If with such a start, he has not the capacity to get all he needs out of books, let him stop where he is. Blow him up with intermediate education as much as you like, you will only do the fellow a mischief and lift him into a place for which he has no real qualification. People never will recollect, that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything.
The technical education act goes a long way to meet the second claim of the State; so far as scientific and industrial capacities are concerned. In a few years there will be no reason why any potential Whitworth or Faraday, in the three kingdoms, should not readily obtain the best education that is to be had, scientific or technical. The same will hold good for Art. So the question that arises seems to me to be whether the State ought or ought not to do something of the same kind for Literature, Philosophy, History, and Philology.
I am inclined to think not, on the ground that the universities and public schools ought to do this very work, and that as soon as they cease to be clericalised seminaries they probably will do it.
If the present government would only give up their Irish fad—and bring in a bill to make it penal for any parson to hold any office in a public school or university or to presume to teach outside the pulpit—they should have my valuable support!
I should not wonder if Gladstone's mind is open on the subject. Pity I am not sufficiently a persona grata with him to offer to go to Hawarden and discuss it.
I quite agree with you, therefore, that it will play the deuce if intermediate education is fossilised as it would be by any Act prepared under present influences. The most I should like to see done, would be to help the youth of special literary, linguistic and so forth, capacity, to get the best training in their special line.
It was lucky we did not go to you. My wife got an awful dose of neuralgia and general upset, and was laid up at the Hotel. The house was not quite finished inside, but we came in on Tuesday, and she has been getting better ever since in spite of the gale.
I am sorry to hear of the recurrence of influenza. It is a beastly thing. Lord Justice Bowen told me he has had it every time it has been in the country. You must come and try Eastbourne air as soon as we are settled. With our love to you and Mrs. Donnelly.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Better be careful, I return all letters on which R.H. is not in full.
[An allusion to his recent Privy Councillorship. See below.]
[The next is to a young man with aspirations after an intellectual career, who asked his advice as to the propriety of throwing up his business, and plunging into literature or science:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 5, 1892.
Dear Sir,
I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me from sending an earlier reply to your letter.
In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to do work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself a very important education, the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not care about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.
Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man, who, as the Scotch proverb says, in "trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.
I think that your father ought to see this letter.
Yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The last of the series, addressed to the secretary of a free-thought association, expresses his firmly rooted disgust at the use of mere ribaldry in attacking the theological husks which enclose a religious ideal.
May 22, 1892.
Dear Sir,
I regret that I am unable to comply with the wish of your committee. For one thing, I am engaged in work which I do not care to interrupt, and for another, I always make it a rule in these matters to "fight for my own hand." I do not desire that any one should share my responsibility for what I think fit to say, and I do not wish to be responsible for the opinions and modes of expression of other persons.
I do not say this with any reference to Mr. — who is a sober and careful writer. But both as a matter of principle and one of policy, I strongly demur to a great deal of what appears as "free thought" literature, and I object to be in any way connected with it. Heterodox ribaldry disgusts me, I confess, rather more than orthodox fanaticism. It is at once so easy; so stupid; such a complete anachronism in England, and so thoroughly calculated to disgust and repel the very thoughtful and serious people whom it ought to be the great aim to attract. Old Noll knew what he was about when he said that it was of no use to try to fight the gentlemen of England with tapsters and serving-men. It is quite as hopeless to fight Christianity with scurrility. We want a regiment of Ironsides.
[This summer brought Huxley a most unexpected distinction in the shape of admission to the Privy Council. Mention has already been made (volume 2) of his reasons for refusing to accept a title for distinction in science, apart from departmental administration. The proper recognition of science, he maintained, lay in the professional recognition of a man's work by his peers in science, the members of the learned societies of his own and other countries.
But, as has been said, the Privy Councillorship was an office, not a title, although with a title attaching to the office; and in theory, at least, a scientific Privy Councillor might some day play an important part as an accredited representative of science, to be consulted officially by the Government, should occasion arise.
Of a selection of letters on the subject, mostly answers to congratulations, I place first the one to Sir M. Foster, which gives the fullest account of the affair.]
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 23, 1892.
My dear Foster,
I am very glad you think I have done rightly about the P.C.; but in fact I could hardly help myself.
Years and years ago I was talking to Donnelly about these things, and told him that so far as myself was concerned, I would have nothing to do with official decorations—didn't object to other people having them, especially heads of offices, like Hooker and Flower—but preferred to keep clear myself. But I added that there was one thing I did not mind telling him, because no English Government would ever act upon my opinion—and that was that the P.C. was a fit and proper recognition for science and letters. I have no doubt that he has kept this in mind ever since—in fact Lord Salisbury's letter (which was very handsome) showed he had been told of my obiter dictum. Donnelly was the first channel of inquiry whether I would accept, and was very strong that I should.
So you see if I had wished to refuse it, it would have been difficult and ungracious. But, on the whole, I thought the precedent good. Playfair tells me he tried to get it done in the case of Faraday and Babbage thirty years ago, and the thing broke down. Moreover a wicked sense of the comedy of advancing such a pernicious heretic, helped a good deal.
The worst of it is, I have just had a summons to go to Osborne on
Thursday and it is as much as I shall be able to do.
We have been in South Wales, in the neighbourhood of the Colliers, and are on our way to the Wallers for the Festival week at Gloucester. We hope to get back to Eastbourne in the latter half of September and find the house clean swept and garnished. After that, by the way, it is NOT nice to say that we shall hope to have a visit from Mrs. Foster and you.
With our love to you both.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I am glad you are resting, but oh, why another Congress!
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 21, 1892.
My dear Donnelly,
You have been and done me at last, you betrayer of confidence. This is what comes of confiding one's pet weakness to a bosom-friend!
But I can't deny my own words, or the accuracy of your devil of a memory—and, moreover, I think the precedent of great importance.
