Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 67

Don't be alarmed about the history of Victorian science. [See above.]

I am happily limited to the length of a review article or thereabouts, and it is (I am happy to say it is nearly done) more of an essay on the history of science, bringing out the broad features of the contrast between past and present, than the history itself. It seemed to me that this was the only way of dealing with such a subject in a book intended for the general public.

[The article "Science and Morals" was not only a satisfaction to himself, but a success with the readers of the "Fortnightly." To his wife he writes:--]

December 2.

Have you had the "Fortnightly"? How does my painting of the Lilly look?

December 8.

Harris...says that my article "simply made the December number," which pretty piece of grat.i.tude means a lively sense of favours to come.

December 13.

I had a letter from Spencer yesterday chuckling over the success of his setting me on Lilly.

[Ilkley had a wonderful effect upon him.] "It is quite absurd," [he writes after 24 hours there,] "but I am wonderfully better already."

[His regimen was of the simplest, save perhaps on one point.] "Clark told me," [he says with the utmost gravity,] "always to drink tea and eat hot cake at 4.30. I have persevered, however against my will, and last night had no dreams, but slept like a top." [Two hours' writing in the morning were followed by two hours' sharp walking; in the afternoon he first took two hours' walking or strolling if the weather were decent;] "then Clark's prescription diligently taken" [(i.e. tea and a pipe) and a couple of hours more writing; after dinner reading and to bed before eleven.]

I am working away (he writes) in a leisurely comfortable manner at my chapter for Ward's Jubilee book, and have got the first few pages done, which is always my greatest trouble.

December 8.

...Canon Milman wrote to me to come to the opening of the New Buildings for Sion College, which the Prince is going to preside over on the 15th. I had half a mind to accept, if only for the drollery of finding myself among a solemn convocation of the city clergy. However, I thought it would be opening the floodgates, and I prudently declined.

[One more letter may perhaps be quoted as ill.u.s.trating the clearness of vision in administrative matters which made it impossible for him to sit quietly by and see a tactical blunder being committed, even though his formal position might not seem to warrant his interference.

This is his apologia for such a step.]

December 16, 1886.

My dear Foster,

On thinking over this morning's Committee work [Some Committee of the Royal Society.], it strikes my conscience that being neither President or Chairman nor officer I took command of the boat in a way that was hardly justifiable.

But it occurred to me that our sagacious -- for once was going astray and playing into --'s hands, without clearly seeing what he was doing, and I be thought me of "salus Societatis suprema lex," and made up my mind to stop the muddle we were getting into at all costs. I hope he was not disgusted nor you either. X. ought to have cut in, but he did not seem inclined to do so.

I am clearly convinced it was the right thing to do--anyhow.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The chronicle of the year may fitly close with a letter from Ilkley to Dr. Dohrn, apropos of his recommendation of a candidate for a biological professors.h.i.+p. The] "honest sixpence got by hard labour,"

[refers to a tour in the Highlands which he had once taken with Dr.

Dohrn, when, on a rough day, they were being rowed across Loch Leven to Mary Stuart's castle. The boatman, unable to make head single-handed against the wind, asked them each to take an oar; but when they landed and Huxley tendered the fare, the honest fellow gave him back two sixpences, saying, "I canna tak' it: you have wrocht as hard as I." Each took a coin; and Huxley remarked that this was the first sixpence he had earned by manual labour. Dr. Dohrn, I believe, still carries his sixpence in memory of the occasion.]

Wells House, Ilkley, Yorks.h.i.+re, December 1, 1886.

My dear Dohrn,

You see by my address that I am en retraite, for a time. As good catholics withdraw from the world now and then for the sake of their souls--so I, for the sake of my body (and chiefly of my liver) have retired for a fortnight or so to the Yorks.h.i.+re moors--the nearest place to London where I can find dry air 1500 feet above the sea, and the sort of uphill exercise which routs out all the unoxygenated crannies of my organism. Hard frost has set in, and I had a walk over the moorland which would have made all the blood of the Ost-see pirates--which I doubt not you have inherited--alive, and cleared off the fumes of that detestable Capua to which you are condemned. I should like to have seen the nose of one of your Neapolitan n.o.bilissimes after half-an-hour's exposure to the north wind, clear and sharp as a razor, which very likely looked down on Loch Leven a few hours ago.

Ah well! "fuimus"--I am amused at the difficulty you find in taking up the position of a "grave and reverend senior"; because I can by no means accustom myself to the like dignity. In spite of my grey hairs "age hath not cooled the Douglas blood" altogether, and I have a gratifying sense that (liver permitting) I am still capable of much folly. All this, however, has not much to do with poor Dr. -- to whom, I am sorry to say, your letter could do no good, as it arrived after my colleagues and I had settled the business.

But there were a number of strong candidates who had not much chance.

If it is open to me to serve him hereafter, however, your letter will be of use to him, for I know you do not recommend men lightly.

After some eighteen months of misery--the first thing that did me any good was coming here. But I was completely set up by six or seven weeks at Arolla in the Valais. The hotel was 6400 feet up, and the wife and daughters and I spent most of our time in scrambling about the 2000 feet between that and the snow. Six months ago I had made up my mind to be an invalid, but at Arolla I walked as well as I did when you and I made pilgrimages--and earned the only honest sixpence (I, at any rate) ever got for hard labour. Three months in London brought me down again, so I came here to be "mended."

You know English literature so well that perhaps you have read Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone." I am in that country, within walk of Bolton Abbey.

Please remember me very kindly to the Signora--and thank her for copying the letter in such a charmingly legible hand. I wish mine were like it.

If I am alive we shall go to Arolla next summer. Could we not meet there? It is a fair half-way.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.