Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 59

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 23, 1895, 12.30 P.M.

My dear Knowles,

I have just played and won as hard a match against time as I ever knew in the days of my youth. The proofs, happily, arrived by the first post, so I got to work at them before 9, polished them off by 12, and put them into the post (myself) by 12.5. So you ought to have them by 6 P.M. And, to make your mind easy, I have just telegraphed to you to say so. But, Lord's sake! let some careful eye run over the part of which I have had no revise--for I am "capable de tout" in the way of overlooking errors.

I am very glad you like the thing. The second instalment shall be no worse.

I grieve to say that my estimation of Balfour, as a thinker, sinks lower and lower, the further I go.

G.o.d help the people who think his book an important contribution to thought! The Gigadibsians who say so are past divine a.s.sistance!

We are very glad to hear the grandchild and mother are getting on so well.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 8, 1895.

My dear Knowles,

The proofs have just arrived, but I am sorry to say that (I believe for the first time in our transactions) I shall have to disappoint you.

Just after I had sent off the ma.n.u.script influenza came down upon me with a swoop. I went to bed and am there still, with no chance of quitting it in a hurry. My wife is in the same case; item one of the maids. The house is a hospital, and by great good fortune we have a capital nurse.

Doctor says its a mild type, in which case I wonder what severe types may be like. ("But in the matter of aches and pains, restless paroxysms of coughing and general incapacity, I can give it a high character for efficiency." [To M. Foster, March 7.]) I find coughing continuously for fourteen hours or so a queer kind of mildness.

Could you put in an excuse on account of influenza?

Can't write any more.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 19, 1895.

My dear Knowles,

I am making use of the pen of my dear daughter and good nurse, in the first place to thank you for your cheque, in the second place to say that you must not look for the article this month. I haven't been out of bed since the 1st, but they are fighting a battle with bronchitis over my body.

Ever yours very faithfully,

For T.H.H., Sophy Huxley.

[The next four months were a period of painful struggle against disease, borne with a patience and gentleness which was rare even in the long experience of the trained nurses who tended him. To natural toughness of const.i.tution he added a power of will unbroken by the long strain; and for the sake of others to whom his life meant so much, he wished to recover and willed to do everything towards recovery. And so he managed to throw off the influenza and the severe bronchitis which attended it. What was marvellous at his age, and indeed would scarcely have been expected in a young man, most serious mischief induced by the bronchitis disappeared. By May he was strong enough to walk from the terrace to the lawn and his beloved saxifrages, and to remount the steps to the house without help.

But though the original attack was successfully thrown off, the lung trouble had affected the heart; and in his weakened state, renal mischief ensued. Yet he held out splendidly, never giving in, save for one hour of utter prostration, all through this weary length of sickness. His first recovery strengthened him in expecting to get well from the second attack. And on June 10 he writes brightly enough to Sir J.D. Hooker:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 10, 1895.

My dear Old Friend,

It was cheering to get your letter and to hear that you had got through winter and diphtheria without scathe.

I can't say very much for myself yet, but I am carried down to a tent in the garden every day, and live in the fresh air all I can. The thing that keeps me back is an irritability of the stomach tending to the rejection of all solid food. However, I think I am slowly getting the better of it--thanks to my const.i.tutional toughness and careful nursing and dieting.

What has Spencer been trampling on the "Pour le merite" for, when he accepted the Lyncei? I was just writing to congratulate him when, by good luck, I saw he had refused!

The beastly nausea which comes on when I try to do anything warns me to stop.

With our love to you both,

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The last time I saw him was on a visit to Eastbourne from June 22-24.

I was astonished to find how well he looked in spite of all; thin, indeed, but browned with the endless sunshine of the 1895 summer as he sat every day in the verandah. His voice was still fairly strong; he was delighted to see us about him, and was cheerful, even merry at times. As the nurse said, she could not expect him to recover, but he did not look like a dying man. When I asked him how he was, he said, "A mere carca.s.s, which has to be tended by other people." But to the last he looked forward to recovery. One day he told the nurse that the doctors must be wrong about the renal mischief, for if they were right, he ought already to be in a state of coma. This was precisely what they found most astonishing in his case; it seemed as if the mind, the strong nervous organisation, were triumphing over the shattered body.

Herein lay one of the chief hopes of ultimate recovery.

As late as June 26 he wrote, with shaky handwriting but indomitable spirit, to relieve his old friend from the anxiety he must feel from the newspaper bulletins.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 26, 1895.

My dear Hooker,

The pessimistic reports of my condition which have got into the papers may be giving you unnecessary alarm for the condition of your old comrade. So I send a line to tell you the exact state of affairs.

There is kidney mischief going on--and it is accompanied by very distressing attacks of nausea and vomiting, which sometimes last for hours and make life a burden.

However, strength keeps up very well considering, and of course all depends upon how the renal business goes. At present I don't feel at all like "sending in my checks," and without being over sanguine I rather incline to think that my native toughness will get the best of it--alb.u.minuria or otherwise.

Ever your faithful friend,

T.H.H.

Misfortunes never come single. My son-in-law, Eckersley, died of yellow fever the other day at San Salvador--just as he was going to take up an appointment at Lima worth 1200 pounds a year. Rachel and her three children have but the slenderest provision.

[The next two days there was a slight improvement but on the third morning the heart began to fail. The great pain subdued by anaesthetics, he lingered on about seven hours, and at half-past three on June 29 pa.s.sed away very quietly.

He was buried at Finchley, on July 4, beside his brother George and his little son Noel, under the shadow of the oak, which had grown up into a stately young tree from the little sapling it had been when the grave of his first-born was dug beneath it, five and thirty years before.

The funeral was of a private character. An old friend, the Reverend Llewelyn Davies, came from Kirkby Lonsdale to read the service; the many friends who gathered at the grave-side were there as friends mourning the death of a friend, and all touched with the same sense of personal loss.

By his special direction, three lines from a poem written by his wife, were inscribed upon his tombstone--lines inspired by his own robust conviction that, all question of the future apart, this life as it can be lived, pain, sorrow, and evil notwithstanding, is worth--and well worth-living:--

Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep; For still He giveth His beloved sleep, And if an endless sleep He wills, so best.]