I have always been dead against orders of merit and the like, but I think that men of letters and science who have been of use to the nation (Lord knows if I have) may fairly be ranked among its nominal or actual councillors.
As for yourself, it is only one more kindness on the top of a heap so big I shall say nothing about it.
Mrs. Right Honourable sends her love to you both, and promises not to be proud.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 20, 1892.
My dear Donnelly,
I began to think that Lord Salisbury had thought better of it—(I should not have been surprised at all if he had) and was going to leave me a P.P.C. instead of a P.C. when the announcement appeared yesterday.
This morning, however, I received his own letter (dated the 16th), which had been following me about. A very nice letter it is too—he does the thing handsomely while he is about it.
Well, I think the thing is good for science; I am not such a self humbug as to pretend that my vanity is not pleasantly tickled; but I do not think there is any aspect of the affair more pleasant to me, than the evidence it affords of the strength of our old friendship. Because with all respect for my noble friends, deuce a one would ever have thought of it, unless you had not only put it—but rubbed it—into their heads.
I have not forgotten that private and confidential document that you were so disgusted to find had been delivered to me! You have tried it on before—so don't deny it.
But bless my soul, how profound is old Cole's remark about the humour of public affairs. To think of a Conservative Government—pride of the Church—going out of its way to honour one not only of the wicked, but of the notoriousest and plain-spoken wickedness. My wife and I drove over to Dolgelly yesterday—do you know it? one of the loveliest things in the three kingdoms—and every now and then had a laugh over this very quaint aspect of the affair.
Can you tell me what I shall have to do in the dim and distant future? I suppose I shall have to go and swear somewhere (I am always ready to do that on occasion). Is admission to the awful presence of Her Majesty involved? Shall I have to rig up again in that Court suit, which I hoped was permanently laid up in lavender? Resolve me these things.
We shall be here I expect at least another week; and bring up at Gloucester about the 3rd September. Hope to get back to Hodeslea latter part of September.
Ever yours faithfully.
T.H. Huxley.
To Sir J.D. Hooker.
August 20.
You will have seen that I have been made a P.C. If I had been offered to be made a police constable I could not have been more flabbergasted than I was when the proposition came to me a few weeks ago. I will tell you the story of how it all came about when we meet. The Archbishopric of Canterbury is the only object of ambition that remains to me. Come and be Suffragan; there is plenty of room at Lambeth and a capital garden!
[To his youngest daughter:—]
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 22, 1892.
Dearest Babs,
If Lord Salisbury had known my address, M— and I should have had our little joke out before leaving Saundersfoot [Where he had been staying with his daughter.], as the letter was dated 16th. It must be a month since Lord Cranbrook desired Donnelly to find out if I would accept the P.C., and as I heard no more about it up to the time of dissolution, I imagined there was a hitch somewhere. And really, the more I think of it the queerer does it seem, that a Tory and Church Government should have delighted to honour the worst-famed heretic in the three kingdoms.
I am sure Donnelly has been at the bottom of it, as he is the only person to whom I ever spoke of the fitness of the P.C. for men of science and letters.
The queer thing is that his chief and Lord Salisbury listened to the suggestion.
Tell Jack he is simply snuffed out—younger sons of peers go with the herd of Barts and knights, I believe. But a table of precedence is not to be had for love or money—and my anxiety is wearing.
This place is as perfectly delightful as Aberystwith was t'other…
With best love to you all.
Ever your Pater.
To Mrs. W.K. Clifford.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 22, 1892.
My dear Lucy,
I am glad to think that it is the honours that blush and not the recipient, for I am past that form of vascular congestion.
It was known that the only peerage I would accept was a spiritual one; and as Her Majesty shares the not unnatural prejudice which led her illustrious predecessor (now some time dead) to object to give a bishopric to Dean Swift, it was thought she could not stand the promotion of Dean Huxley; would see * him in fact… * This is a pun.
Lord Salisbury apologised for not pressing the matter, but pointed out that, as Evolutionism is rapidly gaining ground among the people who have votes, it was probable, if not certain, that his eminent successor (whose mind is always open) would become a hot evolutionist before the expiration of the eight months' office which Lord Salisbury (who needs rest) means to allow him. And when eminent successor goes out, my bishopric will be among the Dissolution Honours. If Her Majesty objects she will be threatened with the immediate abolition of the House of Lords, and the institution of a social democratic federation of counties, each with an army, navy, and diplomatic service of its own.
I know you like to have the latest accurate intelligence, but this really must be considered confidential. As a P.C. I might lose my head for letting out State secrets.
Ever your affectionate Pater.
To Sir Joseph Fayrer.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, Wales, August 28, 1892.
It is very pleasant to get the congratulations of an old friend like yourself. As we went to Osborne the other day I looked at the old "Victory" and remembered that six and forty years ago I went up her side to report myself on appointment, as a poor devil of an assistant surgeon. And I should not have got that far if you had not put it into my heed to apply to Burnett.
To Sir Joseph Prestwich.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 31, 1892.
My dear Prestwich,
Best thanks for your congratulations. As I have certainly got more than my temporal deserts, the other "half" you speak of can be nothing less than a bishopric! May you live to see that dignity conferred; and go on writing such capital papers as the last you sent me, until I write myself your Right Reverend as well as Right Honourable old friend,
T.H. Huxley.
To Sir W.H. Flower.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 31, 1892.
My dear Flower,
Many thanks for your congratulations, with Lady Flower's postscript not forgotten. I should have answered your letter sooner, but I had to go to Osborne last week in a hurry, kiss hands and do my swearing. It was very funny that the Gladstone P.C.'s had the pleasure of welcoming the Salisbury P.C.'s among their first official acts!
