1886.
[The earlier start was decided upon for the sake of one of his
daughters; who had been ill. He went first to Evolena, but the place
did not suit him, and four days after his arrival went on to Arolla,
whence he writes on August 3:--]
We reached Evolena on Thursday last...We had glorious weather Thursday
and Friday, and the latter day (having both been told carefully to
avoid over-exertion) the wife and I strolled, quite unintentionally,
as far as the Glacier de Ferpecle and back again. Luckily the wife is
none the worse, and indeed, I think in which more tired of the two.
But we saw at once that Evolena was a mistake for our purpose, and
were confirmed in that opinion by the deluge of rain on Saturday. The
hotel is down in a hole at the tail of a dirty Swiss village, and only
redeemed by very good cooking. So, Sunday being fine, I, E. and H.
started up here to prospect, 18 miles up and down, and 2000 feet to
climb, and did it beautifully. It is just the place for us, at the
tail of a glacier in the midst of a splendid amphitheatre of 11 to
12,000 feet snow heights, and yet not bare and waste, any quantity of
stone-pines growing about...I rather long for the flesh-pots of
Evolena--cooking here being decidedly rudimentary--otherwise we are
very well off.
[The keen air of six thousand feet above sea level worked wonders with
the invalids. The lassitude of the last two years was swept away, and
Huxley came home eager for active life. Here too it was that, for
occupation, he took up the study of gentians; the beginning of that
love of his garden which was so great a delight to him in his last
years. On his return home he writes:--]
4 Marlborough Place, September 10, 1886.
My dear Foster,
We got back last evening after a very successful trip. Arolla suited
us all to a T, and we are all in great force. As for me, I have not
known of the existence of my liver, and except for the fact that I
found fifteen or sixteen miles with a couple of thousand feet up and
down quite enough, I could have deluded myself into the fond
imagination that I was twenty years younger.
By way of amusement I bought a Swiss Flora in Lausanne and took to
botanising--and my devotion to the gentians led the Bishop of
Chichester--a dear old man, who paid us (that is the hotel) a
visit--to declare that I sought the "Ur-gentian" as a kind of Holy
Grail. The only interruption to our felicity was the death of a poor
fellow, who was brought down on a guide's back from an expedition he
ought not to have undertaken, and whom I did my best to keep alive one
night. But rapid pleuritic effusion finished him the next morning, in
spite of (I hope not in consequence of) such medical treatment as I
could give him.
I see you had a great meeting at Birmingham, but I know not details.
The delegation to Sydney is not a bad idea, but why on earth have they
arranged that it shall arrive in the middle of the hot weather?
Speechifying with the thermometer at 90 degrees in the shade will try
the nerves of the delegates, I can tell them.
I shall remain quietly here and see whether I can stand London. I hope
I may, for the oestrus of work is upon me--for the first time this
couple of years. Let me have some news of you. With our love to your
wife and you.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., September 14, 1886.
My dear Donnelly,
I hear that some of your alguazils were looking after me yesterday, so
I had better give myself up at once--hoping it will be considered in
the sentence.
The fact is I have been going to write to you ever since we came back
last Thursday evening, but I had about fifty other letters to write
and got sick of the operation.
We are all in great force, and as for me, I never expected a year ago
to be he well I am. I require to look in the glass and study the
crows' feet and the increasing snow cap on the summit of my Tete noire
(as it once was), to convince myself I am not twenty years younger.
How long it will last I don't feel sure, but I am going to give London
as little chance as possible.
I trust you have all been thriving to a like extent. Scott [Assistant
Professor of Botany at the Royal College of Science.] wrote to me the
other day wanting to take his advanced flock (two--one, I believe, a
ewe-lamb) to Kew. I told him I had no objection, but he had better
consult you.
I have not been to South Kensington yet--as I have a devil
(botanical--) and must satisfy him before doing anything else. It's
the greatest sign of amendment that I have gone in for science afresh.
