Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 30

"Rattlesnake" was 7 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet 6 inches high.

When my bed and my clothes were in it, there was not much room for any collection, except the voluntary one made by some thousands of specimens of Blatta orientalis [The c.o.c.kroach.], with whose presence I should have been very glad to dispense.

My Medusae were never published. I have heaps of notes and drawings and half-a-dozen engraved plates. But after the publication of the "Oceanic Hydrozoa" I was obliged to take to quite other occupations, and all that material is like the "full many a flower, born to blush unseen," of our poet.

If you would pay us a visit you should look through the whole ma.s.s, if you liked, and you might find something interesting.

At present, I am very busy about Crayfishes (Flusskrebse), working out the relations between their structure and their Geographical Distribution, which are very curious and interesting.

I have also nearly finished the anatomy of Spirula for the "Challenger." It is essentially a cuttlefish, and the sh.e.l.l is really internal. With only one specimen, it has been a long and troublesome job--but I shall establish all the essential points and give half-a-dozen plates of anatomy.

You will recollect my eldest little daughter? She is going to be married next Sat.u.r.day. It is the first break in our family, and we are very sad to lose her--though well satisfied with her prospects. She is but just twenty and a charming girl, though you may put that down to fatherly partiality if you like.

The second daughter has taken to art, and will make a painter if she be wise enough not to marry for some years.

My eldest son who comes next is taller than I am. He has been at one of the Scotch Universities for the last six months; and one of these fine days, next month, you will see a fair-haired stripling asking for Herr Professor Haeckel.

I am going to send him to Jena for three months to pick up your n.o.ble vernacular; and in the meanwhile to continue his Greek and Mathematics, in which the young gentleman is fairly proficient. If you can recommend any Professor under whom he can carry on his studies, it will be a great kindness.

I will give him a letter to you, and while I beg you not to give yourself any trouble about him, I need not say I shall be very grateful for any notice you may take of him.

I am giving him as much independence of action as possible, in order that he may learn to take care of himself.

Now that is enough about my children. Yours must yet be young--and you have not yet got to the marriage and university stage--which I a.s.sure you is much more troublesome than the measles and chicken-pox period.

My wife unites with me in kindest remembrances and good wishes.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[An outbreak of diphtheria among his children made the spring of 1878 a time of overwhelming anxiety. How it told upon his strong and self-contained chief is related by T.J. Parker--"I never saw a man more crushed than he was during the dangerous illness of one of his daughters, and he told me that, having then to make an after-dinner speech, he broke down for the first time in his life, and for one painful moment forgot where he was and what he had to say." This was one of the few occasions of his absence from College during the seventies. "When, after two days, he looked in at the laboratory,"

writes Professor Howes, "his dejected countenance and tired expression betokened only too plainly the intense anxiety he had undergone."

The history of the outbreak was very instructive. Huxley took a leading part in organising an inquiry and in looking into the matter with the health officer.] "As soon as I can get all the facts together," [he writes on December 10,] "I am going to make a great turmoil about our outbreak of diphtheria--and see whether I cannot get our happy-go-lucky local government mended." [As usual, the epidemic was due to culpable negligence. In the construction of some drains, too small a pipe was laid down. The sewage could not escape, and flooded back in a low-lying part of Kilburn. Diphtheria soon broke out close by. While it was raging there, a St. John's Wood dairyman running short of milk, sent for more to an infected dairy in Kilburn.

Every house which he supplied that day with Kilburn milk was attacked with diphtheria.

But with relief from this heavy strain, his spirits instantly revived, and he writes to Tyndall.]

4 Marlborough Place, May 20, 1878.

My dear Tyndall,

I wrote you a most downhearted letter this morning about Madge, and not without reason. But having been away four hours, I come home to find a wonderful and blessed change. The fever has abated and she is looking like herself. If she could only make herself heard, I should have some sauciness. I see it in her eyes.

If you will be so kind as to kiss everybody you meet on my account it will be a satisfaction to me. You may begin with Mrs. Tyndall!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Professor Marsh, with whom Huxley had stayed at Yale College in 1876, paid his promised visit to England immediately after this.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 24, 1878 (Evening).