I will gladly come to as many meetings of the Trustees as I can. Only you must not expect me in very severe weather like that so common last year. My first attack of pleurisy was dangerous and not painful; the second was painful and not dangerous; the third will probably be both painful and dangerous, and my commander-in-chief (who has a right to be heard in such matters) will not let me run the risk of it.
But I have marked down October 22 and November 24, and nothing short of snow shall stop me.
As to what you want to do, getting butter out of a dog's mouth is an easier job than getting patronage out of that of a lawyer or an ecclesiastic. But I am always good for a forlorn hope, and we will have a try.
We shall not be back at Eastbourne till the latter half of September, and I doubt if we shall get into our house even then. We leave this for Gloucester, where we are going to spend the festival week with my daughter to-morrow.
With our love to you both, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I see a report that Owen is sinking. Poor old man; it seems queer that just as I am hoist to the top of my tree he should be going underground. But at 88 life cannot be worth much.
To Mr. W.F. Collier.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth Water, August 31, 1892.
Accept my wife's and my hearty thanks for your kind congratulations. When I was a mere boy I took for motto of an essay, "What is honour? Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday," and although I have my full share of ambition and vanity, I doubt not, yet Falstaff's philosophical observation has dominated my mind and acted as a sort of perpetual refrigerator to these passions. So I have gone my own way, sought for none of these things and expected none—and it would seem that the deepest schemer's policy could not have answered better. We must have a new Beatitude, "Blessed is the man who expecteth nothing," without its ordinary appendix.
I tell Jack [His son-in-law, Hon. John Collier.] I have worked hard for a dignity which will enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering.
[It took some time, however, to get used to the title, and it was
October before he wrote:—]
The feeling that "The Right Honourable" on my letters is a piece of chaff is wearing off, and I hope to get used to my appendix in time.
[The "very quaint" ceremony of kissing hands is described at some length in a letter to Mrs. Huxley from London on his way back from Osborne:—]
Great Western Hotel, August 25, 1892, 6.40 P.M.
I have just got back from Osborne, and I find there are a few minutes to send you a letter—by the help of the extra halfpenny. First-rate weather there and back, a special train, carriage with postillions at the Osborne landing-place, and a grand procession of officers of the new household and P.C.'s therein. Then waiting about while the various "sticks" were delivered.
Then we were shown into the presence chamber where the Queen sat at a table. We knelt as if we were going to say our prayers, holding a testament between two, while the Clerk of the Council read an oath of which I heard not a word. We each advanced to the Queen, knelt and kissed her hand, retired backwards, and got sworn over again (Lord knows what I promised and vowed this time also). Then we shook hands with all the P.C.'s present, including Lord Lorne, and so exit backwards. It was all very curious…
After that a capital lunch and back we came. Ribblesdale and several other people I knew were of the party, and I found it very pleasant talking with him and Jesse Collings, who is a very interesting man.
"Oh," he said, "how I wish my poor mother, who was a labouring woman—a great noble woman—and brought us nine all up in right ways, could have been alive." Very human and good and dignified too, I thought.
He also used to tell how he was caught out when he thought to make use of the opportunity to secure a close view of the Queen. Looking up, he found her eyes fixed upon him; Her Majesty had clearly taken the opportunity to do the same by him.
Regarding the Privy Councillorship as an exceptional honour for science, over and above any recognition of his personal services, which he thought amply met by the Civil List pension specially conferred upon him as an honour at his retirement from the public service, Huxley was no little vexed at an article in "Nature" for August 25 (volume 46 page 397), reproaching the Government for allowing him to leave the public service six years before, without recognition. Accordingly he wrote to Sir J. Donnelly on August 27:—]
It is very unfair to both Liberal and Conservative Governments, who did much more for me than I expected, and I feel that I ought to contradict the statement without loss of time.
So I have written the inclosed letter for publication in "Nature". But as it is always a delicate business to meddle with official matters, I wish you would see if I have said anything more than I ought to say in the latter half of the letter. If so, please strike it out, and let the first half go.
I had a narrow shave to get down to Osborne and kiss hands on Thursday.
What a quaint ceremony it is!
The humour of the situation was that we three hot Unionists, White Ridley, Jesse Collings, and I, were escorted by the whole Gladstonian household.
[And again on August 30:—]
In the interview I had with Lord Salisbury on the subject of an order of merit—ages ago [See above.]—I expressly gave him to understand that I considered myself out of the running—having already received more than I had any right to expect. And when he has gone out of his way to do honour to science, it is stupid of "Nature" to strike the discordant note.
[His letter appeared in "Nature" of September 1 (volume 46 page 416). In it he declared that both Lord Salisbury's and Mr. Gladstone's Governments had given him substantial recognition that Lord Iddesleigh had put the Civil List pension expressly as an honour; and finally, that he himself placed this last honour in the category of] "unearned increments."
CHAPTER 3.11.
1892.
[The following letters are mainly of personal interest; some merely illustrate the humorous turn he would give to his more intimate correspondence; others strike a more serious note, especially those to friends whose powers were threatened by overwork or ill-health.
With these may fitly come two other letters; one to a friend on his re-marriage, the other to his daughter, in reply to a birthday letter.]
My wife and I send our warmest good wishes to your future wife and yourself. I cannot but think that those who are parted from us, if they have cognisance of what goes on in this world, must rejoice over everything that renders life better and brighter for the sojourners in it— especially of those who are dear to them. At least, that would be my feeling.
Please commend us to Miss —, and beg her not to put us on the "Index," because we count ourselves among your oldest and warmest friends.
[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1892.
It was very pleasant to get your birthday letter and the photograph, which is charming.
The love you children show us, warms our old age better than the sun.
For myself the sting of remembering troops of follies and errors, is best alleviated by the thought that they may make me better able to help those who have to go through like experiences, and who are so dear to me that I would willingly pay an even heavier price, to be of use. Depend upon it, that confounded "just man who needed no repentance" was a very poor sort of a father. But perhaps his daughters were "just women" of the same type; and the family circle as warm as the interior of an ice-pail.