When I am ill (and consequently venomous), nothing satisfies me but
gnawing at theology; it's a sort of crib-biting.
Our love to Mrs. Donnelly. I suppose G.H. [Gordon Huxley Donnelly, Sir
John's son.] is by this time a kind of Daniel Lambert physically and
Solomon mentally--my blessing to him.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[As a sequel to the sad event mentioned in the former letter, the
relations of the young man who had died so suddenly at Arolla wished
to offer Huxley some gift in grateful recognition of the kindness he
had shown to the poor fellow; but being unable to fix upon any
suitable object, begged him to accept a considerable sum of money and
expend it on any object he pleased as a memento. To this he replied,
November 21, 1886:--]
I am very much obliged for the kind recognition of my unfortunately
unavailing efforts to be of service to your brother-in-law which is
contained in your letter.
But I and those who right willingly helped me did nothing more than
our plain duty in such a case; and though I fully appreciate the
motives which actuate Mrs. -- and yourself and friends, and would
gladly accept any trifle as a memento of my poor friend (I call him
so, for we really struck up a great friendship in our twelve hours'
acquaintance), I could not with any comfort use the very handsome
cheque you offer.
Let me propose a compromise. As you will see by the enclosed paper, a
colleague of mine has just died leaving widow and children in very
poor circumstances. Contribute something to the fund which is being
raised for their benefit, and I shall consider it as the most
agreeable present you could possibly make to me.
And if you wish me to have a personal memento of our friend, send me a
pipe that belonged to him. I am greatly devoted to tobacco, and will
put it in a place of honour in my battery of pipes.
[The bracing effects of Arolla enabled him to stay two months in town
before again retiring to Ilkley to be] "screwed up." [He had on the
stocks his Gentian Paper and the chapter for the Darwin Life, besides
the chapter on the Progress of Science for the "Reign of Queen
Victoria," all of which he finished off this autumn; he was busy with
Technical Education, and the Egyptian borings which were being carried
out under the superintendence of the Royal Society. Finally he was
induced by a "diabolical plot" on the part of Mr. Spencer to read, and
in consequence to answer, an article in the "Fortnightly" for November
by Mr. Lilly on "Materialism and Morality." These are the chief points
with which the following correspondence is concerned.]
4 Marlborough Place, September 16, 1886.
My dear Foster,
I enclose the Report [The Annual Report of the Examiners in Physiology
under the Science and Art Department, which, being still an Examiner
he had to sign.] and have nothing to suggest except a quibble at page
4. If you take a stick in your hand you may feel lots of things and
determine their form, etc., with the other end of it, but surely the
stick is properly said to be insensible. Ditto with the teeth. I feel
very well with mine (which are paid for) but they are surely not
sensible? Old Tomes once published the opinion that the contents of
the dentine tubules were sensory nerves, on the ground of our feeling
so distinctly through our teeth. He forgot the blind man's stick.
Indeed the reference of sensation to the end of a stick is one of the
most interesting of psychological facts.
It is extraordinary how those dogs of examinees return to their vomit.
Almost all the obstinate fictions you mention are of a quarter of a
century date. Only then they were dominant and epidemic--now they are
sporadic.
I wish Pasteur or somebody would find some microbe with which the
rising generation could be protected against them.
We shall have to rearrange the Examination business--this partner
having made his fortune and retiring from firm. Think over what is to
be done.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
You don't happen to grow gentians in your Alpine region, do you?
[Of his formal responsibility for the examinations he had written
earlier in the year:--]
Wells House, Ilkley, June 15, 1886.
My dear Donnelly,
I think it is just as well that you could not lay your hands on ink,
for if you had you would only have blacked them. (N.B. This is a
goak.)
You know we resolved that it was as well that I should go on as
Examiner (unpaid) this year. But I rather repent me of it--for
although I could be of use over the questions, I have had nothing to
do with checking the results of the Examination except in honours, and
I suspect that Foster's young Cambridge allies tend always to screw
the standard up.
