Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 4

after the t.i.tle conspicuous on a volume of the "Suites a Buffon," which stood on my shelf in the chart-room.

[On the whole, life among the company of officers was satisfactory enough. (The a.s.sistant-Surgeon messed in the gun-room with the middies.

A man in the midst of a lot of boys, with hardly any grown-up companions, often has a rather unenviable position; but, says Captain Heath, who was one of these middies, Huxley's constant good spirits and fun, when he was not absorbed in his work, his freedom from any a.s.sumption of superiority over them, made the boys his good comrades and allies.) Huxley's immediate superior, John Thompson, was a man of sterling worth; and Captain Stanley was an excellent commander, and sympathetic withal. Among Huxley's messmates there was only one, the ship's clerk, whoever made himself actively disagreeable, and a quarrel with him only served to bring into relief the young surgeon's integrity and directness of action. After some dispute, in which he had been worsted, this gentleman sought to avenge himself by dropping mysterious hints as to Huxley's conduct before joining the ship. He had been treasurer of his mess; there had been trouble about the accounts, and a scandal had barely been averted. This was not long in coming to Huxley's ears. Furiously indignant as he was, he did not lose his self-control; but promptly inviting the members of the wardroom to meet as a court of honour, laid his case before them, and challenged his accuser to bring forward any t.i.ttle of evidence in support of his insinuations. The latter had nothing to say for himself, and made a formal retraction and apology. A signed account of the proceedings was kept by the first officer, and a duplicate by Huxley, as a defence against any possible revival of the slander.

On December 3, 1846, the "Rattlesnake" frigate left Spithead, but touched again at Plymouth to ship 65,000 pounds sterling of specie for the Cape. This delay was no pleasure to the young Huxley; it only served to renew the pain of parting from home, so that, after writing a last letter to rea.s.sure his mother as to the comfort of his present quarters, he was glad to lose sight of the English coast on the 11th.

Madeira was reached on the 18th. On the 26th they sailed for Rio de Janeiro, where they stayed from January 23 to February 2, 1847. Here Huxley had his first experience of tropical dredging in Botaf.a.go Bay, with Macgillivray, naturalist to the expedition. It was a memorable occasion, the more so, because in the absence of a sieve they were compelled to use their hands as strainers the first day. Happily the want was afterwards supplied by a meat cover. From the following letter it seems that several prizes of value were taken in the dredge:--]

Rio de Janeiro, January 24, 1847.

My dear Mother,

Four weeks of lovely weather and uninterrupted fair winds brought us to this southern fairyland. In my last letter I told you a considerable yarn about Madeira, I guess, and so for fear lest you should imagine me scenery mad I will spare you any description of Rio Harbour. Suffice it to say that it contends with the Bay of Naples for the t.i.tle of the most beautiful place in the world. It must beat Naples in luxuriance and variety of vegetation, but from all accounts, to say nothing of George's [his eldest brother] picture, falls behind it in the colours of sky and sea, that of the latter being in the harbour and for some distance outside of a dirty olive green like the washings of a painter's palette.

We have come in for the purpose of effecting some trifling repairs, which, though not essential to the safety of the ship, will nevertheless naturally enhance the comfort of its inmates. This you will understand when I tell you that in consequence of these same defects I have had water an inch or two deep in my cabin, wish-washing about ever since we left Madeira.

We crossed the line on the 13th of this month, and as one of the uninitiated I went through the usual tomfoolery practised on that occasion. The affair has been too often described for me to say anything about it. I had the good luck to be ducked and shaved early, and of course took particular care to do my best in serving out the unhappy beggars who had to follow. I enjoyed the fun well enough at the time, but unquestionably it is on all grounds a most pernicious custom. It swelled our sick list to double the usual amount, and one poor fellow, I am sorry to say, died of the effects of pleurisy then contracted.

We have been quite long enough at sea now to enable me to judge how I shall get on in the ship, and to form a very clear idea of how it fits me and how I fit it. In the first place I am exceedingly well and exceedingly contented with my lot. My opinion of the advantages lying open to me increases rather than otherwise as I see my way about me. I am on capital terms with all the superior officers, and I find them ready to give me all facilities. I have a place for my books and microscope in the chart room, and there I sit and read in the morning much as though I were in my rooms in Agar Street. My immediate superior, Johnny Thompson, is a long-headed good fellow without a morsel of humbug about him--a man whom I thoroughly respect, both morally and intellectually. I think it will be my fault if we are not fast friends through the commission. One friend on board a ship is as much as anybody has a right to expect.