[A certain artist, who wanted to have Huxley sit to him, tried to manage the matter through his son-in-law, Hon. J. Collier, to whom the following is addressed:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 27, 1892.
My dear Jack,
Inclosed is a letter for you. Will you commit the indiscretion of sending it on to Mr. A.B. if you see no reason to the contrary?
I hope the subsequent proceedings will interest you no more.
I am sorry you have been so bothered by the critter—but in point of pertinacity he has met his match. (I have no objection to your saying that your father-in-law is a brute, if you think that will soften his disappointment.)
Here the weather has been tropical. The bananas in the new garden are nearly ripe, and the cocoanuts are coming on. But of course you expect this, for if it is unbearably sunny in London what must it be here?
All our loves to all of you.
Ever yours affectionately, Pater.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 1, 1892.
My dear Hooker,
I hear you have influenza rampaging about the Camp [The name of Sir J. Hooker's house at Sunningdale.] and I want to point out to you that if you want a regular bad bout of it, the best thing you can do is to go home next Thursday evening, at ten o'clock at night, and plunge into the thick of the microbes, tired and chilled.
If you don't get it then, you will, at any rate, have the satisfaction of feeling that you have done your best!
I am going to the x, but then you see I fly straight after dinner to
Collier's per cab, and there is no particular microbe army in Eton
Avenue lying in wait for me.
Either let me see after the dinner, or sleep in town, and don't worry.
Yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 19, 1892.
My dear Hooker,
I have just received a notice that Hirst's funeral is to-morrow. But we are in the midst of the bitterest easterly gale and snowfall we have had all the winter, and there is no sign of the weather mending.
Neither you nor I have any business to commit suicide for that which after all is a mere sign of the affection we have no need to prove for our dear old friend, and the chances are that half an hour cold chapel and grave-side on a day like this would finish us.
I write this not that I imagine you would think of going, but because my last note spoke so decidedly of my own intention.
But who could have anticipated this sudden reversion to Arctic conditions!
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 18, 1892.
My dear Donnelly,
My wife got better and was out for a while yesterday, but she is knocked up again to-day.
It would have been very pleasant to see you both, but you must not come down till we get fixed with a new cook and maid, as I believe we are to be in a week or so. None of your hotel-going!
I mourn over the departure of the present cookie—I believe she is going for no other reason than that she is afraid the house will fall on such ungodly people as we are, and involve her in the ruins. That is the modern martyrdom—you don't roast infidels, but people who can roast go to the pious.
Lovely day to-day, nothing but east wind to remind one it is not summer.—Crocuses coming out at last.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 27, 1892.
My dear Hooker,
I had to run up to town on Friday and forgot your letter. The x is a puzzle—I will stick by the ship as long as you do, depend upon that. I fear we can hardly expect to see dear old Tyndall there again. As for myself, I dare not venture when snow is on the ground, as on the last two occasions. And now, I am sorry to say, there is another possible impediment in my wife's state of health.
I have had a very anxious time of it altogether lately. But sich is life!
My sagacious grand-daughter Joyce (gone home now) observed to her grandmother some time ago—"I don't want to grow up." "Why don't you want to grow up?" "Because I notice that grown-up people have a great deal of trouble." Sagacious philosopheress of 7!
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, April 3, 1892.
My dear Hooker,
As I so often tell my wife, "your confounded sense of duty will be the ruin of you." You really, club or no club, had no business to be travelling in such a bitter east wind. However, I hope the recent sunshine has set you up again.
Barring snow or any other catastrophe, I will be at "the Club" dinner on the 26th and help elect the P.R.S. I don't think I go more than once a year, and like you I find the smaller the pleasanter meetings.
I was very sorry to see Bowman's death. What a first-rate man of science he would have been if the Professorship at King's College had been 1000 pounds a year. But it was mere starvation when he held it.
I am glad to say that my wife is much better—thank yours for her very kind sympathy. I was very down the last time I wrote to you.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, June 27, 1892.
My dear Foster,
My wife has been writing to Mrs. Foster to arrange for your visit, which will be heartily welcome.
Now I don't want to croak. No one knows better than I, the fatal necessity for any one in your position: more than that, the duty in many cases of plunging into public functions, and all the guttle, guzzle, and gammon therewith connected.
But do let me hold myself up as the horrid example of what comes of that sort of thing for men who have to work as you are doing and I have done. To be sure you are a "lungy" man and I am a "livery" man, so that your chances of escaping candle-snuff accumulations with melancholic prostration are much better. Nevertheless take care. The pitcher is a very valuable piece of crockery, and I don't want to live to see it cracked by going to the well once too often.
I am in great spirits about the new University movement, and have told the rising generation that this old hulk is ready to be towed out into line of battle, if they think fit, which is more commendable to my public spirit than my prudence.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, June 20, 1892.
My dear Romanes,
My wife and I, no less than the Hookers who have been paying us a short visit, were very much grieved to hear that such a serious trouble has befallen you.
In such cases as yours (as I am sure your doctors have told you) hygienic conditions are everything—good air and idleness, CONSTRUED STRICTLY, among the chief. You should do as I have done—set up a garden and water it yourself for two hours every day, besides pottering about to see how things grow (or don't grow this weather) for a couple more.
Sundry box-trees, the majority of which have been getting browner every day since I planted them three months ago, have interested me almost as much as the general election. They typify the Empire with the G.O.M. at work at the root of it!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, October 18, 1892.
My dear Romanes,
I throw dust and ashes on my head for having left your letter almost a week unanswered.
But I went to Tennyson's funeral; and since then my whole mind has been given to finishing the reply forced upon me by Harrison's article in the "Fortnightly", and I have let correspondence slide. I think it will entertain you when it appears in November—and perhaps interest—by the adumbration of the line I mean to take if ever that "Romanes" Lecture at Oxford comes off.