I am inclined to think that I had much better be out of it next year.
The attempt to look over examination papers now would reduce the
little brains I have left to mere pulp--and, on the other hand, if
there is any row about results, it is not desirable that I should have
to say that I have not seen the answers.
When I go you will probably get seven devils worse than the first--but
that it is not the fault of the first devil.
I am picking up here wonderfully in spite of the bad weather. It
rained hard yesterday and blew ditto--to-day it is blowing
dittoes--but there is sunshine between the rain and squalls.
I hope you are better off. What an outlandish name "Tetronila." I
don't believe you have spelt it right. With best regards to Mrs.
Donnelly and my godson.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, September 16, 1886.
My dear Hooker,
I have sucked Grisebach's brains, looked up "Flora B. Americana," and
"F. Antarctica and New Zealand," and picked about in other quarters. I
found I knew as much as Grisebach had to tell me (and more) about
lutea, purpureo-punctata, acaulis, campestris, and the verna lot,
which are all I got hold of at Arolla. But he is very good in all but
classification, which is logically "without form and void, and
darkness on the face of it."
I shall have to verify lots of statements about gentians I have not
seen, but at present the general results are very curious and
interesting. The species fall into four groups, one PRIMARY least
differentiated--three, specialised.
1. Lobes of corolla fringed. 2. Coronate. 3. Interlobate (i.e. not the
"plica" between the proper petals).
Now the interesting point is that the Antarctic species are all
primary and so are the great majority of the Andean forms. Lutea is
the only old-world primary, unless the Himalayan Moorcroftiana belongs
here. The Arctic forms are also primary, but the petals more
extensively united.
The specialised types are all Arctogeal with the exception of half a
dozen or so Andean species including prostrata.
There is a strange general parallelism with the crayfishes! which also
have their primary forms in Australia and New Zealand, avoid E. S.
America and Africa, and become most differentiated in Arctogaea. But
there are also differences in detail.
It strikes me that this is uncommonly interesting; but, of course, all
the information about the structure of the flowers, etc., I get at
second hand, wants verifying.
Have you done the gentians of your "Flora Indica" yet? Do look at them
from this point of view.
I cannot make out what Grisebach means by his division of
Chondrophylla. What is a "cartilaginous" margin to a leaf?--"Folia
margine cartilaginea!" He has a lot of Indian species under this head.
I send you a rough scheme I have drawn up. Please let me have it back.
Any annotations thankfully received. Shan't apologise for bothering
you.
I hope the pension is settled at last.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, September 22, 1886.
My dear Hooker,
I have written to Lubbock a long screed stating my views [Referring to
the relations between the South Kensington department and the City and
Guilds Committee on Technical Education.] with unmistakable
distinctness as politeful as may be, and asking him, if he thought
well, to send them on to whomsoever it may concern. As old Gutzlaff
used to say when he wanted to get evidence from a Chinee--"Gif him
four dozen, someting vill transpire." At any rate the Chinee
transpired, and I hope some official will.
Here beginneth more gentian craze.
I have not examined Moorcroft. yet, but if the figure in Roxb. is
trustworthy it's a primary and no mistake. I can't understand your
admitting Amarellae without coronae. The presence of a corona is part
of the definition of the amarella group, and an amarella without a
corona is a primary ipso facto.
Taking the facts as I have got them in the rough, and subject to minor
verifications, the contrast between the Andean, Himalayan, and
Caucasian Gentian Florae is very striking.
TABLE OF GENTIAN FLORAE.
Column 1: Place.
Column 2: Simplices.
Column 3: Ciliatae.
Column 4: Coronatae.
Column 5: Interlobatae.
Andes : 27 : 0 (?) : 15 : 2.
Himalayas 1 (Moorecroft.) : 0 : 4 : 32.
Caucasus Pyrenees (all one) : 2 (lutea, umbellata) : 2 : 5 : 21.
