Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 7

What if I were to come and look you up in Naples, somewhere in February, as soon as my lectures are over?

The "one-plate system" might cure me of my incessant dyspeptic nausea.

A detestable grub--larva of Ephestia elatella--has been devouring Her Majesty's stores of biscuits at Gibraltar. I have had to look into his origin, history, and best way of circ.u.mventing him--and maybe I shall visit Gibraltar and perhaps Malta. In that case, you will see me turn up some of these days at the Palazzo Torlonia.

Herbert Spencer has written a friendly attack on "Administrative Nihilism," which I will send you; in the same number of the "Fortnightly" there is an absurd epicene splutter on the same subject by Mill's step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor. I intended to publish the paper separately, with a note about Spencer's criticism, but I have had no energy nor faculty to do anything lately.

Tell Lankester, with best regards, that I believe the teaching of teachers in 1872 is arranged, and that I shall look for his help in due course.

The "Happy family" have had the measles since you saw them, but they are well again.

I write in Jermyn Street, so they cannot send messages; otherwise there would be a chorus from them and the wife of good wishes and kind remembrances.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[He left Southampton on January 11, in the "Malta." On the 16th, he notes in his diary,] "I was up just in time see the great portal of the Mediterranean well. It was a lovely morning, and nothing could be grander than Ape Hill on one side and the Rock on the other, looking like great lions or sphinxes on each side of a gateway."

[The morning after his arrival he breakfasted with Admiral Hornby, who sent him over to Tangier in the "Helicon," giving the Bishop of Gibraltar a pa.s.sage at the same time. This led him to note down,] "How the naval men love Baxter and all his works." [A letter from Dr.

Hooker to Sir John Hay ensured him a most hospitable welcome, though continual rain spoiled his excursions. On the 21st he returned to Gibraltar, leaving three days later in the "Nyanza" for Alexandria, which was reached on February 1. At that "muddy hole" he landed in pouring rain, and it was not till he reached Cairo the following day that he at last got into his longed-for suns.h.i.+ne.

Seeing that three of his eight weeks had been spent in merely getting to suns.h.i.+ne, his wife and doctor conspired to apply for a third month of leave, which was immediately granted, so that he was able to accept the invitation of two friends to go with them up the Nile as far as a.s.souan in that most restful of conveyances, a dahabieh.

Cairo more than answered his expectations. He stayed here till the 13th, making several excursions in company with Sir W. Gregory, notably to Boulak Museum, where he particularly notes the "man with ape" from Memphis; and, of course, the pyramids, of which he remarks that Cephren's is cased at the top with limestone, not granite. His notebook and sketch-book show that he was equally interested in archeology, in the landscape and scenes of everyday life, and in the peculiar geographical and geological features of the country. His first impression of the Delta was its resemblance to Belgium and Lincolns.h.i.+re. He has sections and descriptions of the Mokatta hill, and the windmill mound, with a general panorama of the surrounding country and an explanation of it. He remarks at Memphis how the unburnt brick of which the mounds are made up had in many places become remanie into a stratified deposit--distinguishable from Nile mud chiefly by the pottery fragments--and notes the bearing of this fact on the Cairo mounds. It is the same on his trip up the Nile; he jots down the geology whenever opportunity offered; remarks, as indication of the former height of the river, a high mud-bank beyond Edfou, and near a.s.souan a pot-hole in the granite fifty feet above the present level. Here is a detailed description of the tomb of Aahmes; there a river-scene beside the pyramid of Meidum; or vivid sketches of vulture and jackal at a meal in the desert, the jackal in possession of the carca.s.s, the vulture impatiently waiting his good pleasure for the last sc.r.a.ps; of the natives working at the endless shadoofs; of a group of listeners around a professional story-teller--unfinished, for he was observed sketching them.

Egypt left a profound impression upon him. His artistic delight in it apart, the antiquities and geology of the country were a vivid ill.u.s.tration to his trained eye of the history of man and the influence upon him of the surrounding country, the link between geography and history.

He left behind him for a while a most unexpected memorial of his visit. A friend not long after going to the pyramids, was delighted to find himself thus adjured by a donkey-boy, who tried to cut out his rival with "Not him donkey, sah; him donkey bad, sah; my donkey good; my donkey 'Fessor-uxley donkey, sah." It appears that the Cairo donkey-boys have a way of naming their animals after celebrities whom they have borne on their backs.

While at Thebes, on his way down the river again, he received news of the death of the second son of Matthew Arnold, to whom he wrote the following letter:--]

Thebes, March 10, 1872.

My dear Arnold,

I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see in the papers we received yesterday the announcement of the terrible blow which has fallen upon Mrs. Arnold and yourself.

