miracles. I think it might do good and unload my biliary system.
[In this state of indecision, so unnatural to him, he writes to Sir M.
Foster:—]
I am anything but clear as to the course I had best take myself. While undoubtedly much better in general health, I am in a curious state of discouragement, and I should like nothing better than to remain buried here (Bournemouth) or anywhere else, out of the way of trouble and responsibility. It distresses me to think that I shall have to say something definite about the Presidency at the meeting of the Council in October.
[Finally on October 20, he writes:—]
I think the lowest point of my curve of ups and downs is gradually rising—but I have by no means reached the point when I can cheerfully face anything. I got over the Board of Visitors (two hours and a half) better than I expected, but my deafness was a horrid nuisance.
I believe the strings of the old fiddle will tighten up a good deal, if I abstain from attempting to play upon the instrument at present—but that a few jigs now will probably ruin that chance.
But I will say my final word at our meeting next week. I would rather step down from the chair than dribble out of it. Even the devil is in the habit of departing with a "melodious twang," and I like the precedent.
[So at the Anniversary meeting on November 30, he definitely announced in his last Presidential address his resignation of that] "honourable office" [which he could no longer retain] "with due regard to the interests of the Society, and perhaps, I may add, of self-preservation."
I am happy to say [he continued] that I have good reason to believe that, with prolonged rest—by which I do not mean idleness, but release from distraction and complete freedom from those lethal agencies which are commonly known as the pleasures of society—I may yet regain so much strength as is compatible with advancing years. But in order to do so, I must, for a long time yet, be content to lead a more or less anchorite life. Now it is not fitting that your President should be a hermit, and it becomes me, who have received so much kindness and consideration from the Society, to be particularly careful that no sense of personal gratification should delude me into holding the office of its representative one moment after reason and conscience have pointed out my incapacity to discharge the serious duties which devolve upon the President, with some approach to efficiency.
I beg leave, therefore, with much gratitude for the crowning honour of my life which you have conferred upon me, to be permitted to vacate the chair of the Society as soon as the business of this meeting is at an end.
[The settlement of the terms of the pension upon which, after thirty-one years of service under Government, he retired from his Professorship at South Kensington and the Inspectorship of Fisheries, took a considerable time. The chiefs of his own department, that of Education, wished him to retire upon full pay, 1500 pounds. The Treasury were more economical. It was the middle of June before the pension they proposed of 1200 pounds was promised; the end of July before he knew what conditions were attached to it.
On June 20, he writes to Mr. Mundella, Vice-President of the
Council:—]
My dear Mundella,
Accept my warmest thanks for your good wishes, and for all the trouble you have taken on my behalf. I am quite ashamed to have been the occasion of so much negotiation.
Until I see the Treasury letter, I am unable to judge what the 1200 pounds may really mean [I.e. Whether he was to draw his salary of 200 pounds as Dean or not.], but whatever the result, I shall never forget the kindness with which my chiefs have fought my battle.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On July 16, he writes to Sir M. Foster:—]
The blessed Treasury can't make up their minds whether I am to be asked to stay on as Dean or not, and till they do, I can't shake off any of my fetters.
[Early in the year he had written to Sir John Donnelly of the necessity of resigning:—]
Nevertheless [he added], it will be a sad day for me when I find myself no longer entitled to take part in the work of the schools in which you and I have so long been interested.
[But that "sad day" was not to come yet. His connection with the Royal College of Science was not entirely severed. He was asked to continue, as Honorary Dean, a general supervision of the work he had done so much to organise, and he kept the title of Professor of Biology, his successors in the practical work of the chair being designated Assistant Professors.]
"I retain," [he writes,] "general superintendence as part of the great unpaid."
It is a comfort [he writes to his son] to have got the thing settled. My great desire at present is to be idle, and I am now idle with a good conscience.
[Later in the year, however, a change of Ministry having taken place, he was offered a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year by Lord Iddesleigh. He replied accepting it:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.
My dear Lord Iddesleigh,
Your letters of the 20th November reached me only last night, and I hasten to thank you for both of them. I am particularly obliged for your kind reception of what I ventured to say about the deserts of my old friend Sir Joseph Hooker.
With respect to your lordship's offer to submit my name to Her Majesty for a Civil List Pension, I can but accept a proposal which is in itself an honour, and which is rendered extremely gratifying to me by the great kindness of the expressions in which you have been pleased to embody it.
I am happy to say that I am getting steadily better at last, and under the regime of "peace with honour" that now seems to have fallen to my lot, I may fairly hope yet to do a good stroke of work or two.
I remain, my dear Lord Iddesleigh, faithfully yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
I believe you have been at work again!
Lord Iddesleigh has written to me to ask if I will be recommended for a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year, a very pretty letter, not at all like the Treasury masterpiece you admired so much.
Didn't see why I should not accept, and have accepted accordingly.
When the announcement comes out the Liberals will say the Tory
Government have paid me for attacking the G.O.M.! to a dead certainty.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[Five days later he replies to the congratulations of Mr. Eckersley (whose son had married Huxley's third daughter):—]
…Lord Iddesleigh's letter offering to submit my name for an honorary pension was a complete surprise.
My chiefs in the late Government wished to retire me on full pay, but the Treasury did not see their way to it, and cut off 300 pounds a year. Naturally I am not sorry to have the loss made good, but the way the thing was done is perhaps the pleasantest part of it.
[There was a certain grim appropriateness in his "official death" following hard upon his sixtieth birthday, for sixty was the age at which he had long declared that men of science ought to be strangled, lest age should harden them against the reception of new truths, and make them into clogs upon progress, the worse, in proportion to the influence they had deservedly won. This is the allusion in a birthday letter from Sir M. Foster:—
Reverend Sir,
So the "day of strangulation" has arrived at last, and with it the humble petition of your friends that you may be induced to defer the "happy despatch" for, say at least ten years, when the subject may again come up for consideration. For your petitioners are respectfully inclined to think that if your sixtyship may be induced so far to become an apostle as to give up the fishery business, and be led to leave the Black Board at South Kensington to others, the t'other side sixty years, may after all be the best years of your life. In any case they would desire to bring under your notice the fact that THEY FEEL THEY WANT YOU AS MUCH AS EVER THEY DID.
Ever thine,
M.F.
Reference has been made to the fact that the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred this May upon Huxley by the University of Oxford. The Universities of the sister kingdoms had been the first thus to recognise his work; and after Aberdeen and Dublin, Cambridge, where natural science had earlier established a firm foothold, showed the way to Oxford. Indeed, it was not until his regular scientific career was at an end, that the University of Oxford opened its portals to him. So, as he wrote to Professor Bartholomew Price on May 20, in answer to the invitation,] "It will be a sort of apotheosis coincident with my official death, which is imminent. In fact, I am dead already, only the Treasury Charon has not yet settled the conditions upon which I am to be ferried over to the other side."
[Before leaving the subject of his connection with the Royal Society, it may be worth while to give a last example of the straightforward way in which he dealt with a delicate point whether to vote or not to vote for his friend Sir Andrew Clark, who had been proposed for election to the Society. It occurred just after his return from abroad; he explains his action to Sir Joseph Hooker, who had urged caution on hearing a partial account of the proceedings.]