I don't think Ciliatae worth anything as a division. I took it as it
stood.
It is clear that migration helps nothing, as between the old-world and
South American Florae. It is the case of the Tapirs (Andean and
Sino-Malayan) over again. Relics of a tertiary Flora which once
extended from South America to Eurasia through North America (by the
west, probably).
I see a book by Engler on the development of Floras since tertiary
epoch. Probably the beggar has the idea.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Godalming, September 25, 1886.
My dear Foster,
We are here till to-morrow on a visit to Leonard, seeing how the young
folks keep house.
I brought the Egyptian report down with me. It is very important, and
in itself justifies the expenditure. Any day next (that is to say
this) week that you like I can see Colonel Turner. If you and Evans
can arrange a day I don't think we need mind the rest of the
Committee. We must get at least two other borings ten or fifteen miles
off, if possible on the same parallel, by hook or by crook. It will
tell us more about the Nile valley than has ever been known. That
Italian fellow who published sections must have lied considerably.
Touching gentians, I have not examined your specimen yet, but it
certainly did not look like Andrewsii. You talk of having acaulis in
your garden. That is one of the species I worked out most carefully at
Arolla, but its flowering time was almost over, and I only got two
full-blown specimens to work at. If you have any in flower and don't
mind sacrificing one with a bit of the rhizoma, and would put it in
spirit for me, I could settle one or two points still wanting. Whisky
will do, and you will be all the better for not drinking the whisky!
The distributional facts, when you work them in connection with
morphology, are lovely. We put up with Donnelly on our way here. He
has taken a cottage at Felday, eleven miles from hence, in lovely
country--on lease. I shall have to set up a country residence some
day, but as all my friends declare their own locality best, I find a
decision hard. And it is a bore to be tied to one place.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1886.
My dear Hooker,
I wish you would not mind the trouble of looking through the enclosed
chapter which I have written at F. Darwin's request, and tell me what
you think of it. F.D. thinks I am hard upon the "Quarterly Article,"
but I read it a fresh and it is absolutely scandalous. The anonymous
vilifiers of the present day will be none the worse for being reminded
that they may yet hang in chains...
It occurs to me that it might be well to add a paragraph or two about
the two chief objections made formerly and now to Darwin, the one,
that it is introducing "chance" as a factor in nature, and the other
that it is atheistic.
Both assertions are utter bosh. None but parsons believe in "chance";
and the philosophical difficulties of Theism now are neither greater
nor less than they have been ever since theism was invented.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter to Mr. Edmund Gosse, who, just before, had been
roughly handled in the "Quarterly Review," doubtless owed some of its
vigour to these newly revived memories of the "Quarterly" attack on
Darwin. But while the interest of the letter lies in a general
question of literary ethics, the proper methods and limits of
anonymous criticism, it must be noted that in this particular case its
edge was turned by the fact that immediately afterwards, the critic
proceeded to support his criticisms elsewhere uder his own name:--]
October 22, 1886.
Dear Sir,
I beg leave to offer you my best thanks for your letter to the
"Athenaeum," which I have just read, and to congratulate you on the
force and completeness of your answer to your assailant.
It is rarely worth while to notice criticism, but when a good chance
of exposing one of these anonymous libellers who disgrace literature
occurs, it is a public duty to avail oneself of it.
Oddly enough, I have recently been performing a similar "haute
oeuvre." The most violent, base, and ignorant of all the attacks on
Darwin at the time of the publication of the "Origin of Species"
appeared in the "Quarterly Review" of that time; and I have built the
reviewer a gibbet as high as Haman's.
All good men and true should combine to stop this system of literary
moonlighting.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the same date appeared his letter to the "Pall Mall Gazette,"
which was occasioned by the perversion of the new Chair of English
Literature at Oxford to "Middle English" philology:--]
I fully agree with you that the relation of our Universities to the
study of English literature is a matter of great public importance;
and I have more than once taken occasion to express my
conviction--Firstly, that the works of our great English writers are
pre-eminently worthy of being systematically studied in our schools
and universities as literature; and secondly, that the establishment
of professional chairs of philology, under the name of literature, may
be a profit to science, but is really a fraud practised upon letters.
