Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 41

T.H. Huxley.

To Sir W.H. Flower.

Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth, August 31, 1892.

My dear Flower,

Many thanks for your congratulations, with Lady Flower's postscript not forgotten. I should have answered your letter sooner, but I had to go to Osborne last week in a hurry, kiss hands and do my swearing. It was very funny that the Gladstone P.C.'s had the pleasure of welcoming the Salisbury P.C.'s among their first official acts!

I will gladly come to as many meetings of the Trustees as I can. Only you must not expect me in very severe weather like that so common last year. My first attack of pleurisy was dangerous and not painful; the second was painful and not dangerous; the third will probably be both painful and dangerous, and my commander-in-chief (who has a right to be heard in such matters) will not let me run the risk of it.

But I have marked down October 22 and November 24, and nothing short of snow shall stop me.

As to what you want to do, getting b.u.t.ter out of a dog's mouth is an easier job than getting patronage out of that of a lawyer or an ecclesiastic. But I am always good for a forlorn hope, and we will have a try.

We shall not be back at Eastbourne till the latter half of September, and I doubt if we shall get into our house even then. We leave this for Gloucester, where we are going to spend the festival week with my daughter to-morrow.

With our love to you both, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I see a report that Owen is sinking. Poor old man; it seems queer that just as I am hoist to the top of my tree he should be going underground. But at 88 life cannot be worth much.

To Mr. W.F. Collier.

Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth Water, August 31, 1892.

Accept my wife's and my hearty thanks for your kind congratulations.

When I was a mere boy I took for motto of an essay, "What is honour?

Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday," and although I have my full share of ambition and vanity, I doubt not, yet Falstaff's philosophical observation has dominated my mind and acted as a sort of perpetual refrigerator to these pa.s.sions. So I have gone my own way, sought for none of these things and expected none--and it would seem that the deepest schemer's policy could not have answered better. We must have a new Beat.i.tude, "Blessed is the man who expecteth nothing," without its ordinary appendix.

I tell Jack [His son-in-law, Hon. John Collier.] I have worked hard for a dignity which will enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering.

[It took some time, however, to get used to the t.i.tle, and it was October before he wrote:--]

The feeling that "The Right Honourable" on my letters is a piece of chaff is wearing off, and I hope to get used to my appendix in time.

[The "very quaint" ceremony of kissing hands is described at some length in a letter to Mrs. Huxley from London on his way back from Osborne:--]

Great Western Hotel, August 25, 1892, 6.40 P.M.

I have just got back from Osborne, and I find there are a few minutes to send you a letter--by the help of the extra halfpenny. First-rate weather there and back, a special train, carriage with postillions at the Osborne landing-place, and a grand procession of officers of the new household and P.C.'s therein. Then waiting about while the various "sticks" were delivered.

Then we were shown into the presence chamber where the Queen sat at a table. We knelt as if we were going to say our prayers, holding a testament between two, while the Clerk of the Council read an oath of which I heard not a word. We each advanced to the Queen, knelt and kissed her hand, retired backwards, and got sworn over again (Lord knows what I promised and vowed this time also). Then we shook hands with all the P.C.'s present, including Lord Lorne, and so exit backwards. It was all very curious...

After that a capital lunch and back we came. Ribblesdale and several other people I knew were of the party, and I found it very pleasant talking with him and Jesse Collings, who is a very interesting man.

"Oh," he said, "how I wish my poor mother, who was a labouring woman--a great n.o.ble woman--and brought us nine all up in right ways, could have been alive." Very human and good and dignified too, I thought.

He also used to tell how he was caught out when he thought to make use of the opportunity to secure a close view of the Queen. Looking up, he found her eyes fixed upon him; Her Majesty had clearly taken the opportunity to do the same by him.

Regarding the Privy Councillors.h.i.+p as an exceptional honour for science, over and above any recognition of his personal services, which he thought amply met by the Civil List pension specially conferred upon him as an honour at his retirement from the public service, Huxley was no little vexed at an article in "Nature" for August 25 (volume 46 page 397), reproaching the Government for allowing him to leave the public service six years before, without recognition. Accordingly he wrote to Sir J. Donnelly on August 27:--]

It is very unfair to both Liberal and Conservative Governments, who did much more for me than I expected, and I feel that I ought to contradict the statement without loss of time.

So I have written the inclosed letter for publication in "Nature". But as it is always a delicate business to meddle with official matters, I wish you would see if I have said anything more than I ought to say in the latter half of the letter. If so, please strike it out, and let the first half go.

I had a narrow shave to get down to Osborne and kiss hands on Thursday.

What a quaint ceremony it is!

The humour of the situation was that we three hot Unionists, White Ridley, Jesse Collings, and I, were escorted by the whole Gladstonian household.

[And again on August 30:--]

In the interview I had with Lord Salisbury on the subject of an order of merit--ages ago [See above.]--I expressly gave him to understand that I considered myself out of the running--having already received more than I had any right to expect. And when he has gone out of his way to do honour to science, it is stupid of "Nature" to strike the discordant note.

[His letter appeared in "Nature" of September 1 (volume 46 page 416).

In it he declared that both Lord Salisbury's and Mr. Gladstone's Governments had given him substantial recognition that Lord Iddesleigh had put the Civil List pension expressly as an honour; and finally, that he himself placed this last honour in the category of] "unearned increments."

CHAPTER 3.11.

1892.

[The following letters are mainly of personal interest; some merely ill.u.s.trate the humorous turn he would give to his more intimate correspondence; others strike a more serious note, especially those to friends whose powers were threatened by overwork or ill-health.

With these may fitly come two other letters; one to a friend on his re-marriage, the other to his daughter, in reply to a birthday letter.]

My wife and I send our warmest good wishes to your future wife and yourself. I cannot but think that those who are parted from us, if they have cognisance of what goes on in this world, must rejoice over everything that renders life better and brighter for the sojourners in it-- especially of those who are dear to them. At least, that would be my feeling.

Please commend us to Miss --, and beg her not to put us on the "Index,"

because we count ourselves among your oldest and warmest friends.

[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1892.

It was very pleasant to get your birthday letter and the photograph, which is charming.

The love you children show us, warms our old age better than the sun.

For myself the sting of remembering troops of follies and errors, is best alleviated by the thought that they may make me better able to help those who have to go through like experiences, and who are so dear to me that I would willingly pay an even heavier price, to be of use.

Depend upon it, that confounded "just man who needed no repentance" was a very poor sort of a father. But perhaps his daughters were "just women" of the same type; and the family circle as warm as the interior of an ice-pail.

[A certain artist, who wanted to have Huxley sit to him, tried to manage the matter through his son-in-law, Hon. J. Collier, to whom the following is addressed:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 27, 1892.