As to Madeira—I do not think you could do better. You can have as much quiet there as in Venice, for there are next to no carts or carriages. I was at an excellent hotel, the "Bona Vista," kept by an Englishman in excellent order, and delightfully situated on the heights outside Funchal. When once acclimatised and able to bear moderate fatigue, I should say nothing would be more delightful and invigorating than to take tents and make the round of the island. There is nothing I have seen anywhere which surpasses the cliff scenery of the north side, or on the way thither, the forest of heaths as big as sycamores.
There is a matter of natural history which might occupy without fatiguing you, and especially without calling for any great use of the eyes. That is the effect of Madeiran climate on English plants transported there—and the way in which the latter are beating the natives. There is a Doctor who has lots of information on the topic. You may trust anything but his physic.
[The rest of the letter gives details about scientific literature touching Madeira.
A piece of advice to his son anent building a house:—]
September 22, 1892.
Lastly and biggestly, don't promise anything, agree to anything, nor sign anything (swear you are an "illiterate voter" rather than this last) without advice—or you may find yourself in a legal quagmire. Builders, as a rule, are on a level with horse-dealers in point of honesty—I could tell you some pretty stories from my small experience of them.
[The next, to Lord Farrer, is apropos of quite an extensive correspondence in the "Times" as to the correct reading of the well-known lines about the missionary and the cassowary, to which both Huxley and Lord Farrer had contributed their own reminiscences.]
Hodeslea, October 15, 1892.
My dear Farrer,
If YOU were a missionary
In the heat of Timbuctoo
YOU'd wear nought but a nice and airy
Pair of bands—p'raps cassock too.
Don't you see the fine touch of local colour in my version! Is it not obvious to everybody who understands the methods of high a priori criticism that this consideration entirely outweighs the merely empirical fact that your version dates back to 1837—which I must admit is before my adolescence? It is obvious to the meanest capacity that mine must be the original text in "Idee," whatever your wretched "Wirklichkeit" may have to say to the matter.
And where, I should like to know, is a glimmer of a scintilla of a hint that the missionary was a dissenter? I claim him for my dear National Church.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following is about a document which he had forgotten that he wrote:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 24, 1892.
My dear Donnelly,
It is obvious that you have somebody in the Department who is an adept in the imitation of handwriting.
As there is no way of proving a negative, and I am too loyal to raise a scandal, I will just father the scrawl.
Positively, I had forgotten all about the business. I suppose because I did not hear who was appointed. It would be a good argument for turning people out of office after 65! But I have always had rather too much of the lawyer faculty of forgetting things when they are done with.
It was very jolly to have you here, and on principles of Christian benevolence you must not be so long in coming again.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I do not remember being guilty of paying postage—but that doesn't count for much.
[The following is an answer to one of the unexpected inquiries which would arrive from all quarters. A member of one of the religious orders working in the Church of England wrote for an authoritative statement on the following point, suggested by passages in section 5 of Chapter 1 of the "Elementary Physiology":—When the Blessed Sacrament, consisting, temporally and mundanely speaking, of a wheaten wafer and some wine, is received after about seven hours' fast, is it or is it not "voided like other meats"? In other words, does it not become completely absorbed for the sustenance of the body?
Huxley's help in this physiological question—and his answer was to be used in polemical discussion—was sought because an answer from him would be decisive and would obviate the repetition of statements which to a Catholic were painfully irreverent.]
Hodeslea, February 3, 1892.
Sir,
I regret that you have had to wait so long for a reply to your letter of the 27th. Your question required careful consideration, and I have been much occupied with other matters.
You ask (1), whether the sacramental bread is or is not "voided like other meats"?
That depends on what you mean, firstly by "voided," and, secondly, by "other meats." Suppose any "meat" (I take the word to include drink) to contain no indigestible residuum, there need not be anything "voided" at all—if by "voiding" is meant expulsion from the lower intestine.
Such a meat might be "completely absorbed for the sustenance of the body." Nevertheless, its elements, in fresh combinations, would be eventually "voided" through other channels, e.g. the lungs and kidneys. Thus I should say that under normal circumstances all "meats" (that is to say, the material substance of them) are voided sooner or later.
Now, as to the particular case of the sacramental wafer and wine. Taking their composition and the circumstances of administration to be as you state them, it is my opinion that a small residuum will be left undigested, and will be voided by the intestine, while by far the greater part will be absorbed and eventually "voided" by the lungs, skin, and kidneys.
If any one asserts that the wafer and wine are voided by the intestine as such, that the "pure flour and water" of which the wafer consists pass out unchanged, I am of opinion he is in error.
On the other hand, if any one maintains that the material substance of the wafer persists, while its accidents change, within the body, and that this identical substance is sooner or later voided, I do not see how he is to be driven out of that position by any scientific reasoning. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the elementary particles of the wafer and of the wine which enter the body never lose their identity, or even alter their mass. If one could see one of the atoms of carbon which enter into the composition of the wafer, I conceive it could be followed the whole way—from the mouth to the organ by which it escapes—just as a bit of floating charcoal might be followed into, through, and out of a whirlpool.
[On October 6, 1892, died Lord Tennyson. In the course of his busy life, Huxley had not been thrown very closely into contact with him; they would meet at the Metaphysical Society, of which Tennyson was a silent member; and in the "Life of Tennyson" two occasions are recorded on which Huxley visited him.
November 11, 1871.
Mr. Huxley and Mr. Knowles arrived here (Aldworth) on a visit. Mr. Huxley was charming. We had much talk. He was chivalrous, wide, and earnest, so that one could not but enjoy talking with him. There was a discussion on George Eliot's humility. Huxley and A. both thought her a humble woman, despite a dogmatic manner of assertion that had come upon her latterly in her writings. (Op. cit. 2 110.)
