1886.
[The controversy with Mr. Gladstone indicates the nature of the
subject that Huxley took up for the employment of his newly obtained
leisure. Chequered as this leisure was all through the year by
constant illness, which drove him again and again to the warmth of
Bournemouth or the brisk airs of the Yorkshire moors in default of the
sovereign medicine of the Alps, he managed to write two more
controversial articles this year, besides a long account of the
"Progress of Science," for Mr. T. Humphry Ward's book on "The Reign of
Queen Victoria," which was to celebrate the Jubilee year 1887.
Examinations--for the last time, however--the meetings of the Eton
Governing Body, the business of the Science Schools, the Senate of the
London University, the Marine Biological Association, the Council of
the Royal Society, and a round dozen of subsidiary committees, all
claimed his attention. Even when driven out of town by his bad health,
he would come up for a few days at a time to attend necessary
meetings.
One of the few references of this period to biological research is
contained in a letter to Professor Pelseneer of Ghent, a student of
the Mollusca, who afterwards completed for Huxley the long unfinished
monograph on "Spirula" for the "Challenger" Report.]
4 Marlborough Place, January 8, 1886.
Dear Sir,
Accept my best thanks for the present of your publications. As you may
imagine, I find that on the cretaceous crustaceans very interesting.
It was a rare chance to find the branchiae preserved.
I am glad to be able to send you a copy of my memoir on the morphology
of the Mollusca. It shows signs of age outside, but I beg you to
remember that it is 33 years old.
I am rejoiced to think you find it still worth consulting. It has
always been my intention to return to the subject some day, and to try
to justify my old conclusions--as I think they may be justified.
But it is very doubtful whether my intention will now ever be carried
into effect.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Mr. Gladstone's second article appeared in the January number of the
"Nineteenth Century," to this the following letter refers:--]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 21, 1886.
My dear Skelton,
Thanks for your capital bit of chaff. I took a thought and began to
mend (as Burns' friend and MY prototype (G.O.M.) is not yet recorded
to have done) about a couple of months ago, and then Gladstone's first
article caused such a flow of bile that I have been the better for it
ever since.
I need not tell you I am entirely crushed by his reply--still the worm
will turn and there is a faint squeak (as of a rat in the mouth of a
terrier) about to be heard in the next "Nineteenth."
But seriously, it is to me a grave thing that the destinies of this
country should at present be seriously influenced by a man, who,
whatever he may be in the affairs of which I am no judge--is nothing
but a copious shuffler, in those which I do understand.
With best wishes to Mrs. Skelton and yourself, ever yours very
faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[With the article in the February number of the "Nineteenth Century,"
he concluded his tilt with Mr. Gladstone upon the interpretation of
Genesis. His supposed] "unjaded appetite" [for controversy was already
satiated; and he begged leave to retire from] "that 'atmosphere of
contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and
vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain
air," [for the] "Elysium" of scientific debate, which "suits my less
robust constitution better." [A vain hope. Little as he liked
controversy at bottom, in spite of the skill--it must be allowed, at
times, a pleasurable skill--in using the weapons of debate, he was not
to avoid it any more than he was to avoid the east wind when he went
to Bournemouth from early in February till the end of March, of which
he writes on February 23:--]
The "English Naples" is rather Florentine so far as a bitter cold east
wind rather below than above 0 degrees C. goes, but from all I hear it
is a deal better than London, and I am picking up in spite of it. I
wish I were a Holothuria, and could get on without my viscera. I
should do splendidly then.
[Here he wrote a long article on the "Evolution of Theology"
("Collected Essays" 4 287) which appeared in the March and April
numbers of the "Nineteenth Century." It was a positive statement of
the views he had arrived at, which underlay the very partial--and
therefore misleading--exposition of them possible in controversy. He
dealt with the subject, not with reference to the truth or falsehood
of the notions under review, but purely as a question of
anthropology,] "a department of biology to which I have at various
times given a good deal of attention." [Starting with the familiar
ground of the Hebrew Scriptures, he thus explains the paleontological
method he proposes to adopt:--]
In the venerable record of ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is
really a library comparable to a selection of works from English
literature between the times of Beda and those of Milton, we have the
stratified deposits (often confused and even with their natural order
inverted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral life of
Israel during many centuries. And, embedded in these strata, there are
numerous remains of forms of thought which once lived, and which,
though often unfortunately mere fragments, are of priceless value to
the anthropologist. Our task is to rescue these from their relatively
unimportant surroundings, and by careful comparison with existing
forms of theology to make the dead world which they record live again.
