Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 21

I finished off my work in Edinburgh on the 23rd and positively polished off the Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures. French without a master in twelve lessons is nothing to this feat. The men worked very well on the whole, and sent in some creditable examination papers. I stayed a few days to finish up the abstracts of my lectures for the "Medical Times"; then picked up the two elder girls who were at Barmoor and brought them on here to join the wife and the rest.

How is it that Dohrn has been and gone? I have been meditating a letter to him for an age. He wanted to see me, and I did not know how to manage to bring about a meeting.

Edinburgh is greatly exercised in its mind about the vivisection business and "Vagus" "swells wisibly" whenever the subject is mentioned. I think there is an inclination to regard those who are ready to consent to legislation of any kind as traitors, or at any rate, trimmers. It sickens me to reflect on the quant.i.ty of time and worry I shall have to give to that subject when I get back.

I see that -- has been blowing the trumpet at the Medical a.s.sociation.

He has about as much tact as a flyblown bull.

I have just had a long letter from Wyville Thomson. The "Challenger"

inclines to think that Bathybius is a mineral precipitate! in which case some enemy will probably say that it is a product of my precipitation. So mind, I was the first to make that "goak." Old Ehrenberg suggested something of the kind to me, but I have not his letter here. I shall eat my leek handsomely, if any eating has to be done. They have found pseudopodia in Globerigina.

With all good wishes from ours to yours.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Cragside, Morpeth, August 13, 1875.

My dear Tyndall,

I find that in the midst of my work in Edinburgh I omitted to write to De Vrij, so I have just sent him a letter expressing my pleasure in being able to co-operate in any plan for doing honour to old Benedict [Spinoza, a memorial to whom was being raised in Holland.], for whom I have a most especial respect.

I am not sure that I won't write something about him to stir up the Philistines.

My work at Edinburgh got itself done very satisfactorily, and I cleared about 1000 pounds by the transaction, being one of the few examples known of a Southron coming north and pillaging the Scots.

However, I was not sorry when it was all over, as I had been hard at work since October and began to get tired.

The wife and babies from the south, and I from the north, met here a fortnight ago and we have been idling very pleasantly ever since. The place is very pretty and our host kindness itself. Miss Matthaei and five of the bairns are at Cartington--a moorland farmhouse three miles off--and in point of rosy cheeks and appet.i.tes might compete with any five children of their age and weight. Jess and Mady are here with us and have been doing great execution at a ball at Newcastle. I really don't know myself when I look at these young women, and my hatred of possible sons-in-law is deadly. All send their love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Wish you joy of Bristol.

[The following letter to Darwin was written when the Polar Expedition under Sir George Nares was in preparation. It ill.u.s.trates the range of observation which his friends had learned to expect in him:--]

Athenaeum Club, January 22, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

I write on behalf of the Polar Committee of the Royal Society to ask for any suggestions you may be inclined to offer us as instructions to the naturalists who are to accompany the new expedition.

The task of drawing up detailed instructions is divided among a lot of us; but you are as full of ideas as an egg is full of meat, and are shrewdly suspected of having, somewhere in your capacious cranium, a store of notions which would be of great value to the naturalists.

All I can say is, that if you have not already "collated facts" on this topic, it will be the first subject I ever suggested to you on which you had not.

Of course we do not expect you to put yourself to any great trouble--nor ask for such a thing--but if you will jot down any notes that occur to you we shall be thankful.

We must have everything in hand for printing by March 15.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter dates from soon after the death of Charles Kingsley:--]

Science Schools, South Kensington, October 22, 1875.

Dear Miss Kingsley,

I sincerely trust that you believe I have been abroad and prostrated by illness, and have thereby accounted for receiving no reply to your letter of a fortnight back.

The fact is that it has only just reached me, owing to the neglect of the people in Jermyn Street, who ought to have sent it on here.

I a.s.sure you I have not forgotten the brief interview to which you refer, and I have often regretted that the hurry and worry of life (which increases with the square of your distance from youth) never allowed me to take advantage of your kind father's invitation to become better acquainted with him and his. I found his card in Jermyn Street when I returned last year, with a pencilled request that I would call on him at Westminster.

I meant to do so, but the whirl of things delayed me until, as I bitterly regret, it was too late.

I am not sure that I have any important letter of your father's but one, written to me some fifteen years ago, on the occasion of the death of a child who was then my only son. It was in reply to a letter of my own written in a humour of savage grief. Most likely he burned the letter, and his reply would be hardly intelligible without it.

Moreover, I am not at all sure that I can lay my hands upon your father's letter in a certain chaos of papers which I have never had the courage to face for years. But if you wish I will try.

I am very grieved to hear of Mrs. Kingsley's indisposition. Pray make my kindest remembrances to her, and believe me your very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--By the way, letters addressed to my private residence,

4 Marlborough Place, N.W.,

are sure not to be delayed. And I have another reason for giving the address--the hope that when you come to Town you will let my wife and daughters make your acquaintance.

[His continued interest in the germ-theory and the question of the origin of life ("Address at the British a.s.sociation" 1870 see 2 page 14, sq.), appears from the following:--]

4 Marlborough Place, October 15, 1875.

My dear Tyndall,

Will you bring with you to the x to-morrow a little bottle full of fluid containing the bacteria you have found developed in your infusions? I mean a good characteristic specimen. It will be useful to you, I think, if I determine the forms with my own microscope, and make drawings of them which you can use.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I can't tell you how delighted I was with the experiments.

[Throughout this period, and for some time later, he was in frequent communication with Thomas Spencer Baynes, Professor of Logic and English Literature at St. Andrews University, the editor of the new "Encyclopaedia Britannica," work upon which was begun at the end of 1873. From the first Huxley was an active helper, both in cla.s.sifying the biological subjects which ought to be treated of, suggesting the right men to undertake the work, and himself writing several articles, notably that on Evolution. (Others were "Actinozoa," "Amphibia,"