That a young Englishman may be turned out of one of our universities,
"epopt and perfect," so far as their system takes him, and yet
ignorant of the noble literature which has grown up in those islands
during the last three centuries, no less than of the development of
the philosophical and political ideas which have most profoundly
influenced modern civilisation, is a fact in the history of the
nineteenth century which the twentieth will find hard to believe;
though, perhaps, it is not more incredible than our current
superstition that whoso wishes to write and speak English well should
mould his style after the models furnished by classical antiquity. For
my part, I venture to doubt the wisdom of attempting to mould one's
style by any other process for that of striving after the clear and
forcible expression of definite conceptions; in which process the
Glassian precept, "first catch your definite conceptions," is probably
the most difficult to obey. But still I mark among distinguished
contemporary speakers and writers of English, saturated with
antiquity, not a few to whom, it seems to me, the study of Hobbes
might have taught dignity; of Swift, concision and clearness; of
Goldsmith and Defoe, simplicity.
Well, among a hundred young men whose university career is finished,
is there one whose attention has ever been directed by his literary
instructors to a page of Hobbes, or Swift, or Goldsmith, or Defoe? In
my boyhood we were familiar with "Robinson Crusoe," "The Vicar of
Wakefield," and "Gulliver's Travels"; and though the mysteries of
"Middle English" were hidden from us, my impression is we ran less
chance of learning to write and speak the "middling English" of
popular orators and headmasters than if we had been perfect in such
mysteries and ignorant of those three masterpieces. It has been the
fashion to decry the eighteenth century, as young fops laugh at their
fathers. But we were there in germ; and a "Professor of Eighteenth
Century History and Literature" we knew his business might tell young
Englishmen more of that which it is profoundly important they should
know, but which at present remains hidden from them, than any other
instructor; and, incidentally, they would learn to know good English
when they see or hear it--perhaps even to discriminate between
slipshod copiousness and true eloquence, and that alone would be a
great gain.
[As for the incitement to answer Mr. Lilly, Mr. Spencer writes from
Brighton on November 3:--
I have no doubt your combative instincts have been stirred within you
as you read Mr. Lilly's article, "Materialism and Morality," in which
you and I are dealt with after the ordinary fashion popular with the
theologians, who practically say, "You SHALL be materialists whether
you like it or not." I should not be sorry if you yielded to those
promptings of your combative instinct. Now that you are a man of
leisure there is no reason why you should not undertake any amount of
fighting, providing always that you can find foemen worthy of your
steel.
I remember that last year you found intellectual warfare good for your
health, so I have no qualms of conscience in making the suggestion.
To this he replies on the 7th:--]
Your stimulation of my combative instincts is downright wicked. I will
not look at the "Fortnightly" article lest I succumb to temptation. At
least not yet. The truth is that these cursed irons of mine, that have
always given me so much trouble, will put themselves in the fire, when
I am not thinking about them. There are three or four already.
[On November 21 Mr. Spencer sends him more proofs of his
autobiography, dealing with his early life:--
See what it is to be known as an omnivorous reader--you get no mercy
shown you. A man who is ready for anything, from the fairy tale to a
volume of metaphysics, is naturally one who will make nothing of a
fragment of a friend's autobiography!
To this he replies on the 25th:--]
4 Marlborough Place, November 25, 1886.
My dear Spencer,
In spite of all prohibition I must write to you about two things.
First, as to the proof returned herewith--I really have no criticisms
to make (miracles, after all may not be incredible). I have read your
account of your boyhood with great interest, and I find nothing there
which does not contribute to the understanding of the man. No doubt
about the truth of evolution in your own case.