[A subsequent letter to Professor Lewis Campbell bears upon this
essay. It was written in answer to an inquiry prompted by the
comparison here drawn between the primitive spiritual theories of the
books of Judges and Samuel, and the very similar development of ideas
among the Tongans, as described by Mariner, who lived many years among
the natives.]
Hodeslea, October 10, 1894.
My dear Campbell,
I took a good deal of trouble years ago to satisfy myself about the
point you mention, and I came to the conclusion that Mariner was
eminently trustworthy, and that Martin was not only an honest, but a
shrewd and rather critical, reporter. The story he tells about testing
Mariner's version of King Theebaw's oration shows his frame of mind
(and is very interesting otherwise in relation to oral tradition).
I have a lot of books about Polynesia, but of all I possess and have
read, Mariner is to my mind the most trustworthy.
The missionaries are apt to colour everything, and they never have the
chance of knowing the interior life as Mariner knew it. It was this
conviction that led me to make Mariner my cheval de bataille in
"Evolution of Theology."
I am giving a good deal of trouble--ill for the last week, and at
present with a sharp lumbago! so nice! With our love to Mrs. Campbell
and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The circumstances under which the following letter was written are
these. The activity of the Home Rulers and the lethargy of Unionists
had caused one side only of the great question then agitating English
politics to be represented in the American press, with the result that
the funds of the Nationalists were swelled by subscriptions from
persons who might have acted otherwise if the arguments on the other
side had been adequately laid before them.
Mr. Albert Grey, M.P., therefore had arranged for a series of clear,
forcible pronouncements from strong representative Englishmen against
a separate Parliament, to be cabled over to New York to a syndicate of
influential newspapers, and his American advisers desired that the
opening statement should be from Huxley.
Although it will be seen from the letter that he would not undertake
this task, Mr. Grey showed the letter to one or two of the leading
Liberal Unionists to strengthen their hands, and begged permission to
publish it for the benefit of the whole party. Accordingly, it
appeared in the "Times" of April 13, 1886.]
Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 21, 1886.
Dear Mr. Grey,
I am as much opposed to the Home Rule scheme as any one can possibly
be, and if I were a political man I would fight against it as long as
I had any breath left in me; but I have carefully kept out of the
political field all my life, and it is too late for me now to think of
entering it.
Anxious watching of the course of affairs for many years past has
persuaded me that nothing short of some sharp and sweeping national
misfortune will convince the majority of our countrymen that
government by average opinion is merely a circuitous method of going
to the devil; and that those who profess to lead but in fact slavishly
follow this average opinion are simply the fastest runners and the
loudest squeakers of the herd which is rushing blindly down to its
destruction.
It is the electorate, and especially the Liberal electorate, which is
responsible for the present state of things. It has no political
education. It knows well enough that 2 and 2 won't make 5 in a ledger,
and that sentimental stealing in private life is not to be tolerated;
but it has not been taught the great lesson in history that there are
like verities in national life, and hence it easily falls a prey to
any clever and copious fallacy-monger who appeals to its great heart
instead of reminding it of its weak head.
Politicians have gone on flattering and cajoling this chaos of
political incompetence until the just penalty of believing their own
fictions has befallen them, and the average member of Parliament is
conscientiously convinced that it is his duty, not to act for his
constituents to the best of his judgment, but to do exactly what they,
or rather the small minority which drives them, tells him to do.
