Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 57

So far as I can see, my faculties are as good (including memory for anything that is not useful) as they were fifty years ago, but I can't work long hours, or live out of fresh air. Three days of London bowls me over.

I expect you are in much the same case. But you seem to be able to stoop over specimens in a way impossible to me. It is that incapacity has made me give up dissection and microscopic work. I do a lot on my back, and I can tell you that the latter posture is an immense economy of strength. Indeed, when my heart was troublesome, I used to spend my time either in active outdoor exercise or horizontally.

The Stracheys were here the other day, and it was a great pleasure to us to see them. I think he has had a very close shave with that accident. There is n.o.body whom I should more delight to honour--a right good man all round--but I am not competent to judge of his work. You are, and I do not see why you should not suggest it. I would give him a medal for being R. Strachey, but probably the Council would make difficulties.

By the way, do you see the "Times" has practically climbed down about the Royal Society--came down backwards like a bear, growling all the time? I don't think we shall have any more first of December criticisms.

Lord help you through all this screed. With our love to you both.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

Abram, Abraham became By will divine; Let pickled Brian's name Be changed to Brine!

"Poetae Minores".

Poor Brian.--Brutal jest!

[(Sir Joseph's son, Brian, had fallen into a pan of brine.)

The following was written to a friend who had alluded to his painful recollection of a former occasion when he was Huxley's guest at the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society, and was hastily summoned from it to find his wife dying.]

I fully understand your feeling about the R.S. Dinner. I have not forgotten the occasion when you were my guest: still less my brief sight of you when I called the next day.

These things are the "lachrymae rerum"--the abysmal griefs hidden under the current of daily life, and seemingly forgotten, till now and then they come up to the surface--a flash of agony--like the fish that jumps in a calm pool.

One has one's groan and goes to work again.

If I knew of anything else for it, I would tell you; but all my experience ends in the questionable thanksgiving, "It's lucky it's no worse."

With which bit of practical philosophy, and our love, believe me, ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[Before speaking of his last piece of work, in the vain endeavour to complete which he exposed himself to his old enemy, influenza, I shall give several letters of miscellaneous interest.

The first is in reply to Lord Farrer's inquiry as to where he could obtain a fuller account of the subject tersely discussed in the chapter he had contributed to the "Life of Owen". ("Which," wrote Lord Farrer, "is just what I wanted as an outline of the Biological and Morphological discussion of the last 100 years. But it is 'Pemmican' to an aged and enfeebled digestion. Is there such a thing as a diluted solution of it in the shape of any readable book?")]

Hodeslea, January 26, 1895.

My dear Farrer,

Miserable me! Having addressed myself to clear off a heap of letters that have been acc.u.mulating, I find I have not answered an inquiry of yours of nearly a month's standing. I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you of any book (readable or otherwise) that will convert my "pemmican" into decent broth for you.

There are histories of zoology and of philosophical anatomy, but they all of them seem to me to miss the point (which you have picked out of the pemmican). Indeed, that is just why I took such a lot of pains over these 50 or 60 pages. And I am immensely tickled by the fact that among all the critical notices I have seen, not a soul sees what I have been driving at as you have done. I really wish you would write a notice of it, just to show these Gigadibses (vide Right Reverend Blougram) what blind buzzards they are! [See Browning's "Bishop Blougram's Apology":--"Gigadibs the literary man" with his Abstract intellectual plan of life Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws.]

Enter a maid. "Please sir, Mrs. Huxley says she would be glad if you would go out in the sun." "All right, Allen." Anecdote for your next essay on Government!

The fact is, I have been knocked up ever since Tuesday, when our University Deputation came off; and my good wife (who is laid up herself) suspects me (not without reason) of failing to take advantage of a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne.

By the way, can you help us over the University business? Lord Rosebery is favourable, and there is absolutely n.o.body on the other side except sundry Philistines, who, having got their degrees, are desirous of inflating their market value.

Yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

[The next is in answer to an appeal for a subscription, from the Church Army.]

January 26, 1895.

I regret that I am unable to contribute to the funds of the Church Army.

I hold it to be my duty to do what I can for the cases of distress of which I have direct knowledge; and I am glad to be able now and then to give timely aid to the industrious and worthy people with whom, as a householder, I am brought into personal relation; and who are so often engaged in a noiseless and unpitied but earnest struggle to do well.

In my judgment, a domestic servant, who is perhaps giving half her wages to support her old parents, is more worthy of help than half-a-dozen Magdalens.

Under these circ.u.mstances, you will understand that such funds as are at my disposal are already fully engaged.

[The following is to a gentleman--an American, I think--who sent him a long ma.n.u.script, an extraordinary farrago of nonsense, to read and criticise, and help to publish. But as he seemed to have acted in sheer simplicity, he got an answer:--]

Hodeslea, January 31, 1895.

Dear Sir,

I should have been glad if you had taken the ordinary, and, I think, convenient course of writing for my permission before you sent the essay which has reached me, and which I return by this post. I should then have had the opportunity of telling you that I do not undertake to read, or take any charge of such matters, and we should both have been spared some trouble.

I the more regret this, since being unwilling to return your work without examination, I have looked at it, and feel bound to give you the following piece of advice, which I fear may be distasteful, as good counsel generally is.

Lock up your essay. For two years--if possible, three--read no popular expositions of science, but devote yourself to a course of sound PRACTICAL instruction in elementary physics, chemistry, and biology.

Then re-read your essay; do with it as you think best; and, if possible, regard a little more kindly than you are likely to do at present, yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following pa.s.sage from a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker refers to a striking discovery made by Dubois:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 14, 1895.

The Dutchmen seem to have turned up something like the "missing link"

in Java, according to a paper I have just received from Marsh. I expect he was a Socratic party, with his hair rather low down on his forehead and warty cheeks.

Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois (fossil)

rather Aino-ish about the body, small in the calf, and cheese-cutting in the s.h.i.+ns. Le voici!

CHAPTER 3.14.