It is just the interval between the sea and the land breezes, the sea like gla.s.s, and not a breath stirring. I shall become soup if I do not go on deck. Temperature in sun at noon 86 in shade, 139 in sun. N.B.--It has been up to 89 in shade, 139 in sun since this.

March 28, 1847.

I see I concluded with a statement of temperature. Since then it has been considerably better--140 in sun; however, in the shade it rarely rises above 86 or so, and when the sea or land breezes are blowing this is rather pleasant than otherwise.

I have been ash.o.r.e two or three times. The town is like most Portuguese towns, hot and stinking, the odours here being improved by a strong flavour of n.i.g.g.e.r from the slaves, of whom there is an immense number.

They seem to do all the work, and their black skins shine in the sun as though they had been touched up with Warren, 30 Strand. They are mostly in capital condition, and on the whole look happier than the corresponding cla.s.s in England, the manufacturing and agricultural poor, I mean. I have a much greater respect for them than for their beastly Portuguese masters, than whom there is not a more vile, ignorant, and besotted nation under the sun. I only regret that such a glorious country as this should be in such hands. Had Brazil been colonised by Englishmen, it would by this time have rivalled our Indian Empire.

The naturalist Macgillivray and I have had several excursions under pretence of catching b.u.t.terflies, etc. On the whole, however, I think we have been most successful in imbibing sherry cobbler, which you get here in great perfection. By the way, tell Cooke [his brother-in-law], with my kindest regards, that -- is a lying old thief, many of the things he told me about Macgillivray, e.g., being an ignoramus in natural history, etc. etc., having proved to be lies. He is at any rate a very good ornithologist, and, I can testify, is exceedingly zealous in his vocation as a collector. As in these (points) Mr. --'s statements are unquestionably false, I must confess I feel greatly inclined to disbelieve his other a.s.sertions.

March 29.

We sail hence on Sunday for the Cape, so I will finish up. If you have not already written to me at that place, direct your letters to H.M.S.

"Rattlesnake," Sydney (to wait arrival). We shall probably be at the Cape some weeks surveying, thence shall be take ourselves to the Mauritius, and leave a card on Paul and Virginia, thence on to Sydney; but it is of no use to direct to any place but the last.

P.S.--The Rattlesnakes are not idle. We shall most likely have something to say to the English savans before long. If I have any frizz in the fire I will let you know.

[He gives a fuller account of this piece of work in a letter to his sister, dated Sydney, August 1, 1847. The two papers in question, as appears from the briefest notice in the "Proceedings of the Linnean Society," ascribing them to William (!) Huxley, were read in 1849:--]

In my last letter I think I mentioned to you that I had worked out and sent home to the President of the Linnean Society, through Captain Stanley, an account of Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war as it is called, an animal whose structure and affinities had never been worked out. The careful investigation I made gave rise to several new ideas covering the whole cla.s.s of animals to which this creature belongs, and these ideas I have had the good fortune to have had many opportunities of working out in the course of our subsequent wanderings, so that I am provided with materials for a second paper far more considerable in extent, and embracing an altogether wider field. This second paper is now partly in esse--that is, written out--and partly in posse--that is, in my head; but I shall send it before leaving. Its t.i.tle will be "Observations upon the Anatomy of the Diphydae, and upon the Unity of Organisation of the Diphydae and Physophoridae," and it will have lots of figures to ill.u.s.trate it. Now when we return from the north I hope to have collected materials for a much bigger paper than either of these, and to which they will serve as steps. If my present antic.i.p.ations turn out correct, this paper will achieve one of the great ends of Zoology and Anatomy, namely, the reduction of two or three apparently widely separated and incongruous groups into modifications of the single type, every step of the reasoning being based upon anatomical facts. There!