Have we a real statesman? A man of the calibre of Pitt or Burke, to
say nothing of Strafford or Pym, who will stand up and tell his
countrymen that this disruption of the union is nothing but a cowardly
wickedness--an act bad in itself, fraught with immeasurable
evil--especially to the people of Ireland; and that if it cost his
political existence, or his head, for that matter, he is prepared to
take any and every honest means of preventing the mischief?
I see no sign of any. And if such a man should come to the front what
chance is there of his receiving loyal and continuous support from a
majority of the House of Commons? I see no sign of any.
There was a time when the political madness of one party was sure to
be checked by the sanity, or at any rate the jealousy of the other. At
the last election I should have voted for the Conservatives (for the
first time in my life) had it not been for Lord Randolph Churchill;
but I thought that by thus jumping out of the Gladstonian frying-pan
into the Churchillian fire I should not mend matters, so I abstained
altogether.
Mr. Parnell has great qualities. For the first time the Irish
malcontents have a leader who is not eloquent, but who is honest; who
knows what he wants and faces the risks involved in getting it. Our
poor Right Honourable Rhetoricians are no match for this man who
understands realities. I believe also that Mr. Parnell's success will
destroy the English politicians who permit themselves to be his
instruments, as soon as bitter experience of the consequences has
brought Englishmen and Scotchmen (and I will add Irishmen) to their
senses.
I suppose one ought not to be sorry for that result, but there are men
among them over whose fall all will lament.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Some of the newspapers took these concluding paragraphs to imply
support of Parnell, so that at the end of June he writes:--]
The "Tribune" man seems to have less intelligence than might be
expected. I spoke approvingly of the way in which Parnell had carried
out his policy, which is rather different from approving the policy
itself.
But these newspaper scribes don't take the trouble to understand what
they read.
[While at Bournemouth he also finished and sent off to the "Youth's
Companion," an American paper, an article on the evolution of certain
types of the house, called "From the Hut to the Pantheon." Beginning
with a description of the Pantheon, that characteristically Roman work
with its vast dome, so strongly built that it is the only great dome
remaining without a flaw:--]
For a long time [he says] I was perplexed to know what it was about
the proportions of the interior of the Pantheon which gave me such a
different feeling from that made by any other domed space I had ever
entered.
[The secret of this he finds in the broad and simple design peculiar
to the building, and then shows in detail how:--]
The round hut, the Aedes Vestae, and the Pantheon are so many stages
in a process of architectural evolution which was effected between the
first beginnings of Roman history and the Augustan age.
[The relation between the beehive hut, the terremare, and the
pile-dwellings of Italy lead to many suggestive bits of early
anthropology, which, it may be hoped, bore fruit in the minds of some
of his youthful readers.
We find him also reading over proofs for Mr. Herbert Spencer, who,
although he might hesitate to ask for his criticism with respect to a
subject on which they had a "standing difference," still:--
concluded that to break through the long-standing usage, in pursuance
of which I have habitually submitted my biological writing to your
castigation, and so often profited by so doing, would seem like a
distrust of your candour--a distrust which I cannot entertain.
So he wrote in January; and on March 19 he wrote again, with another
set of proofs:--
Toujours l'audace! More proofs to look over. Don't write a critical
essay, only marginal notes. Perhaps you will say, like the Roman poet
to the poetaster who asked him to erase any passages he did not like,
and who replied, "One erasure will suffice"--perhaps you will say,
"There needs only one marginal note."
To this he received answer:--]
Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 22, 1886.
My dear Spencer,
More power to your elbow! You will find my blessing at the end of the
proof.
But please look very carefully at some comments which are not merely
sceptical criticisms, but deal with matters of fact.
I see the difference between us on the speculative question lies in
the conception of the primitive protoplasm. I conceive it as a
mechanism set going by heat--as a sort of active crystal with the
capacity of giving rise to a great number of pseudomorphs; and I
conceive that external conditions favour one or the other pseudomorph,
but leave the fundamental mechanism untouched.
You appear to me to suppose that external conditions modify the
machinery, as if by transferring a flour-mill into a forest you could
make it into a saw-mill I am too much of a sceptic to deny the
possibility of anything--especially as I am now so much occupied with
theology--but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
And that is all the more reason why I don't want to stop you from
working it out, or rather to make the "one erasure" you suggest. For
as to stopping you, "ten on me might," as the navvy said to the little
special constable who threatened to take him into custody.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Warmth and sea-fogs here for a variety.