My dear Marsh,

Welcome to England! I am delighted to hear of your arrival--but the news has only just reached me, as I have been away since Sat.u.r.day with my wife and sick daughter who are at the seaside. A great deal has happened to us in the last six or seven weeks. My eldest daughter married, and then a week after an invasion of diphtheria, which struck down my eldest son, my youngest daughter, and my eldest remaining daughter altogether. Two of the cases were light, but my poor Madge suffered terribly, and for some ten days we were in sickening anxiety about her. She is slowly gaining strength now, and I hope there is no more cause for alarm--but my household is all to pieces--the Lares and Penates gone, and painters and disinfectors in their places.

You will certainly have to run down to Margate and see my wife--or never expect forgiveness in this world.

I shall be at the Science Schools, South Kensington, to-morrow till four--and if I do not see you before that time I shall come and look you up at the Palace Hotel.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

"Is it not provoking," [he writes to his wife,] "that we should all be dislocated when I should have been so glad to show him a little attention?" [Still, apart from this weekend at the seaside, Professor Marsh was not entirely neglected. He writes in his "Recollections"

(page 6):--

How kind Huxley was to everyone who could claim his friends.h.i.+p, I have good cause to know. Of the many instances which occur to me, one will suffice. One evening in London at a grand annual reception of the Royal Academy, where celebrities of every rank were present, Huxley said to me,] "When I was in America, you showed me every extinct animal that I had read about, or even dreamt of. Now, if there is a single living lion in all Great Britain that you wish to see, I will show him to you in five minutes." [He kept his promise, and before the reception was over, I had met many of the most noted men in England, and from that evening, I can date a large number of acquaintances, who have made my subsequent visits to that country an ever-increasing pleasure.

As for his summer occupations, he writes to his eldest daughter on July 2:--]

No, young woman, you don't catch me attending any congresses I can avoid, not even if F. is an artful committee-man. I must go to the British a.s.sociation at Dublin--for my sins--and after that we have promised to pay a visit in Ireland to Sir Victor Brooke. After that I must settle myself down in Penmaenmawr and write a little book about David Hume--before the grindery of the winter begins.

[The meeting of the British a.s.sociation took place this year in the third week of August at Dublin. Huxley gave an address in the Anthropological subsection ("Informal Remarks on the Conclusions of Anthropology" "British a.s.sociation Report" 1878 pages 573-578.), and on the 20th received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Dublin University, the Public Orator presenting him in the following words:--

Praesento vobis Thomam Henric.u.m Huxley--hominem vere physic.u.m--hominem facundum, lepidum, venustum--eundem autem nihil (philosophia modo sua lucem praeferat) reformidantem--ne illud quidem Ennianum,

Simia quam similis, turp.i.s.sima bestia, n.o.bis.

The extract above given contains the first reference to the book on Hume (In the "English Men of Letters" series, edited by Mr. John Morley.), written this summer as a holiday occupation at Penmaenmawr.

The speed at which it was composed is remarkable, even allowing for his close knowledge of the subject, acquired many years before. Though he had been "picking at it" earlier in the summer, the whole of the philosophical part was written during September, leaving the biographical part to be done later.

The following letters from Marlborough Place show him at work upon the book:--]

March 31, 1878.

My dear Morley,

I like the notion of undertaking your Hume book, and I don't see why I should not get it done this autumn. But you must not consider me pledged on that point, as I cannot quite command my time.

Tulloch sent me his book on Pascal. It was interesting as everything about Pascal must be, but Tulloch is not a model of style.

I have looked into Bruton's book, but I shall now get it and study it.

Hume's correspondence with Rousseau seems to me typical of the man's sweet, easy-going nature. Do you mean to have a portrait of each of your men? I think it is a great comfort in a biography to get a notion of the subject in the flesh.

I have rather made it a rule not to part with my property in my books--but I daresay that can be arranged with Macmillan. Anyhow I shall be content to abide by the general arrangement if you have made one.