Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 13

My dear Mr. Collier,

It would have been a great pleasure to me to be your guest once more, but the Fates won't have it this time.

Dame Nature has given me a broad hint that I have had my innings, and, for the rest of my time, must be content to look on at the players.

It is not given to all of us to defy the doctors and go in for a new lease, as I am glad to hear you are doing. I declare that your open invitation to any friend of mine is the most touching mark of confidence I ever received. I am going to send it to my great ally Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society. I do not know whether he has made any other arrangements, and I am not quite sure whether he and his wife are going to Plymouth. But I hope they may be able to accept, for you will certainly like them, and they will certainly like you. I will ask him to write directly to you to save time.

With very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I forgot to say that I am mending as fast as I can expect to do.

CHAPTER 3.4.

1888.

[It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up sufficiently by the doctors for him to start for the Engadine. His first stage was to Lugano; the second by Menaggio and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to the Maloja. The summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he could scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that it was a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their surprise was the greater when, after a couple of months, they saw him walking his ten miles and going up two thousand feet without difficulty. As far as his heart was concerned, the experiment of sending him to the mountains was perfectly justified. With returning strength he threw himself once more into the pursuit of gentians, being especially interested in their distribution and hybridism, and the possibility of natural hybrids explaining the apparent connecting links between species. No doubt, too, he felt some gratification in learning from his friend Mr. (now Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer, that the results he had already obtained in pursuing this hobby had been of real value:--

Your important paper "On Alpine Gentians" (writes the latter) has begun to attract the attention of botanists. It has led Baillon, who is the most acute of the French people, to make some observations of his own.

At the Maloja he stayed twelve weeks, but it was not until nearly two months had elapsed that he could write of any decided improvement, although even then his antic.i.p.ations for the future were of the gloomiest. The "secret" alluded to in the following letter is the destined award to him of the Copley medal:--]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, Ober Engadine, August 17, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I know you will be glad to hear that, at last, I can report favourably of my progress. The first six weeks of our stay here the weather was cold, foggy, wet, and windy--in short, everything it should not be. If the hotel had not been as it is, about the most comfortable in Switzerland, I do not know what I should have done. As it was, I got a very bad attack of "liver," which laid me up for ten days or so. A Brighton doctor--Bluett by name, and well up to his work--kindly looked after me.

With the early days of August the weather changed for the better, and for the last fortnight we have had perfect summer--day after day. I soon picked up my walking power, and one day got up to Lake Longhin, about 2000 feet up. That was by way of an experiment, and I was none the worse for it, but usually my walks are of a more modest description. To-day we are all clouds and rain, and my courage is down to zero, with praecordial discomfort. It seems to me that my heart is quite strong enough to do all that can reasonably be required of it--if all the rest of the machinery is in good order, and the outside conditions are favourable. But the poor old pump cannot contend with grit or want of oil anywhere.

I mean to stay here as long as I can; they say it is often very fine up to the middle of September. Then we shall migrate lower, probably on the Italian side, and get home most likely in October. But I really am very much puzzled to know what to do.

My wife has not been very well lately, and Ethel has contrived to sprain her ankle at lawn-tennis. Collier has had to go to Naples, but we expect him back in a few days.

With our united love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I was very pleased to hear of a secret my wife communicated to me. So long as I was of any use, I did not care much about having the fact recognised, but now that I am used up I like the feather in my cap.

"Fuimus." Let us have some news of you.

[Sir M. Foster, who was kept in England by the British a.s.sociation till September 10, wrote that he was going abroad for the rest of September, and proposed to spend some time at Menaggio, whence he hoped to effect a meeting. He winds up with a jest at his recent unusual occupation:--"I have had no end of righteousness accounted to me for helping to entertain Bishops at Cambridge." Hence the postcript in reply:--]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 2, 1888.

My dear Foster,

A sharp fall of snow has settled our minds, which have been long wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ultimately leave till the 22nd.]

All the wiseacres tell us that there are fresher breezes (vento di Lecco) at Menaggio than anywhere else in the Como country, and at any rate we are going to try whether we can exist there. If it does not answer, we will leave a note for you there to say where we are gone. It would be very jolly to forgather.

I am sorry to leave this most comfortable of hotels, but I do not think that cold would suit either of us. I am marvellously well so long as I am taking sharp exercise, and I do my nine or ten miles without fatigue. It is only when I am quiet that I know that I have a heart.

I do not feel at all sure how matters may be 4000 feet lower, but what I have gained is all to the good in the way of general health. In spite of all the bad weather we have had, I have nothing but praise for this place--the air is splendid, excellent walks for invalids, capital drainage, and the easiest to reach of all places 6000 feet up.

My wife sends her love, and thanks Mrs. Foster for her letter, and looks forward to meeting her.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Wash yourself clean of all that episcopal contamination or you may infect me!

[But adverse circ.u.mstances prevented the meeting.]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 24, 1888.

My dear Foster,

As ill luck would have it, we went over to Pontresina to-day (for the first time), and have only just got back (5.30). I have just telegraphed to you.

All our plans have been upset by the Fohn wind, which gave us four days' continuous downpour here--upset the roads, and flooded the Chiavenna to Colico Railway. We hear that the latter is not yet repaired.

I was going to write to you at the Vittoria, but thought you could have hardly got there yet. We took rooms there a week ago, and then had to countermand them. If there are any letters kicking about for us, will you ask them to send them on?

By way of an additional complication, my poor wife gave herself an unlucky strain this morning, and even if the railway is mended I do not think she will be fit to travel for two or three days. We are very disappointed. What is to be done?

I am wonderfully better. So long as I am taking active exercise and the weather is dry, I am quite comfortable, and only discover that I have a heart when I am kept quiet by bad weather or get my liver out of order.

Here I can walk nine or ten miles up hill and down dale without difficulty or fatigue. What I may be able to do elsewhere is doubtful.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

It would do you and Mrs. Foster a great deal of good to come up here.

Not out of your way at all! Oh dear no!

Zurich, October 4, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I should have written to you at Stresa, but I had mislaid your postcard, and it did not turn up till too late.