March 17, 1873.
Professor Tyndall and Mr. Huxley called. Mr. Huxley seemed to be universal in his interest, and to have keen enjoyment of life. He spoke of "In Memoriam". (Ibid. 2 143.)
With this may be compared one of Mr. Wilfrid Ward's reminiscences ("Nineteenth Century" August 1896).
"Huxley once spoke strongly of the insight into scientific method shown in Tennyson's 'In Memoriam', and pronounced it to be quite equal to that of the greatest experts."
This view of Tennyson appears again in a letter to Sir M. Foster, the
Secretary of the Royal Society:—]
Was not Tennyson a Fellow of the Royal Society? If so, should not the President and Council take some notice of his death and delegate some one to the funeral to represent them? Very likely you have thought of it already.
He was the only modern poet, in fact I think the only poet since the time of Lucretius, who has taken the trouble to understand the work and tendency of the men of science.
[But this was not the only side from which he regarded poetry. He had a keen sense for beauty, the artistic perfection of expression, whether in poetry, prose, or conversation. Tennyson's talk he described thus: "Doric beauty is its characteristic—perfect simplicity, without any ornament or anything artificial." And again, to quote Mr. Wilfrid Ward's reminiscences:—
Tennyson he considered the greatest English master of melody except Spenser and Keats. I told him of Tennyson's insensibility to music, and he replied that it was curious that scientific men, as a rule, had more appreciation of music than poets or men of letters. He told me of one long talk he had had with Tennyson, and added that immortality was the one dogma to which Tennyson was passionately devoted.
Of Browning, Huxley said]: "He really has music in him. Read his poem "The Thrush" and you will see it. Tennyson said to me," [he added], "that Browning had plenty of music IN him, but he could not get it OUT."
Eastbourne, October 15, 1892.
My dear Tyndall,
I think you will like to hear that the funeral yesterday lacked nothing to make it worthy of the dead or the living.
Bright sunshine streamed through the windows of the nave, while the choir was in half gloom, and as each shaft of light illuminated the flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright succession of his works between the darkness before and the darkness after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society was represented by four of its chief officers, and nine of the commonalty, including myself. Tennyson has a right to that, as the first poet since Lucretius who has understood the drift of science.
We have heard nothing of you and your wife for ages. Ask her to give us news, good news I hope, of both.
My wife is better than she was, and joins with me in love.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[On his way home from the funeral in Westminster Abbey, Huxley passed the time in the train by shaping out some lines on the dead poet, the form of them suggested partly by some verses of his wife's, partly by Schiller's
Gib diesen Todten mir heraus,
Ich muss ihn wieder haben [Don Carlos, scene 9.],
which came back to his mind in the Abbey. The lines were published in the "Nineteenth Century" for November 1892. He declared that he deserved no credit for the verses; they merely came to him in the train.
His own comparison of them with the sheaf of professed poets' odes which also appeared in the same magazine, comes in a letter to his wife, to whom he sent the poem as soon as it appeared in print.]
I know you want to see the poem, so I have cut it and the rest out of the "Nineteenth" just arrived, and sent it.
If I wore to pass judgment upon it in comparison with the others, I should say, that as to style it is hammered, and as to feeling human.
They are castings of much prettier pattern and of mainly poetico-classical educated-class sentiment. I do not think there is a line of mine one of my old working-class audience would have boggled over. I would give a penny for John Burns' thoughts about it. (N.B.—Highly impartial and valuable criticism.)
[He also wrote to Professor Romanes, who had been moved by this new departure to send him a volume of his own poems:—]
Hodeslea, November 3, 1892.
My dear Romanes,
I must send you a line to thank you very much for your volume of poems. A swift glance shows me much that has my strong sympathy—notably "Pater loquitur," which I shall read to my wife as soon as I get her back. Against all troubles (and I have had my share) I weigh a wife-comrade "treu und fest" in all emergencies.
I have a great respect for the Nazarenism of Jesus—very little for later "Christianity." But the only religion that appeals to me is prophetic Judaism. Add to it something from the best Stoics and something from Spinoza and something from Goethe, and there is a religion for men. Some of these days I think I will make a cento out of the works of these people.
I find it hard enough to write decent prose and have usually stuck to that. The "Gib diesen Todten" I am hardly responsible for, as it did itself coming down here in the train after Tennyson's funeral. The notion came into my head in the Abbey.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This winter also Sir R. Owen died, and was buried at Ham on December 23. The grave ends all quarrels, and Huxley intended to be present at the funeral. But as he wrote to Dr. Foster on the 23rd:—]
I had a hard morning's work at University College yesterday, and what with the meeting of the previous evening and that infernal fog, I felt so seedy that I made up my mind to go straight home and be quiet…
There has been a bitter north-easter all day here, and if the like has prevailed at Ham I am glad I kept out of it, as I am by no means fit to cope with anything of that kind to-day. I do not think I was bound to offer myself up to the manes of the departed, however satisfactory that might have been to the poor old man. Peace be with him!
[But the old-standing personal differences between the two made it difficult for him to decide what to do with regard to a meeting to raise some memorial to the great anatomist. He writes again to Sir M. Foster, January 8, 1893:—]
What am I to do about the meeting about Owen's statue on the 21st? I do not wish to pose either as a humbugging approver or as a sulky disapprover. The man did honest work, enough to deserve his statue, and that is all that concerns the public.
[And on the 18th:—]
I am inclined to think that I had better attend the meeting at all costs. But I do not see why I should speak unless I am called upon to do so.
I have no earthly objection to say all that I honestly can of good about Owen's work—and there is much to be said about some of it—on the contrary, I should be well pleased to do so.
But I have no reparation to make; if the business were to come over again, I should do as I did. My opinion of the man's character is exactly what it was, and under the circumstances there is a sort of hypocrisy about volunteering anything, which goes against my grain.