Your poor boy looked such a fine manly fellow the last time I saw him, when we dined at your house, that I had to read the paragraph over and over again before I could bring myself to believe what I read. And it is such a grievous opening of a wound hardly yet healed that I hardly dare to think of the grief which must have bowed down Mrs. Arnold and yourself.

I hardly know whether I do well in writing to you. If such trouble befell me there are very few people in the world from whom I could bear even sympathy--but you would be one of them, and therefore I hope that you will forgive a condolence which will reach you so late as to disturb rather than soothe, for the sake of the hearty affection which dictates it.

My wife has told me of the very kind letter you wrote her. I was thoroughly broken down when I left England, and did not get much better until I fell into the utter and absolute laziness of dahabieh life. A month of that has completely set me up. I am as well as ever; and though very grateful to Old Nile for all that he has done for me--not least for a whole universe of new thoughts and pictures of life--I begin to feel strongly

'the need of a world of men for me.'

But I am not going to overwork myself again. Pray make my kindest remembrances to Mrs. Arnold, and believe me, always yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Leaving a.s.souan on March 3, and Cairo on the 18th, he returned by way of Messina to Naples, taking a day at Catania to look at Etna. At Naples he found his friend Dohrn was absent, and his place as host was filled by his father. Vesuvius was ascended, Pozzuoli and Pompeii visited, and two days spent in Rome.]

Hotel de Grande Bretagne, Naples, March 31, 1872.

My dear Tyndall,

Your very welcome letter did not reach me until the 18th of March, when I returned to Cairo from my expedition to a.s.souan. Like Johnny Gilpin, I "little thought when I set out, of running such a rig"; but while at Cairo I fell in with Ossory of the Athenaeum, and a very pleasant fellow, Charles Ellis, who had taken a dahabieh, and were about to start up the Nile. They invited me to take possession of a vacant third cabin, and I accepted their hospitality, with the intention of going as far as Thebes and returning on my own hook. But when we got to Thebes I found there was no getting away again without much more exposure and fatigue than I felt justified in facing just then, and as my friends showed no disposition to be rid of me, I stuck to the boat, and only left them on the return voyage at Rodu, which is the terminus of the railway, about 150 miles from Cairo.

We had an unusually quick journey, as I was little more than a month away from Cairo, and as my companions made themselves very agreeable, it was very pleasant. I was not particularly well at first, but by degrees the utter rest of this "always afternoon" sort of life did its work, and I am as well and vigorous now as ever I was in my life.

I should have been home within a fortnight of the time I had originally fixed. This would have been ample time to have enabled me to fulfil all the engagements I had made before starting; and Donnelly had given me to understand that "My Lords" would not trouble their heads about my stretching my official leave. Nevertheless I was very glad to find the official extension (which was the effect of my wife's and your and Bence Jones's friendly conspiracy) awaiting me at Cairo.

A rapid journey home via Brindisi might have rattled my brains back into the colloid state in which they were when I left England. Looking back through the past six months I begin to see that I have had a narrow escape from a bad breakdown, and I am full of good resolutions.

As the first-fruit of these you see that I have given up the School Board, and I mean to keep clear of all that semi-political work hereafter. I see that Sandon (whom I met at Alexandria) and Miller have followed my example, and that Lord Lawrence is likely to go. What a skedaddle!

It seems very hard to escape, however. Since my arrival here, on taking up the "Times" I saw a paragraph about the Lord Rectors.h.i.+p of St. Andrews. After enumerating a lot of candidates for that honour, the paragraph concluded, "But we understand that at present Professor Huxley has the best chance." It is really too bad if any one has been making use of my name without my permission. But I don't know what to do about it. I had half a mind to write to Tulloch to tell him that I can't and won't take any such office, but I should look rather foolish if he replied that it was a mere newspaper report, and that n.o.body intended to put me up.

Egypt interested me profoundly, but I must reserve the tale of all I did and saw there for word of mouth. From Alexandria I went to Messina, and thence made an excursion along the lovely Sicilian coast to Catania and Etna. The old giant was half covered with snow, and this fact, which would have tempted you to go to the top, stopped me.

But I went to the Val del Bove, whence all the great lava streams have flowed for the last two centuries, and feasted my eyes with its rugged grandeur. From Messina I came on here, and had the great good fortune to find Vesuvius in eruption. Before this fact the vision of good Bence Jones forbidding much exertion vanished into thin air, and on Thursday up I went in company with Ray Lankester and my friend Dohrn's father, Dohrn himself being unluckily away. We had a glorious day, and did not descend till late at night. The great crater was not very active, and contented itself with throwing out great clouds of steam and volleys of red-hot stones now and then. These were thrown towards the south-west side of the cone, so that it was practicable to walk all round the northern and eastern lip, and look down into the h.e.l.l Gate. I wished you were there to enjoy the sight as much as I did. No lava was issuing from the great crater, but on the north side of this, a little way below the top, an independent cone had established itself as the most charming little pocket-volcano imaginable. It could not have been more than 100 feet high, and at the top was a crater not more than six or seven feet across. Out of this, with a noise exactly resembling a blast furnace and a slowly-working high pressure steam engine combined, issued a violent torrent of steam and fragments of semi-fluid lava as big as one's fist, and sometimes bigger. These shot up sometimes as much as 100 feet, and then fell down on the sides of the little crater, which could be approached within fifty feet without any danger. As darkness set in, the spectacle was most strange. The fiery stream found a lurid reflection in the slowly-drifting steam cloud, which overhung it, while the red-hot stones which shot through the cloud shone strangely beside the quiet stars in a moonless sky.