Think yourself lucky you have only got that to read instead of the slight abstract of all three papers with which I had some intention of favouring you. [These papers are to be found in volume 1 of the "Scientific Memoirs" of T.H. Huxley page 9.]

But five years ago you threw a slipper after me for luck on my first examination, and I must have you to do it for everything else.

[At the Cape a stay of a month was made, from March 6 to April 10, and certain surveying work was done, after which the "Rattlesnake" sailed for Mauritius. In spite of the fact that the novelty of tropical scenery had worn off, the place made a deep impression. He writes to his mother, May 15, 1847:--]

After a long and somewhat rough pa.s.sage from the Cape, we made the highland of the Isle of France on the afternoon of the 3rd of this month, and pa.s.sing round the northern extremity of the island, were towed into Port Louis by the handsomest of tugs about noon on the 4th.

In my former letter I have spoken to you of the beauty of the places we have visited, of the picturesque ruggedness of Madeira, the fine luxuriance of Rio, and the rude and simple grandeur of South Africa.

Much of my admiration has doubtless arisen from the novelty of these tropical or semitropical scenes, and would be less vividly revived by a second visit. I have become in a manner blase with fine sights and something of a critic. All this is to lead you to believe that I have really some grounds for the raptures I am going into presently about Mauritius. In truth it is a complete paradise, and if I had nothing better to do, I should pick up some pretty French Eve (and there are plenty) and turn Adam. N.B. There are NO serpents in the island.

This island is, you know, the scene of St. Pierre's beautiful story of Paul and Virginia, over which I suppose most people have sentimentalised at one time or another of their lives. Until we reached here I did not know that the tale was like the lady's improver--a fiction founded on fact, and that Paul and Virginia were at one time flesh and blood, and that their veritable dust was buried at Pamplemousses in a spot considered as one of the lions of the place, and visited as cla.s.sic ground. Now, though I never was greatly given to the tender and sentimental, and have not had any tendencies that way greatly increased by the elegancies and courtesies of a midshipman's berth,--not to say that, as far as I recollect, Mdlle. Virginia was a bit of a prude, and M. Paul a pump,--yet were it but for old acquaintance sake, I determined on making a pilgrimage. Pamplemousses is a small village about seven miles from Port Louis, and the road to it is lined by rows of tamarind trees, of cocoanut trees, and sugarcanes. I started early in the morning in order to avoid the great heat of the middle of the day, and having breakfasted at Port Louis, made an early couple of hours' walk of it, meeting on my way numbers of the coloured population hastening to market in all the varieties of their curious Hindoo costume. After some trouble I found my way to the "Tombeaux" as they call them. They are situated in a garden at the back of a house now in the possession of one Mr. Geary, an English mechanist, who puts up half the steam engines for the sugar mills in the island. The garden is now an utter wilderness, but still very beautiful; round it runs a gra.s.sy path, and in the middle of the path on each side towards the further extremity of the garden is a funeral urn supported on a pedestal, and as dilapidated as the rest of the affair. These dilapidations, as usual, are the work of English visitors, relic-hunters, who are as shameless here as elsewhere. I was exceedingly pleased on the whole with my excursion, and when I returned I made a drawing of the place, which I will send some day or other.

Since this I have made, in company with our purser and a pa.s.senger, Mr.

King, a regular pedestrian trip to see some very beautiful falls up the country.

[Leaving Mauritius on May 17, they prolonged their voyage to Sydney by being requisitioned to take more specie to Hobart Town, so that Sydney was not reached until July 16, eight months since they had had news of home.

The three months spent in this first visit to Sydney proved to be one of the most vital periods in the young surgeon's career. From boyhood up, vaguely conscious of unrest, of great powers within him working to find expression, he had yet been to a certain extent driven in upon himself.

He had been somewhat isolated from those of his own age by his eagerness for problems about which they cared nothing; and the tendency to solitude, the habit of outward reserve imposed upon an unusually warm nature, were intensified by the fact that he grew up in surroundings not wholly congenial. One member alone of his family felt with him that complete and vivid sympathy which is so necessary to the full development of such a nature. When he was fourteen this sister married and left home, but the bond between them was not broken. In some ways it was strengthened by the lad's love for her children; by his grief, scarcely less than her own, at the death of her eldest little girl.