[One more letter may be given from this time at Bournemouth--a letter
to his eldest daughter on the loss of her infant son:--]
Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 2, 1886.
It's very sad to lose your child just when he was beginning to bind
himself to you, and I don't know that it is much consolation to
reflect that the longer he had wound himself up in your heart-strings
the worse the tear would have been, which seems to have been
inevitable sooner or later. One does not weigh and measure these
things while grief is fresh, and in my experience a deep plunge into
the waters of sorrow is the hopefullest way of getting through them on
to one's daily road of life again. No one can help another very much
in these crises of life; but love and sympathy count for something,
and you know, dear child, that you have these in fullest measure from
us.
[On coming up to London in April he was very busy, among other things,
with a proposal that the Marine Biological Association, of which he
was President, should urge the Government to appoint a scientific
adviser to the Fishery Board. A letter of his on this subject had
appeared in the "Times" for March 30. There seemed to him, with his
practical experience of official work, insuperable objections to the
status of such an officer. Above all, he would be a representative of
science in name, without any responsibility to the body of scientific
men in the country. Some of his younger colleagues on the Council, who
had not enjoyed the same experience, thought that he had set aside
their expressions of opinion too brusquely, and begged Sir M. Foster,
as at once a close friend of his, and one to whose opinion he paid
great respect, to make representations to him on their behalf, which
he did in writing, being kept at home by a cold. To this letter, in
which his friend begged him not to be vexed at a very plain statement
of the other point of view, but to make it possible for the younger
men to continue to follow his lead, he replied:--]
4 Marlborough Place, April 5, 1886.
My dear Foster,
Mrs. Foster is quite right in looking sharp after your colds, which is
very generous of me to say, as I am down in the mouth and should have
been cheered by a chat.
I am very glad to know what our younger friends are thinking about. I
made up my mind to some such result of the action I have thought it
necessary to take. But I have no ambition to lead, and no desire to
drive them, and if we can't agree, the best way will be to go our ways
separately...
Heaven forbid that I should restrain anybody from expressing any
opinion in the world. But it is so obvious to me that not one of our
friends has the smallest notion of what administration in fishery
questions means, or of the danger of creating a scientific
Frankenstein in that which he is clamouring for, that I suppose I have
been over-anxious to prevent mischief, and seemed domineering.
Well, I shall mend my ways. I must be getting to be an old savage if
you think it risky to write anything to me.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[But he did not stay long in London. By April 20 he was off to Ilkley,
where he expected to stay] "for a week or two, perhaps longer." [on
the 24th he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
I was beginning to get wrong before we left Bournemouth, and went
steadily down after our return to London, so that I had to call in a
very shrewd fellow who attends my daughter M--. Last Monday he told me
that more physicking was no good, and that I had better be off here,
and see what exercise and the fresh air of the moors would do for me.
So here I came, and mean to give the place a fair trial.
I do a minimum of ten miles per diem without fatigue, and as I eat,
drink, and sleep well, there ought to be nothing the matter with me.
Why, under these circumstances, I should never feel honestly cheerful,
or know any other desire than that of running away and hiding myself,
I don't know. No explanation is to be found even in Foster's
"Physiology!" the only thing my demon can't stand is sharp walking,
and I will give him a dose of that remedy when once I get into trim.
[Indeed he was so much better even after a single day at Ilkley, that
he writes home:--]
It really seems to me that I am an imposter for running away, and I
can hardly believe that I felt so ill and miserable four-and-twenty
hours ago.
[And on the 28th he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
I have been improving wonderfully in the last few days. Yesterday I
walked to Bolton Abbey, the Strid, etc., and back, which is a matter
of sixteen miles, without being particularly tired, though the
afternoon sun was as hot as midsummer.
It is the old story--a case of candle-snuff--some infernal compound
that won't get burnt up without more oxygenation than is to be had
under ordinary conditions...