The best position for me would be to be asked to second the resolution for the statue—then the proposer would have the field of personal fiction and butter-boat all to himself.
To Sir W.H. Flower.
December 28, 1892.
I think you are quite right in taking an active share in the movement for the memorial. When a man is dead and can do no more harm, one must do a sum in subtraction:—
merits, deserts over x+x+x
and if the x's are not all minus quantities, give him credit accordingly. But I think that in your appeal, for which the Committee will be responsible, it is this balance of solid scientific merit—a good big one in Owen's case after all deductions—which should be alone referred to. If you follow the example of "Vanity Fair" and call him "a simple-minded man, who had he been otherwise, would long ago have adorned a title," some of us may choke.
Gladstone, Samuel of Oxford, and Owen belong to a very curious type of humanity, with many excellent and even great qualities and one fatal defect—utter untrustworthiness. Peace be with two of them, and may the political death of the third be speedy and painless!
With our united best wishes, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[And on January 22, 1893, he writes of the meeting:—]
My dear Hooker,
…What queer corners one gets into if one only lives long enough! The grim humour of the situation when I was seconding the proposal for a statue to Owen yesterday tickled me a good deal. I do not know how they will report me in the "Times", but if they do it properly I think you will see that I said no word upon which I could not stand cross-examination.
I chose the office of seconder in order that I might clearly define my position and stop the mouths of blasphemers—who would have ascribed silence or absence to all sorts of bad motives.
Whatever the man might be, he did a lot of first-rate work, and now that he can do no more mischief he has a right to his wages for it.
If I only live another ten years I expect to be made a saint of myself. "Many a better man has been made a saint of," as old Davie Hume said to his housekeeper when they chalked up "St. David's Street" on his wall.
We have been jogging along pretty well, but wife has been creaky, and I got done up in a brutal London fog struggling with the worse fog of the New University.
I am very glad you like my poetical adventure.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[This speech had an unexpected sequel. Owen's grandson was so much struck by it that he wrote asking Huxley to undertake a critical account of his anatomical work for his biography,—another most unexpected turn of events. It is not often that a conspicuous opponent of a man's speculations is asked to pass judgment upon his entire work. [See below.]
At the end of the year an anonymous attack upon the administration of the Royal Society was the occasion for some characteristic words on the endurance of abuse to his old friend, M. Foster, then Secretary of the Royal Society.]
December 5, 1892.
My dear Foster,
The braying of my donkey prevented me from sending a word of sympathy about the noise made by yours…Let not the heart be vexed because of these sons of Belial. It is all sound and fury with nothing at the bottom of it, and will leave no trace a year hence. I have been abused a deal worse—without the least effect on my constitution or my comfort.
In fact, I am told that Harrison is abusing me just now like a pickpocket in the "Fortnightly", and I only make the philosophical reflection, No wonder! and doubt if the reading it is worth half a crown.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the new edition of Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazons", helps to remove a reproach sometimes brought against the Royal Society, in that it ignored the claims of distinguished men of Science to membership of the Society:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 9, 1892.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
Many thanks for the new edition of "Bates." I was reading the Life last night with great interest; some of the letters you have printed are admirable.
Lyell is hit off to the life. I never read a more penetrating character-sketch. Hooker's letter of advice is as sage as might be expected from a man who practised what he preached about as much as I have done. I shall find material for chaff the next time my old friend and I meet.
I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British Museum, and especially on the Royal Society. The former are hampered by the Treasury and the Civil Service regulations. If a Bates turned up now I doubt if one could appoint him, however much one wished it, unless he would submit to some idiotic examination. As to the Royal Society, I undertake to say that Bates might have been elected fifteen years earlier if he had so pleased. But the Council cannot elect a man unless he is proposed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta which stood in the way.
It is the same with —. Twenty years ago the Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal, which is about as broad an invitation to join us as we could well give a man. In fact, I do not think he has behaved well in quite ignoring it. Formerly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as the annual subscription. But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more pecunious Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of abolishing this barrier. At present a man has to pay only 3 pounds a year and no entrance. I believe the publications of the Society, which he gets, will sell for more. [The "Fee Reduction Fund," as it is now called, enables the Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even of his annual fee, in that being F.R.S. costs him nothing.]
So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody who ought to be in keeps out on the score of means.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 3.12.
1893.
[The year 1893 was, save for the death of three old friends, Andrew Clark, Jowett, and Tyndall, one of the most tranquil and peaceful in Huxley's whole life. He entered upon no direct controversy; he published no magazine articles; to the general misapprehension of the drift of his Romanes Lecture he only replied in the comprehensive form of Prolegomena to a reprint of the lecture. He began to publish his scattered essays in a uniform series, writing an introduction to each volume. While collecting his "Darwiniana" for the second volume, he wrote to Mr. Clodd:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 18, 1892.
I was looking through "Man's Place in Nature" the other day. I do not think there is a word I need delete, nor anything I need add except in confirmation and extension of the doctrine there laid down. That is great good fortune for a book thirty years old, and one that a very shrewd friend of mine implored me not to publish, as it would certainly ruin all my prospects. I said, like the French fox-hunter in "Punch", "I shall try."
[The shrewd friend in question was none other than Sir William Lawrence, whose own experiences after publishing his book "On Man", "which now might be read in a Sunday school without surprising anybody," are alluded to in volume 1.
He had the satisfaction of passing on his unfinished work upon Spirula to efficient hands for completion; and in the way of new occupation, was thinking of some day "taking up the threads of late evolutionary speculation" in the theories of Weismann and others [See letter of September 28, to Romanes.], while actually planning out and reading for a series of "Working-Men's Lectures on the Bible," in which he should present to the unlearned the results of scientific study of the documents, and do for theology what he had done for zoology thirty years before.