Moreover they were brought into close companionship for a considerable time when, after his dismal period of apprenticeship at Rotherhithe--to which he could never look back without a shudder--he came to work under her husband. She had encouraged him in his studies; had urged him to work for the Botanical prize at Sydenham College; had brightened his life with her sympathy, and believed firmly in the brilliant future which awaited him--a belief which for her sake, if for nothing else, he was eager to justify by his best exertions.

He had not had, so far, much opportunity of entering the social world; but his visit to Sydney gave him an opportunity of entering a good society to which his commission in the navy was a sufficient introduction. He was eager to find friendships if he could, for his reserve was anything but misanthropic. It was not long before he made the acquaintance of William Macleay, a naturalist of wide research and great speculative ability; and struck up a close friendship with William Fanning, one of the leading merchants of the town, a friendship which was to have momentous consequences. For it was at Fanning's house that he met his future wife, Miss Henrietta Anne Heathorn, for whom he was to serve longer and harder than Jacob thought to serve for Rachel, but who was to be his help and stay for forty years, in his struggles ready to counsel, in adversity to comfort; the critic whose judgment he valued above almost any, and whose praise he cared most to win; his first care and his latest thought, the other self, whose union with him was a supreme example of mutual sincerity and devotion.

It was a case of love, if not actually at first sight, yet of very rapid growth when he came to learn the quiet strength and tenderness of her nature as displayed in the management of her sister's household. A certain simplicity and directness united with an unusual degree of cultivation, had attracted him from the first. She had been two years at school in Germany, and her knowledge of German and of German literature brought them together on common ground. Things ran very smoothly at the beginning, and the young couple, whose united ages amounted to forty-four years, became engaged.

The marriage was to take place on his promotion to the rank of full surgeon--a promotion he hoped to attain speedily at the conclusion of the voyage on the strength of his scientific work, for this was the inducement held out by the Admiralty to energetic subalterns. The following letter to his sister describes the situation:--]

Sydney Harbour, March 21, 1848.

...I have deferred writing to you in the hope of knowing something from yourself of your doings and whereabouts, and now that we are on the eve of departing for a long cruise in Torres Straits, I will no longer postpone the giving you some account of "was ist geschehen" on this side of the world. We spent three months in Sydney, and a gay three months of it we had,--nothing but b.a.l.l.s and parties the whole time. In this corner of the universe, where men of war are rather scarce, even the old "Rattlesnake" is rather a lion, and her officers are esteemed accordingly. Besides, to tell you the truth, we are rather agreeable people than otherwise, and can manage to get up a very decent turn-out on board on occasion. What think you of your grave, scientific brother turning out a ball-goer and doing the "light fantastic" to a great extent? It is a great fact, I a.s.sure you. But there is a method in my madness. I found it exceedingly disagreeable to come to a great place like Sydney and think there was not a soul who cared whether I was alive or dead, so I determined to go into what society was to be had and see if I could not pick up a friend or two among the mult.i.tude of the empty and frivolous. I am happy to say that I have had more success than I hoped for or deserved, and then as now, two or three houses where I can go and feel myself at home at all times. But my "home" in Sydney is the house of my good friend Mr. Fanning, one of the first merchants in the place. But thereby hangs a tale which, of all people in the world, I must tell you. Mrs. Fanning has a sister, and the dear little sister and I managed to fall in love with one another in the most absurd manner after seeing one another--I will not tell you how few times, lest you should laugh. Do you remember how you used to talk to me about choosing a wife? Well, I think that my choice would justify even your fastidiousness...I think you will understand how happy her love ought to and does make me. I fear that in this respect indeed the advantage is on my side, for my present wandering life and uncertain position must necessarily give her many an anxious thought. Our future is indeed none of the clearest. Three years at the very least must elapse before the "Rattlesnake" returns to England, and then unless I can write myself into my promotion or something else, we shall be just where we were.

Nevertheless I have the strongest persuasion that four years hence I shall be married and settled in England. We shall see.

