Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 54

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 t.i.tle, 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 suns.h.i.+ny 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 acc.u.mulated 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 h.e.l.l.

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 const.i.tuencies"; 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 n.o.body 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.