Another point which has interested me immensely is the curious
similarity to many recollections of my own boyish nature which I find,
especially in the matter of demanding a reason for things and having
no respect for authority.
But I was more docile, and could remember anything I had a mind to
learn, whether it was rational or irrational, only in the latter case
I hadn't the mind.
But you were infinitely better off than I in the matter of education.
I had two years of a Pandemonium of a school (between 8 and 10) and
after that neither help nor sympathy in any intellectual direction
till I reached manhood. Good heavens! if I had had a father and uncle
who troubled themselves about my education as yours did about your
training, I might say as Bethell said of his possibilities had he come
under Jowett, "There is no knowing to what eminence I might not have
attained." Your account of them gives me the impression that they were
remarkable persons. Men of that force of character, if they had been
less wise and self-restrained, would have played the deuce with the
abnormal chicken hatched among them.
The second matter is that your diabolical plot against Lilly has
succeeded--vide the next number of the Fortnightly. ["Science and
Morals" "Collected Essays" 9 117.] I was fool enough to read his
article, and the rest followed. But I do not think I should have
troubled myself if the opportunity had not been good for clearing off
a lot of old scores.
The bad weather for the last ten days has shown me that I want
screwing up, and I am off to Ilkley on Saturday for a week or two.
Ilkley Wells House will be my address. I should like to know that you
are picking up again.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[And again on December 13:--]
My dear Spencer,
I am very glad to have news of you which on the whole is not
unsatisfactory. Your conclusion as to the doctors is one I don't mind
telling you in confidence I arrived at some time ago...
I am glad you liked my treatment of Mr. Lilly...I quite agree with you
that the thing was worth doing for the sake of the public.
I have in hand another bottle of the same vintage about Modern Realism
and the abuse of the word Law, suggested by a report I read the other
day of one of Liddon's sermons. ["Pseudo-Scientific Realism"
"Collected Essays" 4 59.]
The nonsense these great divines talk when they venture to meddle with
science is really appalling.
Don't be alarmed about the history of Victorian science. [See above.]
I am happily limited to the length of a review article or thereabouts,
and it is (I am happy to say it is nearly done) more of an essay on
the history of science, bringing out the broad features of the
contrast between past and present, than the history itself. It seemed
to me that this was the only way of dealing with such a subject in a
book intended for the general public.
[The article "Science and Morals" was not only a satisfaction to
himself, but a success with the readers of the "Fortnightly." To his
wife he writes:--]
December 2.
Have you had the "Fortnightly"? How does my painting of the Lilly
look?
December 8.
Harris...says that my article "simply made the December number," which
pretty piece of gratitude means a lively sense of favours to come.
December 13.
I had a letter from Spencer yesterday chuckling over the success of
his setting me on Lilly.
[Ilkley had a wonderful effect upon him.] "It is quite absurd," [he
writes after 24 hours there,] "but I am wonderfully better already."
[His regimen was of the simplest, save perhaps on one point.] "Clark
told me," [he says with the utmost gravity,] "always to drink tea and
eat hot cake at 4.30. I have persevered, however against my will, and
last night had no dreams, but slept like a top." [Two hours' writing
in the morning were followed by two hours' sharp walking; in the
afternoon he first took two hours' walking or strolling if the weather
were decent;] "then Clark's prescription diligently taken" [(i.e. tea
and a pipe) and a couple of hours more writing; after dinner reading
and to bed before eleven.]
I am working away (he writes) in a leisurely comfortable manner at my
chapter for Ward's Jubilee book, and have got the first few pages
done, which is always my greatest trouble.
December 8.
...Canon Milman wrote to me to come to the opening of the New
Buildings for Sion College, which the Prince is going to preside over
on the 15th. I had half a mind to accept, if only for the drollery of
finding myself among a solemn convocation of the city clergy. However,
I thought it would be opening the floodgates, and I prudently
declined.
