Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 48

It seems to me that the best thing I can do is to send you the lecture as it stands, notes and all. But please return it within two days at furthest, and consider it STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL between us two (I am not excluding Mrs. Romanes, if she cares to look at the paper). No consideration would induce me to give any ground for the notion that I had submitted the lecture to any one but yourself.

If there is any phrase in the lecture which you think likely to get you into trouble, out it shall come or be modified in form.

If the whole thing is too much for the Dons' nerves--I am no judge of their delicacy--I am quite ready to give up the lecture.

In fact I do not know whether I shall be able to make myself heard three weeks hence, as the influenza has left its mark in hoa.r.s.eness and pain in the throat after speaking.

So you see if the thing is altogether too wicked there is an easy way out of it.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, April 28, 1893.

My dear Romanes,

My mind is made easy by such a handsome acquittal from you and the Lady Abbess, your coadjutor in the Holy Office.

My wife, who is my inquisitor and confessor in ordinary, has gone over the lecture twice, without scenting a heresy, and if she and Mrs.

Romanes fail--a fico for a mere male don's nose!

From the point of view of the complete argument, I agree with you about note 19. But the dangers of open collision with orthodoxy on the one hand and Spencer on the other, increased with the square of the enlargement of the final pages, and I was most anxious for giving no handle to any one who might like to say I had used the lecture for purposes of attack. Moreover, in spite of all reduction, the lecture is too long already.

But I think it not improbable that in spite of my meekness and peacefulness, neither the one side nor the other will let me alone. And then you see, I shall have an opportunity of making things plain, under no restriction. You will not be responsible for anything said in the second edition, nor can the Donniest of Dons grumble.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

The double negative is Shakspearian. See Hamlet, act 2 scene 2.

[Unfortunately for the entire success of the lecture, he was suffering from the results of influenza, more especially a loss of voice. He writes (April 18):--]

After getting through the winter successfully I have had the ill-fortune to be seized with influenza. I believe I must have got it from the microbes haunting some of the three hundred doctors at the Virchow dinner. [On the 16th March.]

I had next to no symptoms except debility, and though I am much better I cannot quite shake that off. As usual with me it affects my voice. I hope this will get right before this day month, but I expect I shall have to nurse it. I do not want to interfere with any of your hospitable plans, and I think if you will ensure me quiet on the morning of the 18th (I understand the lecture is in the afternoon) it will suffice. After the thing is over I am ready for anything from pitch and toss onwards.

[Two more letters dated before the 18th of May touch on the circ.u.mstances of the lecture. One is to his son-in-law, John Collier; the other to his old friend Tyndall, the last he ever wrote him, and containing a cheery reference to the advance of old age.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 9, 1893.

My dear Jack,

...M-- is better, and I am getting my voice back. But may St.

Ernulphus' curse descend on influenza microbes! They tried to work their way out at my nose, and converted me into a disreputable Captain Costigan-looking person ten days ago. Now they are working at my lips.

For the credit of the family I hope I shall be more reputable by the 18th.

I hope you will appreciate my dexterity. The lecture is a regular egg-dance. That I should discourse on Ethics to the University of Oxford and say all I want to say, without a word anybody can quarrel with, is decidedly the most piquant occurrence in my career...

Ever yours affectionately, Pater.

To Professor Tyndall.

P.S. to be read first.

Eastbourne, May 15, 1893.

My dear Tyndall,

There are not many apples (and those mostly of the crab sort) left upon the old tree, but I send you the product of the last shaking. Please keep it out of any hands but your wife's and yours till Thursday, when I am to "stand and deliver" it, if I have voice enough, which is doubtful. The sequelae of influenza in my case have been mostly pimples and procrastination, the former largely on my nose, so that I have been a spectacle. Besides these, loss of voice. The pimples are mostly gone and the procrastination is not much above normal, but what will happen when I try to fill the Sheldonian Theatre is very doubtful.

Who would have thought thirty-three years ago, when the great "Sammy"

fight came off, that the next time I should speak at Oxford would be in succession to Gladstone, on "Evolution and Ethics" as an invited lecturer?

There was something so quaint about the affair that I really could not resist, though the wisdom of putting so much strain on my creaky timbers is very questionable. Mind you wish me well through it at 2.30 on Thursday.

I wish we could have better news of you. As to dying by inches, that is what we are all doing, my dear old fellow; the only thing is to establish a proper ratio between inch and time. Eight years ago I had good reason to say the same thing of myself, but my inch has lengthened out in a most extraordinary way. Still I confess we are getting older; and my dear wife has been greatly shaken by repeated attacks of violent pain which seizes her quite unexpectedly. I am always glad, both on her account and my own, to get back into the quiet and good air here as fast as possible, and in another year or two, if I live so long, I shall clear out of all engagements that take me away...

T.H. Huxley.

NOT TO BE ANSWERED, and you had better get Mrs. Tyndall to read it to you or you will say naughty words about the scrawl.

[Sanguine as he had resolved to be about the recovery of his voice, his fear lest "1000 out of the 2000 won't hear" was very near realisation.

The Sheldonian Theatre was thronged before he appeared on the platform, a striking presence in his D.C.L. robes, and looking very leonine with his silvery gray hair sweeping back in one long wave from his forehead, and the rugged squareness of his features tempered by the benignity of an old age which has seen much and overcome much. He read the lecture from a printed copy, not venturing, as he would have liked, upon the severe task of speaking it from memory, considering its length and the importance of preserving the exact wording. He began in a somewhat low tone, nursing his voice for the second half of the discourse. From the more distant parts of the theatre came several cries of "speak up"; and after a time a rather disturbing migration of eager undergraduates began from the galleries to the body of the hall. The latter part was indeed more audible than the first; still a number of the audience were disappointed in hearing imperfectly. However, the lecture had a large sale; the first edition of 2000 was exhausted by the end of the month; and another 700 in the next ten days.

After leaving Oxford, and paying a pleasant visit to one of the Fannings (his wife's nephew) at Tew, Huxley intended to visit another of the family, Mrs. Crowder, in Lincolnshire, but on reaching London found himself dead beat, and had to retire to Eastbourne, whence he writes to Sir M. Foster and to Mr. Romanes.]

Hodeslea, May 26, 1893.

My dear Foster,

Your letter has been following me about. I had not got rid of my influenza at Oxford, so the exertion and the dinner parties together played the deuce with me.

We had got so far as the Great Northern Hotel on our way to some connections in Lincolnshire, when I had to give it up and retreat here to begin convalescing again.

I do not feel sure of coming to the Harvey affair after all. But if I do, it will be alone, and I think I had better accept the hospitality of the college; which will by no means be so jolly as Shelford, but probably more prudent, considering the necessity of dining out.

The fact is, my dear friend, I am getting old.

I am very sorry to hear you have been doing your influenza also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

n.o.body sees that the lecture is a very orthodox production on the text (if there is such a one), "Satan the Prince of this world."