I want to be back and doing something, and yet have a notion that I
should be wiser if I stopped here a few weeks and burnt up my rubbish
effectually. A good deal will depend upon whether I can get my wife to
join me or not. She has had a world of worry lately.
[As to his fortunate choice of an hotel,] "I made up my mind," [he
writes,] "to come to this hotel merely because Bradshaw said it was on
the edge of the moor--but for once acting on an advertisement turned
out well." [The moor ran up six or seven hundred feet just outside the
garden, and the hotel itself was well outside and above the town and
the crowd of visitors. Here, with the exception of a day or two in
May, and a fortnight at the beginning of June, he stayed till July,
living as far as possible an outdoor life, and getting through a fair
amount of correspondence.
It was not to be expected that he should long remain unknown, and he
was sometimes touched, more often bored, by the forms which this
recognition took. Thus two days after his arrival he writes home:--]
Sitting opposite to me at the table d'hote here is a nice old Scotch
lady. People have found out my name here by this time, and yesterday
she introduced herself to me, and expressed great gratitude for the
advice I gave to a son of hers two or three years ago. I had great
difficulty in recollecting anything at all about the matter, but it
seems the youngster wanted to go to Africa, and I advised him not to,
at any rate at present. However, the poor fellow went, and died, and
they seem to have found a minute account of his interview with me in
his diary.
[But all were not of this kind. On the 26th he writes:--]
I took a three hours' walk over the moors this morning with nothing
but grouse and peewits for company, and it was perfectly delicious. I
am beginning to forget that I have a liver, and even feel mildly
disposed to the two fools of women between whom I have to sit every
meal.
27th.
...I wish you would come here if only for a few days--it would do you
a world of good after your anxiety and wear and tear for the last
week. And you say you are feeling weak. Please come and let me take
care of you a bit; I am sure the lovely air here would set you up. I
feel better than I have for months...
The country is lovely, and in a few days more all the leaves will be
out. You can almost hear them bursting. Now come down on Saturday and
rejoice the "sair een" of your old husband who is wearying for you.
[Another extract from the same correspondence expresses his
detestation for a gross breach of confidence:--]
April 22.
...I have given Mr. -- a pretty smart setting down for sending me
Ruskin's letter to him! It really is iniquitous that such things
should be done. Ruskin has a right to say anything he likes in a
private letter and -- must be a perfect cad to send it on to me.
[The following letter on the ideal of a Paleontological Museum is a
specialised and improved version of his earlier schemes on the same
subject:--]
4 Marlborough Place, May 3, 1886.
My dear Foster,
I cannot find Hughes' letter, and fancy I must have destroyed it. So I
cannot satisfy Newton as to the exact terms of his question.
But I am quite clear that my answer was not meant to recommend any
particular course for Cambridge, when I know nothing about the
particular circumstances of the case, but referred to what I should
like to do if I had carte blanche.
It is as plain as the nose on one's face (mine is said to be very
plain) that Zoological and Botanical collections should illustrate (1)
Morphology, (2) Geographical Distribution, (3) Geological Succession.
It is also obvious to me that the morphological series ought to
contain examples of all the extinct types in their proper places. But
I think it will be no less plain to any one who has had anything to do
with Geology and Paleontology that the great mass of fossils is to be
most conveniently arranged stratigraphically. The Jermyn St. Museum
affords an example of the stratigraphical arrangement.
I do not know that there is anywhere a collection arranged according
to Provinces of Geographical Distribution. It would be a great credit
to Cambridge to set the example of having one.
If I had a free hand in Cambridge or anywhere else I should build (A)
a Museum, open to the public, and containing three strictly limited
and selected collections; one morphologically, one geographically, and
one stratigraphically arranged; and (B) a series of annexes arranged
for storage and working purposes to contain the material which is of
no use to any but specialists. I am convinced that this is the only
plan by which the wants of ordinary people can be supplied
efficiently, while ample room is afforded for additions to any extent
without large expense in building.
On the present plan or no plan, Museums are built at great cost, and
in a few years are choked for want of room.