[One more letter may perhaps be quoted as illustrating the clearness
of vision in administrative matters which made it impossible for him
to sit quietly by and see a tactical blunder being committed, even
though his formal position might not seem to warrant his interference.
This is his apologia for such a step.]
December 16, 1886.
My dear Foster,
On thinking over this morning's Committee work [Some Committee of the
Royal Society.], it strikes my conscience that being neither President
or Chairman nor officer I took command of the boat in a way that was
hardly justifiable.
But it occurred to me that our sagacious -- for once was going astray
and playing into --'s hands, without clearly seeing what he was doing,
and I be thought me of "salus Societatis suprema lex," and made up my
mind to stop the muddle we were getting into at all costs. I hope he
was not disgusted nor you either. X. ought to have cut in, but he did
not seem inclined to do so.
I am clearly convinced it was the right thing to do--anyhow.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The chronicle of the year may fitly close with a letter from Ilkley
to Dr. Dohrn, apropos of his recommendation of a candidate for a
biological professorship. The] "honest sixpence got by hard labour,"
[refers to a tour in the Highlands which he had once taken with Dr.
Dohrn, when, on a rough day, they were being rowed across Loch Leven
to Mary Stuart's castle. The boatman, unable to make head
single-handed against the wind, asked them each to take an oar; but
when they landed and Huxley tendered the fare, the honest fellow gave
him back two sixpences, saying, "I canna tak' it: you have wrocht as
hard as I." Each took a coin; and Huxley remarked that this was the
first sixpence he had earned by manual labour. Dr. Dohrn, I believe,
still carries his sixpence in memory of the occasion.]
Wells House, Ilkley, Yorkshire, December 1, 1886.
My dear Dohrn,
You see by my address that I am en retraite, for a time. As good
catholics withdraw from the world now and then for the sake of their
souls--so I, for the sake of my body (and chiefly of my liver) have
retired for a fortnight or so to the Yorkshire moors--the nearest
place to London where I can find dry air 1500 feet above the sea, and
the sort of uphill exercise which routs out all the unoxygenated
crannies of my organism. Hard frost has set in, and I had a walk over
the moorland which would have made all the blood of the Ost-see
pirates--which I doubt not you have inherited--alive, and cleared off
the fumes of that detestable Capua to which you are condemned. I
should like to have seen the nose of one of your Neapolitan
nobilissimes after half-an-hour's exposure to the north wind, clear
and sharp as a razor, which very likely looked down on Loch Leven a
few hours ago.
Ah well! "fuimus"--I am amused at the difficulty you find in taking up
the position of a "grave and reverend senior"; because I can by no
means accustom myself to the like dignity. In spite of my grey hairs
"age hath not cooled the Douglas blood" altogether, and I have a
gratifying sense that (liver permitting) I am still capable of much
folly. All this, however, has not much to do with poor Dr. -- to whom,
I am sorry to say, your letter could do no good, as it arrived after
my colleagues and I had settled the business.
But there were a number of strong candidates who had not much chance.
If it is open to me to serve him hereafter, however, your letter will
be of use to him, for I know you do not recommend men lightly.
After some eighteen months of misery--the first thing that did me any
good was coming here. But I was completely set up by six or seven
weeks at Arolla in the Valais. The hotel was 6400 feet up, and the
wife and daughters and I spent most of our time in scrambling about
the 2000 feet between that and the snow. Six months ago I had made up
my mind to be an invalid, but at Arolla I walked as well as I did when
you and I made pilgrimages--and earned the only honest sixpence (I, at
any rate) ever got for hard labour. Three months in London brought me
down again, so I came here to be "mended."
You know English literature so well that perhaps you have read
Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone." I am in that country, within
walk of Bolton Abbey.
Please remember me very kindly to the Signora--and thank her for
copying the letter in such a charmingly legible hand. I wish mine were
like it.
If I am alive we shall go to Arolla next summer. Could we not meet
there? It is a fair half-way.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.