Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 10

This is referred to in the following letter of March 9:--]

My dear Hooker,

Having nothing to do plays the devil with doing anything, and I suppose that is why I have been so long about answering your letter.

There is nothing the matter with me now except want of strength. I am tired out with a three-mile walk, and my voice goes if I talk for any time. I do not suppose I shall do much good till I get into high and dry air, and it is too early for Switzerland yet....

You see I was honoured and gloried by a trusteeship of the British Museum. [Replying on the 2nd to Sir John Evans' congratulations, he says:--"It is some months since Lord Salisbury made the proposal to me, and I was beginning to wonder what had happened--whether Cantaur had put his foot down for example, and objected to bad company."] These things, I suppose, normally come when one is worn-out. When Lowe was Chancellor of the Exchequer I had a long talk with him about the affairs of the Natural History Museum, and I told him that he had better put Flower at the head of it and make me a trustee to back him.

Bobby no doubt thought the suggestion cheeky, but it is odd that the thing has come about now that I don't care for it, and desire nothing better than to be out of every description of bother and responsibility.

Have not Lady Hooker and you yet learned that a large country house is of all places the most detestable in cold weather? The neuralgia was a mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am rejoiced it has vanished.

p.r.o.nouns got mixed somehow.

With our kindest regards.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

More last words:--What little faculty I have has been bestowed on the obituary of Darwin for Royal Society lately. I have been trying to make it an account of his intellectual progress, and I hope it will have some interest. Among other things I have been trying to set out the argument of the "Origin of Species," and reading the book for the nth time for that purpose. It is one of the hardest books to understand thoroughly that I know of, and I suppose that is the reason why even people like Romanes get so hopelessly wrong.

If you don't mind, I should be glad if you would run your eye over the thing when I get as far as the proof stage--Lord knows when that will be.

[A few days later he wrote again on the same subject, after reading the obituary of Asa Gray, the first American supporter of Darwin's theory.]

March 23, 1888.

I suppose Dana has sent you his obituary of Asa Gray.

The most curious feature I note in it is that neither of them seems to have mastered the principles of Darwin's theory. See the bottom of page 19 and the top of page 20. As I understand Darwin there is nothing "Anti-Darwinian" in either of the two doctrines mentioned.

Darwin has left the causes of variation and the question whether it is limited or directed by external conditions perfectly open.

The only serious work I have been attempting lately is Darwin's obituary. I do a little every day, but get on very slowly. I have read the life and letters all through again, and the "Origin" for the sixth or seventh time, becoming confirmed in my opinion that it is one of the most difficult books to exhaust that ever was written.

I have a notion of writing out the argument of the "Origin" in systematic shape as a sort of primer of Darwinismus. I have not much stuff left in me, and it would be as good a way of using what there is as I know of. What do you think?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply to this Sir J. Hooker was inclined to make the biographer alone responsible for the confusion noted in the obituary of Asa Gray.

He writes:--

March 27, 1888.

Dear Huxley,

Dana's Gray arrived yesterday, and I turned to pages 19 and 20. I see nothing Anti-Darwinian in the pa.s.sages, and I do not gather from them that Gray did.

I did not follow Gray into his later comments on Darwinism, and I never read his "Darwiniana." My recollection of his att.i.tude after acceptance of the doctrine, and during the first few years of his active promulgation of it, is that he understood it clearly, but sought to harmonise it with his prepossessions, without disturbing its physical principles in any way.

He certainly showed far more knowledge and appreciation of the contents of the "Origin" than any of the reviewers and than any of the commentators, yourself excepted.

Latterly he got deeper and deeper into theological and metaphysical wanderings, and finally formulated his ideas in an illogical fashion.

...Be all this as it may, Dana seems to be in a muddle on page 20, and quite a self-sought one.

Ever yours,

J.D. Hooker.

The following is a letter of thanks to Mrs. Humphry Ward for her novel "Robert Elsmere."]

Bournemouth, March 15, 1888.

My dear Mrs. Ward,

My wife thanked you for your book which you were so kind as to send us.

But that was grace before meat, which lacks the "physical basis" of after-thanksgiving--and I am going to supplement it, after my most excellent repast.

I am not going to praise the charming style, because that was in the blood and you deserve no sort of credit for it. Besides, I should be stepping beyond my last. But as an observer of the human ant-hill--quite impartial by this time--I think your picture of one of the deeper aspects of our troubled time admirable.

You are very hard on the philosophers. I do not know whether Langham or the Squire is the more unpleasant--but I have a great deal of sympathy with the latter, so I hope he is not the worst.

If I may say so, I think the picture of Catherine is the gem of the book. She reminds me of her namesake of Siena--and would as little have failed in any duty, however gruesome. You remember Sodoma's picture.

Once more, many thanks for a great pleasure.

My wife sends her love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Meanwhile, he had been making no progress towards health; indeed, was going slowly downhill. He makes fun of his condition when writing to condole with Mr. Spencer on falling ill again after the unwonted spell of activity already mentioned; but a few weeks later discovered the cause of his weakness and depression in an affection of the heart. This was not immediately dangerous, though he looked a complete wreck. His letters from April onwards show how he was forced to give up almost every form of occupation, and even to postpone his visit to Switzerland, until he had been patched up enough to bear the journey.]

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, March 9, 1888.

My dear Spencer,

I am very sorry to hear from Hooker that you have been unwell again.

You see if young men from the country will go plunging into the dissipations of the metropolis nemesis follows.

Until two days ago, the weather c.o.c.ks never overstepped North on the one side and East on the other ever since you left. Then they went west with sunshine and most enjoyable softness--but next South with a gale and rain--all ablowin' and agrowin' at this present.

I have nothing to complain of so long as I do nothing; but although my hair has grown with its usual rapidity I differ from Samson in the absence of a concurrent return of strength. Perhaps that is because a male hairdresser, and no Delilah, cut it last! But I waste Biblical allusions upon you.