If you have the opportunity, I wish you would explain that I gave no
opinion as to what might or might not be expedient under present
circumstances at Cambridge. I do not want to seem meddlesome.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Don't forget Cayley.
N.B.--As my meaning seems to have been misunderstood I wish, if you
have the chance, you would make it clear that I do not want three
brick and mortar museums--but one public museum--containing a
threefold collection of typical forms, a biological Trinity in Unity
in fact.
It might conciliate the clerics if you adopted this illustration. But
as YOUR OWN, mind. I should not like them to think me capable of it.
[However, even Ilkley was not an infallible cure. Thus he writes to
Sir M. Foster:--]
May 17.
I am ashamed of myself for not going to town to attend the Government
Grant Committee and Council, but I find I had better stop here till
the end of the month, when I must return for a while anyhow.
I have improved very much here, and so long as I take heaps of
exercise every day I have nothing to complain of beyond a fit of blue
devils when I wake in the morning.
But I don't want to do any manner of work, still less any manner of
play, such as is going on in London at this time of year, and I think
I am wise to keep out of it as long as I can.
I wish I knew what is the matter with me. I feel always just on the
verge of becoming an absurd old hypochondriac, and as if it only
wanted a touch to send me over.
May 27.
...The blue devils worry me far less than they did. If there were any
herd of swine here I might cast them out altogether, but I expect they
would not go into blackfaced sheep.
I am disposed to stop not more than ten days in London, but to come
back here and bring some work with me. In fact I do not know that I
should return yet if it were not that I do not wish to miss our usual
visit to Balliol, and that my Spanish daughter is coming home for a
few months...
I am overwhelmed at being taken at my word about scientific
federation. [I.e. a federation between the Royal Society and
scientific societies in the colonies.] "Something will transpire" as
old Gutzlaff [This worthy appears to have been an admiral on the China
station about 1840.] said when he flogged plaintiff, defendant and
witnesses in an obscure case.
P.S.--I have had an invitation from -- to sign "without committing
myself to details" an approbation of his grand scheme. [For the
reorganisation of the Fisheries Department.] A stupendous array of
names appear thus committed to the "principle of the Bill." I prefer
to be the Hartington of the situation.
[During this first stay in London he wrote twice to Mr. Herbert
Spencer, from whom he had received not only some proofs, as before, on
biological points, but others from his unpublished autobiography.
After twice reading these, Huxley had merely marked a couple of
paragraphs containing personal references which might possibly be
objectionable] "to the 'heirs, administrators and assigns,' if there
are any, or to the people themselves if they are living still." [He
continues, June 1:--]
You will be quite taken aback at getting a proof from me with so few
criticisms, but even I am not so perverse as to think that I can
improve your own story of your own life!
I notice a curious thing. If Ransom [Dr. Ransom of Nottingham.] had
not overworked himself, I should probably not be writing this letter.
For if he had worked less hard I might have been first and he second
at the Examination at the University of London in 1845. In which case
I should have obtained the Exhibition, should not have gone into the
navy, and should have forsaken science for practice...
[Again on June 4:--]
My dear Spencer,
Here's a screed for you! I wish you well through it.
Mind I have no a priori objection to the transmission of functional
modifications whatever. In fact, as I told you, I should rather like
it to be true.
But I argued against the assumption (with Darwin as I do with you) of
the operation of a factor which, if you will forgive me for saying so,
seems as far off support by trustworthy evidence now as ever it was.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the same day he wrote to Mr., afterwards Sir John, Skelton:--]
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., June 4, 1886.
My dear Skelton,
A civil question deserves a civil answer--Yes. I am sorry to say I
know--nobody better--"what it is to be unfit for work." I have been
trying to emerge from that condition, first at Bournemouth, and then
at Ilkley, for the last five months, with such small success that I
find a few days in London knocks me up, and I go back to the Yorkshire
moors next week.
We have no water-hens there--nothing but peewits, larks, and
occasional grouse--but the air and water are of the best, and the
hills quite high enough to bring one's muscles into play.
I suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was quite happy so long as he grazed and
kept clear of Babylon; if so, I can hold him for my Scripture
parallel.
I wish I could accept your moral Number 2, but there is amazingly
little evidence of "reverential care for unoffending creation" in the
arrangements of nature, that I can discover. If our ears were sharp
enough to hear all the cries of pain that are uttered in the earth by
men and beasts, we should be deafened by one continuous scream!
And yet the wealth of superfluous loveliness in the world condemns
pessimism. It is a hopeless riddle.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Please remember me to Mrs. Skelton.
[The election of a new Headmaster (Dr. Warre) at Eton, where he was a
member of the Governing Body, was a matter of no small concern to him
at this moment. Some parts of the existing system seemed impossible to
alter, though a reform in the actual scheme and scope of teaching
seemed to him both possible and necessary for the future well-being of
the school. He writes to his eldest son on July 6, 1886:--]
The whole system of paying the Eton masters by the profits of the
boarding-houses they keep is detestable to my mind, but any attempt to
alter it would be fatal.
...I look to the new appointment with great anxiety. It will make or
mar Eton. If the new Headmaster has the capacity to grasp the fact
that the world has altered a good deal since the Eton system was
invented, and if he has the sense to adapt Eton to the new state of
things, without letting go that which was good in the old system, Eton
may become the finest public school in the country.
If on the contrary he is merely a vigorous representative of the old
system pure and simple, the school will go to the dogs.
I think it is not unlikely that there may be a battle in the Governing
Body over the business, and that I shall be on the losing side. But I
am used to that, and shall do what I think right nevertheless.
[The same letter contains his reply to a suggestion that he should
join a society whose object was to prevent a railway from being run
right through the Lake district.]
I am not much inclined to join the "Lake District Defence Society." I
value natural beauty as much as most people--indeed I value it so
much, and think so highly of its influence that I would make beautiful
scenery accessible to all the world, if I could. If any engineering or
mining work is projected which will really destroy the beauty of the
Lakes, I will certainly oppose it, but I am not disposed, as Goschen
said, to "give a blank cheque" to a Defence Society, the force of
which is pretty certain to be wielded by the most irrational fanatics
amongst its members.
Only the other day I walked the whole length of Bassenthwaite from
Keswick and back, and I cannot say that the little line of rails which
runs along the lake, now coming into view and now disappearing,
interfered with my keen enjoyment of the beauty of the lake any more
than the macadamised road did. And if it had not been for that railway
I should not have been able to make Keswick my headquarters, and I
should have lost my day's delight.
People's sense of beauty should be more robust. I have had apocalyptic
visions looking down Oxford Street at a sunset before now.
Ever, dear lad, your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[After this he took his wife to Harrogate,] "just like Clapham Common
on a great scale," [where she was ordered to drink the waters. For
himself, it was as good as Ilkley, seeing that he needed] "nothing but
fresh air and exercise, and just as much work that interests me as
will keep my mind from getting 'blue mouldy.'" [The work in this case
was the chapter in the Life of Charles Darwin, which he had promised
Mr. F. Darwin to finish before going abroad.
On July 10, he writes to Sir M. Foster on the rejection of the Home
Rule Bill:--]
The smashing of the G.O.M. appears to be pretty complete, though he
has unfortunately enough left to give him the means of playing an ugly
game of obstruction in the next Parliament.
You have taken the shine out of my exultation at Lubbock's
majority--though I confess I was disheartened to see so many educated
men going in for the disruption policy. If it were not for Randolph I
should turn Tory, but that fellow will some day oust Salisbury as
Dizzy ousted old Derby, and sell his party to Parnell or anybody else
who makes a good bid.
We are flourishing on the whole. Sulphide of wife joins with me in
love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the 21st he writes:--]
The formation of Huxley sulphide will be brought to a sudden
termination to-morrow when we return to London. The process has
certainly done my wife a great deal of good and I wish it could have
gone on a week or two longer, but our old arrangements are upset and
we must start with the chicks for Switzerland on the 27th, that is
next Tuesday.