Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 14

We made up our minds after all that we would as soon not go down to the Lakes--where the ground would be drying up after the inundations--so we went the other way over the Julier to Tiefenkasten, and from T. to Ragatz, where we stayed a week. Ragatz was hot and steamy at first--cold and steamy afterwards--but earlier in the season, I should think, it would be pleasant.

Last Monday we migrated here, and have had the vilest weather until to-day. All yesterday it rained cats and dogs.

To-day we are off to Neuhausen (Schweitzerhof) to have a look at the Rhine falls. If it is pleasant we may stop there a few days. Then we go to Stuttgart, on our way to Nuremberg, which neither of us have seen.

We shall be at the "Bavarian Hotel," and a letter will catch us there, if you have anything to say, I daresay up to the middle of the month.

After that Frankfort, and then home.

We do not find long railway journeys very good for either of us, and I am trying to keep within six hours at a stretch.

I am not so vigorous as I was at Maloja, but still infinitely better than when I left England.

I hope the mosquitoes left something of you in Venice. When I was there in October there were none!

My wife joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some friendly chaff in Sir M. Foster's reply to the latter contains at least a real indication of the way in which Huxley became the centre of the little society at the Maloja:--]

You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service this summer. At most table d'hotes in the Lakes I overheard people talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on account of their intimacy with "Professor Huxley"!!

[But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected quarter. This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer, with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English representatives of that science who came to the hotel.

A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:--]

In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in suns.h.i.+ne I felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years.

It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions. Four thousand feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return. Quite certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth. I like the place, but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.

I should be very glad if we could be within reach of you and help to cheer you up, but I cannot say anything definite at present about our winter doings...

My wife sends her kindest regards. She is much better than when we left, which is lucky for me, as I have no mind, and could not make it up if I had any. The only vigour I have is in my legs, and that only when the sun s.h.i.+nes.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[A curious incident on this journey deserves recording, as an instance of a futile "warning." On the night of October 6-7, Huxley woke in the night and seemed to hear an inward voice say, "Don't go to Stuttgart and Nuremberg; go straight home." All he did was to make a note of the occurrence and carry out his original plan, whereupon nothing happened.

The following to his youngest daughter, who had gone back earlier from the Maloja, refers to her success in winning the prize for modelling at the Slade School of Art.]

Schweitzerhof, Neuhausen, October 7, 1888.

Dearest Babs,

I will sit to you like "Pater on a monument smiling at grief" for the medallion. As to the photographs, I will try to get them done to order either at Stuttgart or Nuremberg, if we stay at either place long enough. But I am inclined to think they had better be done at home, and then you could adjust the length of the caoutchouc visage to suit your artistic convenience.

We have been crowing and flapping our wings over the medal and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. The only thing I lament is that "your father's influence"

was not brought to bear; there is no telling what you might have got if it had been. Thoughtless--very!!

So sorry we did not come here instead of stopping at Ragatz. The falls are really fine, and the surrounding country a wide tableland, with the great snowy peaks of the Oberland on the horizon. Last evening we had a brilliant sunset, and the mountains were lighted up with the most delicate rosy blush you can imagine.

To-day it rains cats and dogs again. You will have seen in the papers that the Rhine and the Aar and the Rhone and the Arve are all in flood.

There is more water here in the falls than there has been these ten years. However, we have got to go, as the hotel shuts up to-morrow, and there seems a good chance of reaching Stuttgart without water in the carriage.

Long railway journeys do not seem to suit either of us, and we have fixed the maximum at six hours. I expect we shall be home some time in the third week of this month.

Love to Hal and anybody else who may be at home.

Ever your Pater.

4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We got back on Thursday, and had a very good pa.s.sage, and took it easy by staying the night at Dover. The "Lord Warden" gave us the worst dinner we have had for four months, at double the price of the good dinners. I wonder why we cannot manage these things better in England.

We are both very glad to be at home again, and trust we may be allowed to enjoy our own house for a while. But, oh dear, the air is not Malojal! not even at Hempstead, whither I walked yesterday, and the pump labours accordingly.

I found the first part of the fifth edition of the Text-book among the two or three hundredweight of letters and books which had acc.u.mulated during four months. Gratulire!

By the way, South Kensington has sent me some inquiry about Examinations, which I treat with contempt, as doubtless you have a duplicate.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On October 25 he announces his return to Sir Joseph Hooker, and laments his loss of vigour at the sea-level:--]

Hames won't let me stay here in November, and I think we shall go to Brighton. Unless on the flat of my back, in bed, I shall not have been at home a month all this year.

I have been utterly idle. There was a lovely case of hybridism, Gentiana lutea and G. punctata, in a little island in the lake of Sils; but I fell ill and was confined to bed just after I found it out. It would be very interesting if somebody would work out Distribution five miles round the Maloja as a centre. There are the most curious local differences.

You asked me to send you a copy of my obituary of Darwin. So I put one herewith, though no doubt you have seen it in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society."

I should like to know what you think of 17 to 27. If ever I am able to do anything again I will enlarge on these heads.

[In these pages of the Obituary Notice ("Proceedings of the Royal Society" 44 Number 269) he endeavours:--]

to separate the substance of the theory from its accidents, and to show that a variety, not only of hostile comments, but of friendly would-be improvements lose their raison d'etre to the careful student...

It is not essential to Darwin's theory that anything more should be a.s.sumed than the facts of heredity, variation, and unlimited multiplication; and the validity of the deductive reasoning as to the effect of the last (that is, of the struggle for existence which it involves) upon the varieties resulting from the operation of the former. Nor is it essential that one should take up any particular position in regard to the mode of variation, whether, for example, it takes place per saltum or gradually; whether it is definite in character or indefinite. Still less are those who accept the theory bound to any particular views as to the causes of heredity or of variation.

[The remaining letters of the year trace the gradual bettering of health, from the "no improvement" of October to the almost complete disappearance of bad symptoms in December. He had renounced Brighton, which he detested, in favour of Eastbourne, where the keen air of the downs and the daily walk over Beachy Head acted as a tolerable subst.i.tute for the Alps. Though he would not miss the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, when he was to receive the Copley medal, one more link binding him to his old friend Hooker, he did not venture to stay for the dinner in the evening.

This autumn also he resigned his place on the board of Governors of Eton College.] "I think it must be a year and a half," [he writes,]

"since I attended a meeting, and I am not likely to do better in the future."