The scheme drawn out in his note-book runs as follows:—
1. The subject and the method of treating it.
2. Physical conditions:—the place of Palestine in the Old World.
3. The Rise of Israel:—Judges, Samuel, Kings as far as Jeroboam II.
4. The Fall of Israel.
5. The Rise and Progress of Judaism. Theocracy.
6. The Final Dispersion.
7. Prophetism.
8. Nazarenism.
9. Christianity.
10. Muhammedanism.
11 and 12. The Mythologies.
Although this scheme was never carried out, yet it was constantly before Huxley's mind during the two years left to him. If Death, who had come so near eight years before, would go on seeming to forget him, he meant to use these last days of his life in an effort to illuminate one more portion of the field of knowledge for the world at large.
As the physical strain of the Romanes Lecture and his liability to loss of voice warned him against any future attempt to deliver a course of lectures, he altered his design and prepared to put the substance of these Lectures to Working-Men into a Bible History for young people. And indeed, he had got so far with his preparation, that the latter heading was down in his list of work for the last year of his life, 1895. But nothing of it was ever written. Until the work was actually begun, even the framework upon which it was to be shaped remained in his mind, and the copious marks in his books of reference were the mere guide-posts to a strong memory, which retained not words and phrases, but salient facts and the knowledge of where to find them again.
I find only two occasions on which he wrote to the "Times" this year; one, when the crusade was begun to capture the Board Schools of London for sectarianism, and it was suggested that, when on the first School Board, he had approved of some such definite dogmatic teaching. This he set right at once in the following letter of April 28, with which may be compared the letter to Lord Farrer of November 6, 1894:—]
In a leading article of your issue to-day you state, with perfect accuracy, that I supported the arrangement respecting religious instruction agreed to by the London School Board in 1871, and hitherto undisturbed. But you go on to say that "the persons who framed the rule" intended it to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as the Incarnation.
I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers of the rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability.
In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an article in the "Contemporary Review", entitled "The Board Schools—what they can do, and what they may do," in which I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such teaching as it is now proposed to include. And I supported my contention by the following citation from a speech delivered by Mr. Forster at the Birkbeck Institution in 1870:—
"I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds, theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from understanding."
[The other was on a lighter, but equally perennial point of interest, being nothing less than the Sea Serpent. In the "Times" of January 11, he writes, that while there is no reason against a fifty-foot serpent existing as in Cretaceous seas, still the evidence for its existence is entirely inconclusive. He goes on to tell how a scientific friend's statement once almost convinced him until he read the quartermaster's deposition, which was supposed to corroborate it. The details made the circumstances alleged by the former impossible, and on pointing this out, he heard no more of the story, which was a good example of the mixing up of observations with conclusions drawn from them.
And on the following day he replies to another such detailed story:—]
Admiral Mellersh says, "I saw a huge snake, at least 18 feet long," and I have no doubt he believes he is simply stating a matter of fact. Yet his assertion involves a hypothesis of the truth of which I venture to be exceedingly doubtful. How does he know that what he saw was a snake? The neighbourhood of a creature of this kind, within axe-stroke, is hardly conducive to calm scientific investigation, and I can answer for it that the discrimination of genuine sea-snakes in their native element from long-bodied fish is not always easy. Further, that "back fin" troubles me; looks, if I may say so, very fishy.
If the caution about mixing up observations with conclusions, which I ventured to give yesterday, were better attended to, I think we should hear very little either about antiquated sea-serpents or new "mesmerism."
[It is perhaps not superfluous to point out that in this, as in other cases of the marvellous, he did not merely pooh-pooh a story on the ground of its antecedent improbability, but rested his acceptance or rejection of it upon the strength of the evidence adduced. On the other hand, the weakness of such evidence as was brought forward time after time, was a justification for refusing to spend his time in listening to similar stories based on similar testimony.
Among the many journalistic absurdities which fall in the way of celebrities, two which happened this year are worth recording; the one on account of its intrinsic extravagance, which succeeded nevertheless in taking in quite a number of sober folk; the other on account of the letter it drew from Huxley about his cat. The former appeared in the shape of a highly-spiced advertisement about certain Manx Mannikins, which could walk, draw, play, in fact do everything but speak—were living pets which might be kept by any one, and indeed Professor Huxley was the possessor of a remarkably fine pair of them. Apply, enclosing stamps etc. Of course, the wonderful mannikins were nothing more than the pair of hands which anybody could dress up according to the instructions of the advertiser; but it was astonishing how many estimable persons took them for some lusus naturae. A similar advertisement in 1880 had been equally successful, and one exalted personage wrote by the hand of a secretary to say what pleasure and interest had been excited by the description of these strange creatures, and begging Professor Huxley to state if the account was true. Accordingly on January 27 he writes to his wife, who was on a visit to her daughter:—]
Yesterday two ladies called to know if they could see the Manx Mannikins. I think of having a board put up to say that in the absence of the Proprietress the show is closed.
[The other incident was a request for any remarks which might be of use in an article upon the Home Pets of Celebrities. I give the letter written in answer to this, as well as descriptions of the same cat's goings-on in the absence of its mistress.]
To Mr. J.G. Kitton.
Hodeslea, April 12, 1893.
A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the last forty years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry to say that I have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral excellences.
The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, grey Tabby—Oliver by name. Not that he is in any sense a protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus manifested, may develop with age into efficient mousing.
As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible—his punctuality at meal times is admirable; and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders, till they give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great firmness.
[To his youngest daughter:—]
Hodeslea Eastbourne, January 8, 1893.
I wish you would write seriously to M—. She is not behaving well to Oliver. I have seen handsomer kittens, but few more lively, and energetically destructive. Just now he scratched away at something that M— says cost 13 shillings 6 pence a yard—and reduced more or less of it to combings.