Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 19

I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here the next day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to come with me. If she does not knock up I shall be pleasantly surprised. The young couple are flouris.h.i.+ng in Paris. I like what I have seen of him very much.

What is the "Cloister scheme"? [It referred to a plan for using the cloisters of Westminster Abbey to receive the monuments of distinguished men, so as to avoid the necessity of enlarging the Abbey itself.] Recollect how far away I am from the world, the flesh and the d--.

Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of Eginhard and Emma? What good pictures you will have in your monastery church!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again, a few days later:--]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne; March 15, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am sending my proof back to Spottiswoode's. I did not think the ma.n.u.script would make so much, and I am afraid it has lengthened in the process of correction.

You have a reader in your printer's office who provides me with jokes.

Last time he corrected, where my ma.n.u.script spoke of the pigs as unwilling "porters" of the devils, into "porkers." And this time, when I, writing about the Lord's Prayer, say "current formula," he has it "canting formula." If only Peterborough had got hold of that! And I am capable of overlooking anything in a proof.

You see we have got to big questions now, and if these are once fairly before the general mind all the King's horses and all the King's men won't put the orthodox Humpty Dumpty where he was before.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[After the article came out he wrote again to Mr. Knowles:--]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., April 14, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am going to try and stop here, desolate as the house is now all the chicks have flown, for the next fortnight. Your talk of the inclemency of Torquay is delightfully consoling. London has been vile.

I am glad you are going to let Wace have another "go." My object, as you know, in the whole business has been to rouse people to think...

Considering that I got named in the House of Commons last night as an example of a temperate and well-behaved blasphemer, I think I am attaining my object. [In the debate upon the Religious Prosecutions Abolition Bill, Mr. Addison said "the last article by Professor Huxley in the "Nineteenth Century" showed that opinion was free when it was honestly expressed."--"Times" April 14.]

Of course I go for a last word, and I am inclined to think that whatever Wace may say, it may be best to get out of the region of controversy as far as possible and hammer in two big nails--(1) that the Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more about the spiritual world than anybody else, and (2) that Newman's doctrine of "Development" is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did not dream.

I have been reading some of his works lately, and I understand now why Kingsley accused him of growing dishonesty.

After an hour or two of him I began to lose sight of the distinction between truth and falsehood.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

If you are at home any day next week I will look in for a chat.

[The controversy was completed by a third article, "Agnosticism and Christianity," in the June number of the "Nineteenth Century". There was a humorous aspect of this article which tickled his fancy immensely, for he drove home his previous arguments by means of an authority whom his adversaries could not neglect, though he was the last man they could have expected to see brought up against them in this connection--Cardinal Newman. There is no better evidence for ancient than for modern miracles, he says in effect; let us therefore accept the teachings of the Church which maintains a continuous tradition on the subject. But there is a very different conclusion to be drawn from the same premises; all may be regarded as equally doubtful, and so he writes on May 30 to Sir J. Hooker:--]

By the way, I want you to enjoy my wind-up with Wace in this month's "Nineteenth" in the reading as much as I have in the writing. It's as full of malice [I.e. in the French sense of the word.] as an egg is full of meat, and my satisfaction in making Newman my accomplice has been unutterable. That man is the slipperiest sophist I have ever met with. Kingsley was entirely right about him.

Now for peace and quietness till after the next Church Congress!

[Three other letters to Mr. Knowles refer to this article.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 4, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I am at the end of my London tether, and we go to Eastbourne (3 Jevington Gardens again) on Monday.

I have been working hard to finish my paper, and shall send it to you before I go.

I am astonished at its meekness. Being reviled, I revile not; not an exception, I believe, can be taken to the wording of one of the venomous paragraphs in which the paper abounds. And I perceive the truth of a profound reflection I have often made, that reviling is often morally superior to not reviling.

I give up Peterborough. His "Explanation" is neither straightforward, nor courteous, nor prudent. Of which last fact, it may be, he will be convinced when he reads my acknowledgment of his favours, which is soft, not with the softness of the answer which turneth away wrath, but with that of the pillow which smothered Desdemona.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I shall try to stand an hour or two of the Academy dinner, and hope it won't knock me up.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 6, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

If I had not gone to the Academy dinner I might have kept my promise about sending you my paper to-day. I indulged in no gastronomic indiscretions, and came away after H.R.H.'s speech, but I was dead beat all yesterday, nevertheless.

We are off to Eastbourne, and I will send the ma.n.u.script from there; there is very little to do.

Such a waste! I shall have to omit a paragraph that was really a masterpiece.

For who should I come upon in one of the rooms but the Bishop! As we shook hands, he asked whether that was before the fight or after; and I answered, "A little of both." Then we spoke our minds pretty plainly; and then we agreed to bury the hatchet. [As he says ("Collected Essays"

5 210), this chance meeting ended "a temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking and no less respect."]

So yesterday I tore up THE paragraph. It was so appropriate I could not even save it up for somebody else!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.