Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 43

But do let me hold myself up as the horrid example of what comes of that sort of thing for men who have to work as you are doing and I have done. To be sure you are a "lungy" man and I am a "livery" man, so that your chances of escaping candle-snuff acc.u.mulations with melancholic prostration are much better. Nevertheless take care. The pitcher is a very valuable piece of crockery, and I don't want to live to see it cracked by going to the well once too often.

I am in great spirits about the new University movement, and have told the rising generation that this old hulk is ready to be towed out into line of battle, if they think fit, which is more commendable to my public spirit than my prudence.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, June 20, 1892.

My dear Romanes,

My wife and I, no less than the Hookers who have been paying us a short visit, were very much grieved to hear that such a serious trouble has befallen you.

In such cases as yours (as I am sure your doctors have told you) hygienic conditions are everything--good air and idleness, CONSTRUED STRICTLY, among the chief. You should do as I have done--set up a garden and water it yourself for two hours every day, besides pottering about to see how things grow (or don't grow this weather) for a couple more.

Sundry box-trees, the majority of which have been getting browner every day since I planted them three months ago, have interested me almost as much as the general election. They typify the Empire with the G.O.M. at work at the root of it!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, October 18, 1892.

My dear Romanes,

I throw dust and ashes on my head for having left your letter almost a week unanswered.

But I went to Tennyson's funeral; and since then my whole mind has been given to finishing the reply forced upon me by Harrison's article in the "Fortnightly", and I have let correspondence slide. I think it will entertain you when it appears in November--and perhaps interest--by the adumbration of the line I mean to take if ever that "Romanes" Lecture at Oxford comes off.

As to Madeira--I do not think you could do better. You can have as much quiet there as in Venice, for there are next to no carts or carriages.

I was at an excellent hotel, the "Bona Vista," kept by an Englishman in excellent order, and delightfully situated on the heights outside Funchal. When once acclimatised and able to bear moderate fatigue, I should say nothing would be more delightful and invigorating than to take tents and make the round of the island. There is nothing I have seen anywhere which surpa.s.ses the cliff scenery of the north side, or on the way thither, the forest of heaths as big as sycamores.

There is a matter of natural history which might occupy without fatiguing you, and especially without calling for any great use of the eyes. That is the effect of Madeiran climate on English plants transported there--and the way in which the latter are beating the natives. There is a Doctor who has lots of information on the topic.

You may trust anything but his physic.

[The rest of the letter gives details about scientific literature touching Madeira.

A piece of advice to his son anent building a house:--]

September 22, 1892.

Lastly and biggestly, don't promise anything, agree to anything, nor sign anything (swear you are an "illiterate voter" rather than this last) without advice--or you may find yourself in a legal quagmire.

Builders, as a rule, are on a level with horse-dealers in point of honesty--I could tell you some pretty stories from my small experience of them.

[The next, to Lord Farrer, is apropos of quite an extensive correspondence in the "Times" as to the correct reading of the well-known lines about the missionary and the ca.s.sowary, to which both Huxley and Lord Farrer had contributed their own reminiscences.]

Hodeslea, October 15, 1892.

My dear Farrer,

If YOU were a missionary In the heat of Timbuctoo YOU'd wear nought but a nice and airy Pair of bands--p'raps ca.s.sock too.

Don't you see the fine touch of local colour in my version! Is it not obvious to everybody who understands the methods of high a priori criticism that this consideration entirely outweighs the merely empirical fact that your version dates back to 1837--which I must admit is before my adolescence? It is obvious to the meanest capacity that mine must be the original text in "Idee," whatever your wretched "Wirklichkeit" may have to say to the matter.

And where, I should like to know, is a glimmer of a scintilla of a hint that the missionary was a dissenter? I claim him for my dear National Church.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following is about a doc.u.ment which he had forgotten that he wrote:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 24, 1892.

My dear Donnelly,

It is obvious that you have somebody in the Department who is an adept in the imitation of handwriting.

As there is no way of proving a negative, and I am too loyal to raise a scandal, I will just father the scrawl.

Positively, I had forgotten all about the business. I suppose because I did not hear who was appointed. It would be a good argument for turning people out of office after 65! But I have always had rather too much of the lawyer faculty of forgetting things when they are done with.

It was very jolly to have you here, and on principles of Christian benevolence you must not be so long in coming again.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I do not remember being guilty of paying postage--but that doesn't count for much.

[The following is an answer to one of the unexpected inquiries which would arrive from all quarters. A member of one of the religious orders working in the Church of England wrote for an authoritative statement on the following point, suggested by pa.s.sages in section 5 of Chapter 1 of the "Elementary Physiology":--When the Blessed Sacrament, consisting, temporally and mundanely speaking, of a wheaten wafer and some wine, is received after about seven hours' fast, is it or is it not "voided like other meats"? In other words, does it not become completely absorbed for the sustenance of the body?

Huxley's help in this physiological question--and his answer was to be used in polemical discussion--was sought because an answer from him would be decisive and would obviate the repet.i.tion of statements which to a Catholic were painfully irreverent.]

Hodeslea, February 3, 1892.

Sir,

I regret that you have had to wait so long for a reply to your letter of the 27th. Your question required careful consideration, and I have been much occupied with other matters.

You ask (1), whether the sacramental bread is or is not "voided like other meats"?

That depends on what you mean, firstly by "voided," and, secondly, by "other meats." Suppose any "meat" (I take the word to include drink) to contain no indigestible residuum, there need not be anything "voided"

at all--if by "voiding" is meant expulsion from the lower intestine.

Such a meat might be "completely absorbed for the sustenance of the body." Nevertheless, its elements, in fresh combinations, would be eventually "voided" through other channels, e.g. the lungs and kidneys.

Thus I should say that under normal circ.u.mstances all "meats" (that is to say, the material substance of them) are voided sooner or later.