Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 8

I have nothing to criticise in the enclosed except that the itineraries seem to me rather superfluous.

I am glad to find that you forget things that have happened to you as completely as I do. I should cut almost as bad a figure as "Sir Roger"

if I were cross-examined about my past life.

Your allusion to sending me the proofs made me laugh by reminding me of a particularly insolent criticism with which I once favoured you: "No objection except to the whole."

It was some piece of diabolical dialectics, in which I could pick no hole, if the premises were granted--and even then could be questioned only by an ultra-sceptic!

Do you see that the American a.s.sociation of Authors has adopted a Resolution, which is a complete endors.e.m.e.nt of my view of the stamp-swindle?

We have got our operation over, and my wife is going on very well.

Overmuch anxiety has been telling on me, but I shall throw it off.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.3.

1888.

[Huxley had returned to town before Christmas, for the house in St.

John's Wood was still the rallying-point for the family, although his elder children were now married and dispersed. But he did not stay long.] "Wife wonderfully better," [he writes to Sir M. Foster on January 8,] "self as melancholy as a pelican in the wilderness." [He meant to have left London on the 16th, but his depressed condition proved to be the beginning of a second attack of pleurisy, and he was unable to start for Bournemouth till the 24th.

Here, however, his recovery was very slow. He was unable to come up to the first meeting of the x Club.] "I trust," [he writes,] "I shall be able to be at the next x--but I am getting on very slowly. I can't walk above a couple of miles without being exhausted, and talking for twenty minutes has the same effect. I suppose it is all Anno Domini."

[But he had a pleasant visit from one of the x, and writes:--]

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, January 29, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

Spencer was here an hour ago as lively as a cricket. He is going back to town on Tuesday to plunge into the dissipations of the Metropolis. I expect he will insist on you all going to Evans' (or whatever represents that place to our descendants) after the x.

Bellows very creaky--took me six weeks to get them mended last time, so I suppose I may expect as long now.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[As appears from the letters which follow, he had been busied with writing an article for the "Nineteenth Century," for February, on the "Struggle for Existence" ("Collected Essays" 9 195.), which on the one hand ran counter to some of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories of society; and on the other, is noticeable as briefly enunciating the main thesis of his "Romanes Lecture" of 1893.]

85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 13, 1887.

My dear Knowles,

I have to go to town to-morrow for a day, so that puts an end to the possibility of getting my screed ready for January. Altogether it will be better to let it stand over.

I do not know whence the copyright extract came, except that, as Putnam's name was on the envelope, I suppose they sent it.

Pearsall Smith's practice is a wonderful commentary on his theory.

Distribute the contents of the baker's shop gratis--it will give people a taste for bread!

Great is humbug, and it will prevail, unless the people who do not like it hit hard. The beast has no brains, but you can knock the heart out of him.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, January 9, 1888.

My dear Donnelly,

Here is my proof. Will you mind running your eye over it?

The article is long, and partly for that reason and partly because the general public wants principles rather than details, I have condensed the practical half.

H. Spencer and "Jus" will be in a white rage with me.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[To Professor Frankland, February 6:--]

I am glad you like my article. There is no doubt it is rather like a tadpole, with a very big head and a rather thin tail. But the subject is a ticklish one to deal with, and I deliberately left a good deal suggested rather than expressed.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, February 9, 1888.

My dear Donnelly,

No! I don't think softening has begun yet--vide "Nature" this week.

["Nature" 37 337 for February 9, 1888: review of his article in the "Nineteenth Century" on the "Industrial Struggle for Existence."] I am glad you found the article worth a second go. I took a vast of trouble (as the country folks say) about it. I am afraid it has made Spencer very angry--but he knows I think he has been doing mischief this long time.

Bellows to mend! Bellows to mend! I am getting very tired of it. If I walk two or three miles, however slowly, I am regularly done for at the end of it. I expect there has been more mischief than I thought for.

How about the Bill?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, he and Mr. Spencer wrote their minds to each other on the subject, and as Huxley remarks with reference to this occasion,] "the process does us both good, and in no way interferes with our friends.h.i.+p."

[The letter immediately following, to Mr. Romanes, answers an inquiry about a pa.s.sage quoted from Huxley's writings by Professor Schurman in his "Ethical Import of Darwinism." This pa.s.sage, made up of sentences from two different essays, runs as follows:--]

It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to favour the development of some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their predetermined line of modification.