Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 11

My wife and Nettie, who is on a visit, join with me in best wishes.

Please let me have a line to say how you are--Gladstonianly on a post-card.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 7, 1888.

My dear Foster,

"Let thy servant's face be white before thee." The obituary of Darwin went to Rix yesterday! [a.s.sistant Secretary of the Royal Society.] It is not for lack of painstaking if it is not worth much, but I have been in a bad vein for work of any kind, and I thought I should never get even this simple matter ended.

I have been bothered with praecordial uneasiness and intermittent pulse ever since I have been here, and at last I got tired of it and went home the day before yesterday to get carefully overhauled. Hames tells me there is weakness and some enlargement of the left ventricle, which is pretty much what I expected. Luckily the valves are all right.

I am to go and devote myself to coaxing the left ventricle wall to thicken pro rata--among the mountains, and to have nothing to do with any public functions or other exciting bedevilments. So the International Geological Congress will not have the pleasure of seeing its Honorary President in September. I am disgusted at having to break an engagement, but I cannot deny that Hames is right. At present the mere notion of the thing puts me in a funk.

I wish I could get out of the chair of the M.B.A. Also...I know that you and Evans and Dyer will do your best, but you are all eaten up with other occupations.

Just turn it over in your mind--there's a dear good fellow--just as if you hadn't any other occupations.

With which eminently reasonable and unselfish request believe me,

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 10, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I send by this post the last--I hope for your sake and for that of the recording angel--of --. [The "Heathen Deutscheree". A paper of his, contributed to the Royal Society, had been under revision.] I agree to all Brady's suggestions.

With all our tinkering I feel inclined to wind up the affair after the manner of Mr. Shandy's summing up of the discussion about Tristram's breeches--"And when he has got 'em he'll look a beast in 'em."

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[April 12. To the same:--]

I am quite willing to remain at the M.B.A. till the opening. If Evans will be President I shall be happy.

-- is a very good man, but you must not expect too much of the "wild-cat" element, which is so useful in the world, in him.

I am disgusted with myself for letting everything go by the run, but there is no help for it. The least thing bowls me over just now.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 12, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

I plead not guilty. [In the matter of sending out no notices for a meeting of the x Club.] It was agreed at the last meeting that there should be none in April--I suppose by reason of Easter, so I sent no notice. This is what Frankland told me in his letter of the 2nd.

However, I see you were present, so I can't make it out.

My continual absence makes me a shocking bad Treasurer, and I am sorry to say that things will be worse instead of better. Ever since this last pleuritic business I have been troubled with praecordial uneasiness. [After an account of his symptoms he continues] so I am off (with my wife) to Switzerland at the end of this month, and shall be away all the summer. We have not seen the Engadine and Tyrol yet, so we shall probably make a long circuit. It is a horrid nuisance to be exiled in this fas.h.i.+on. I have hardly been at home one month in the last ten. But it is of no use to growl.

Under these circ.u.mstances, would you mind looking after the x while I am away? There is nothing to do but to send the notices on Sat.u.r.day previous to the meeting.

I am very grieved to hear about Hirst--though to say truth, the way he has held out for so long has been a marvel to me. The last news I had of Spencer was not satisfactory.

Eheu! the "Table Round" is breaking up. It's a great pity; we were such pleasant fellows, weren't we?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 18, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I am cheered by your liking of the notice of Darwin. I read the "Life and Letters," and the "Origin," Krause's "Life," and some other things over again in order to do it. But I have not much go in me, and I was a scandalous long time pottering over the writing.

I have sent the proof back with a variety of interpolations. I would have brought the "Spirula" notes down here to see what I could do, but I felt pretty sure that if I brought two things I should not do one.

n.o.body could do anything with it but myself. I will try what I can do when I go to town. How much time is there before the wind-up of the Challenger?

We go up to town Monday next, and I am thinking of being off the Monday following (April 30). I have come to the same conclusion as yourself, that Glion would be better than Grindelwald. I should like very much to see you. Just drop me a line to say when you are likely to turn up.

Poor Arnold's death has been a great shock [Matthew Arnold died suddenly of heart disease at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his daughter on her return from America.]--rather for his wife than himself--I mean on her account than his. I have always thought sudden death to be the best of all for oneself, but under such circ.u.mstances it is terrible for those who are left. Arnold told me years ago that he had heart disease. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of an immediate catastrophe in my own case. I should not go abroad if there were. Imagine the horror of leaving one's wife to fight all the difficulties of sudden euthanasia in a Swiss hotel! I saw enough of that two years ago at Arolla.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, April 25, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

All my beautiful Swiss plans are knocked on the head--at any rate for the present--in favour of horizontality and Digitalis here. The journey up on Monday demonstrated that travelling, at present, was impracticable.

Hames is sanguine I shall get right with rest, and I am quite satisfied with his opinion, but for the sake of my belongings he thinks it right to have Clark's opinion to fortify him.

It is a bore to be converted into a troublesome invalid even for a few weeks, but I comfort myself with my usual reflection on the chances of life, "Lucky it is no worse." Any impatience would have been checked by what I heard about Moseley this morning--that he has sunk into hopeless idiocy. A man in the prime of life!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, May 4, 1888.