Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 64

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.

CHAPTER 2.19.

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 Sat.u.r.day. 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 quant.i.ty 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 la.s.situde 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 gla.s.s 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 [a.s.sistant 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 circ.u.mstances. 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:--]