I am getting on capitally at present. Habit, inclination, and now a sense of duty keep me at work, and the nature of our cruise affords me opportunities such as none but a blind man would fail to make use of. I have sent two or three papers home already to be published, which I have great hopes will throw light upon some hitherto obscure branches of natural history, and I have just finished a more important one, which I intend to get read at the Royal Society. The other day I submitted it to William Macleay (the celebrated propounder of the Quinary system), who has a beautiful place near Sydney, and, I hear, "werry much approves what I have done." All this goes to the comforting side of the question, and gives me hope of being able to follow out my favourite pursuits in course of time, without hindrance to what is now the main object of my life. I tell Netty to look to being a "Frau Professorin" one of these odd days, and she has faith, as I believe would have if I told her I was going to be Prime Minister.

We go to the northward again about the 23rd of this month [April], and shall be away for ten or twelve months surveying in Torres Straits. I believe we are to refit in Port Essington, and that will be the only place approaching to civilisation that we shall see for the whole of that time; and after July or August next, when a provision ship is to come up to us, we shall not even get letters. I hope and trust I shall hear from you before then. Do not suppose that my new ties have made me forgetful of old ones. On the other hand, these are if anything strengthened. Does not my dearest Nettie love you as I do! and do I not often wish that you could see and love and esteem her as I know you would. We often talk about you, and I tell her stories of old times.

[Another letter, a year later, gives his mother the answers to a string of questions which, mother-like, she had asked him, thirsting for exact and minute information about her future daughter-in-law:--]

Sydney, February 1, 1849.

[After describing how he had just come back from a nine months'

cruise)--First and foremost, my dear mother, I must thank you for your very kind letter of September 1848. I read the greater part of it to Nettie, who was as much pleased as I with your kindly wishes towards both of us. Now I suppose I must do my best to answer your questions.

First, as to age, Nettie is about three months younger than myself--that is the difference in OUR years, but she is IN FACT as much younger than her years as I am older than mine. Next, as to complexion she is exceedingly fair, with the Saxon yellow hair and blue eyes. Then as to face, I really don't know whether she is pretty or not. I have never been able to decide the matter in my own mind. Sometimes I think she is, and sometimes I wonder how the idea ever came into my head. Whether or not, her personal appearance has nothing whatever to do with the hold she has upon my mind, for I have seen hundreds of prettier women. But I never met with so sweet a temper, so self-sacrificing and affectionate a disposition, or so pure and womanly a mind, and from the perfectly intimate footing on which I stand with her family I have plenty of opportunities of judging. As I tell her, the only great folly I am aware of her being guilty of was the leaving her happiness in the hands of a man like myself, struggling upwards and certain of nothing.

As to my future intentions I can say very little about them. With my present income, of course, marriage is rather a bad look out, but I do not think it would be at all fair towards Nettie herself to leave this country without giving her a wife's claim upon me...It is very unlikely I shall ever remain in the colony. Nothing but a very favourable chance could induce me to do so.

Much must depend upon how things go in England. If my various papers meet with any success, I may perhaps be able to leave the service. At present, however, I have not heard a word of anything I have sent.

Professor Forbes has, I believe, published some of Macgillivary's letters to him, but he has apparently forgotten to write to Macgillivray himself, or to me. So I shall certainly send him nothing more, especially as Mr. Macleay (of this place, and a great man in the naturalist world) has offered to get anything of mine sent to the Zoological Society.

[In the paper mentioned in the letter of March 21, above ("On the Anatomy and Affinities of the Family of the Medusae"), Huxley aimed at]

"giving broad and general views of the whole cla.s.s, considered as organised upon a given type, and inquiring into its relations with other families," [unlike previous observers whose patience and ability had been devoted rather to] "stating matters of detail concerning particular genera and species." [At the outset, section 8 ("Science Memoirs" 1 11), he states--]

I would wish to lay particular stress upon the composition of this (the stomach) and other organs of the Medusae out of TWO DISTINCT MEMBRANES, as I believe that it is one of the essential peculiarities of their structure, and that a knowledge of the fact is of great importance in investigating their h.o.m.ologies. I will call these two membranes as such, and independently of any modifications into particular organs, "foundation membranes."

[And in section 56 (page 23) one of the general conclusions which he deduces from his observations, is]

That a Medusa consists essentially of two membranes enclosing a variously-shaped cavity, inasmuch as its various organs are so composed,