Not from the top of this cinder cone, but from its side, a couple of hundred feet down, a stream of lava issued. At first it was not more than a couple of feet wide, but whether from receiving accessions or merely from the different form of slope, it got wider on its journey down to the Atrio del Cavallo, a thousand feet below. The slope immediately below the exit must have been near fifty, but the lava did not flow quicker than very thick treacle would do under like circ.u.mstances. And there were plenty of freshly cooled lava streams about, inclined at angles far greater than those which that learned Academician, Elie de Beaumont, declared to be possible. Naturally I was ashamed of these impertinent lava currents, and felt inclined to call them "Laves mousseuses." [Elie de Beaumont "is said to have 'd.a.m.ned himself to everlasting fame' by inventing the nickname of 'la science moussante' for Evolutionism." See "Life of Darwin" 2 185.]

Courage, my friend, behold land! I know you love my handwriting. I am off to Rome to-day, and this day-week, if all goes well, I shall be under my own roof-tree again. In fact I hope to reach London on Sat.u.r.day evening. It will be jolly to see your face again.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

My best remembrances to Hirst if you see him before I do.

[My father reached home on April 6, sunburnt and bearded almost beyond recognition, but not really well, for as soon as he began work again in London, his old enemy returned. Early hours, the avoidance of society and societies, an hour's riding before starting at nine for South Kensington, were all useless; the whole year was poisoned until a special diet prescribed by Dr. (afterwards sir) Andrew Clark, followed by another trip abroad, effected a cure. I remember his saying once that he learned by sad experience that such a holiday as that in Egypt was no good for him. What he really required was mountain air and plenty of exercise. The following letters fill up the outline of this period:--]

26 Abbey Place, May 20, 1872.

My dear Dohrn,

I suppose that you are now back in Naples, perambulating the Chiaja, and looking ruefully on the acc.u.mulation of ashes on the foundations of the aquarium! The papers, at any rate, tell us that the ashes of Vesuvius have fallen abundantly at Naples. Moreover, that abominable munic.i.p.ality is sure to have made the eruption an excuse for all sorts of delays. May the G.o.ds give you an extra share of temper and patience!

What an unlucky dog our poor Ray is, to go and get fever when of all times in the world's history he should not have had it. However, I hear he is better and on his way home. I hope he will be well enough when he returns not only to get his Fellows.h.i.+p, but to help me in my schoolmaster work in June and July.

I was greatly disgusted to miss you in Naples, but it was something to find your father instead. What a vigorous, genial YOUNGSTER of three score and ten he is. I declare I felt quite aged beside him. We had a glorious day on Vesuvius, and behaved very badly by leaving him at the inn for I do not know how many hours, while we wandered about the cone. But he had a very charming young lady for companion, and possibly had the best of it. I am very sorry that at the last I went off in a hurry without saying "Good-bye" to him, but I desired Lankester to explain, and I am sure he will have sympathised with my anxiety to see Rome.

I returned, thinking myself very well, but a bad fit of dyspepsia seized me, and I found myself obliged to be very idle and very careful of myself--neither of which things are to my taste. But I am right again now, and hope to have no more backslidings. However, I am afraid I may not be able to attend the Brighton meeting. In which case you will have to pay us a visit, wherever we may be--where, we have not yet made up our minds, but it will not be so far as St. Andrews.

Now for a piece of business. The new Governor of Ceylon is a friend of mine, and is proposing to set up a Natural History Museum in Ceylon.

He wants a curator--some vigorous fellow with plenty of knowledge and power of organisation who will make use of his great opportunities. He tells me he thinks he can start him with 350 pounds sterling a year (and a house) with possible increase to 400 pounds sterling. I do not know any one here who would answer the purpose. Can you recommend me any one? If you can, let me know at once, and don't take so long in writing to me as I have been in writing to you.

I await the "Prophecies of the Holy Antonius" anxiously. [His work on the development of the Arthropoda or Spider family.] Like the Jews of old, I come of an unbelieving generation, and need a sign. The bread and the oil, also the chamber in the wall shall not fail the prophet when he comes in August: nor Donner and Blitzes either.

I leave the rest of the s.p.a.ce for the wife.