Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 10

[Happily the man turned out to have enough means to pay the bulk of the costs; but that was no compensation for the mental worry and consequent ill-health entailed from November to June.

The only amusing point in the whole affair was when the plaintiff's solicitors had the face to file an affidavit before the Vice-Chancellor himself in answer to his strictures upon the case, "about as regular a proceeding," reports Mr. Burton, "as for a middy to reply upon the Post Captain on his own quarter-deck."

The move was made in the third week of December (1872) amid endless rain and mud and with workmen still in the house. It was attended by one inconvenience. He writes to Darwin on December 20, 1872:--]

I am utterly disgusted at having only just received your note of Tuesday. But the fact is, there is a certain inconvenience about having FOUR addresses as has been my case for the most part of this week, in consequence of our moving--and as I have not been to Jermyn Street before to-day, I have missed your note. I should run round to Queen Anne Street now on the chance of catching you, but I am bound here by an appointment.

[One incident of the move, however, was more agreeable. Mr. Herbert Spencer took the opportunity of sending a New Year's gift for the new house, in the shape of a handsome clock, wishing, as he said, "to express in some way more empathic than by words, my sense of the many kindnesses I have received at your hands during the twenty years of our friendship. Remembrance of the things you have done in furtherance of my aims, and of the invaluable critical aid you have given me, with so much patience and at so much cost of time, has often made me feel how much I owe you."

After a generous reference to occasions when the warmth of debate might have betrayed him into more vigorous expressions than he intended, he concludes:--

But inadequately as I may ordinarily show it, you will (knowing that I am tolerably candid) believe me when I say that there is no one whose judgment on all subjects I so much respect, or whose friendship I so highly value.

It may be remembered that the 1872 address on "Administrative Nihilism" led to a reply from the pen of Mr. Spencer, as the champion of Individualism. When my father sent him the volume in which this address was printed, he wrote back a letter (September 29, 1873) which is characterised by the same feeling. It expresses his thanks for the book, "and many more for the kind expression of feeling in the preface. If you had intended to set an example to the Philistines of the way in which controversial differences may be maintained without any decrease of sympathy, you could not have done it more perfectly."

In connection with the building of the house, Tyndall had advanced a sum of money to his friend, and with his usual generosity, not only received interest with the greatest reluctance, but would have liked to make a gift of the princ.i.p.al. He writes, "If I remain a bachelor I will circ.u.mvent you--if not--not. It cleaves to me like dirt--and that is why you wish to get rid of it." To this he received answer:--

February 26, 1873.

I am not to be deterred by any amount of bribery and corruption, from bringing you under the yoke of a "rare and radiant,"--whenever I discover one competent to undertake the ticklish business of governing you. I hope she will be "radiant,"--uncommonly "rare" she certainly will be!

Two years later this loan was paid off, with the following letter:--]

4 Marlborough Place, January 11, 1875.

My dear old Shylock,

My argosies have come in, and here is all that was written in the bond! If you want the pound of flesh too, you know it is at your service, and my Portia won't raise that pettifogging objection to shedding a little blood into the bargain, which that other one did.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On October 24 Miss Jex Blake wrote to him to ask his help for herself and the other women medical students at Edinburgh. For two years they had only been able to get anatomical teaching in a mixed cla.s.s; but wishing to have a separate cla.s.s, at least for the present, they had tried to arrange for one that session. The late demonstrator at the Surgeons' Hall, who had given them most of their teaching before, had undertaken to teach this separate cla.s.s, but was refused recognition by the University Court, on the ground that they had no evidence of his qualifications, while refusing to let him prove his qualification by examination. This the women students understood to be an indirect means of suppressing their aspirations; they therefore begged Huxley to examine their instructor with a view to giving him a certificate which should carry weight with the University Court.

He replied:--]

To Miss Jex Blake.

October 28, 1872.

Dear Madam,

While I fully sympathise with the efforts made by yourself and others, to obtain for women the education requisite to qualify them for medical practice, and while I think that women who have the inclination and the capacity to follow the profession of medicine are most unjustly dealt with if any obstacles beyond those which are natural and inevitable are placed in their way, I must nevertheless add, that I as completely sympathise with those Professors of Anatomy, Physiology, and Obstetrics, who object to teach such subjects to mixed cla.s.ses of young men and women brought together without any further evidence of moral and mental fitness for such a.s.sociation than the payment of their fees.

In fact, with rare exceptions, I have refused to admit women to my own Lectures on Comparative Anatomy for many years past. But I should not hesitate to teach anything I know to a cla.s.s composed of women; and I find it hard to believe that any one should really wish to prevent women from obtaining efficient separate instruction, and from being admitted to Examination for degrees upon the same terms as men.

You will therefore understand that I should be most glad to help you if I could--and it is with great regret that I feel myself compelled to refuse your request to examine Mr. H--.

In the first place I am in the midst of my own teaching, and with health not yet completely re-established I am obliged to keep clear of all unnecessary work. Secondly, such an examination must be practical, and I have neither dissecting-room available nor the anatomical license required for human dissection; and thirdly, it is not likely that the University authorities would attach much weight to my report on one or two days' work--if the fact that Mr. H-- has already filled the office of anatomical Demonstrator (as I understand from you) does not satisfy them as to his competency.

I am, dear Madam, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The last event of the year was that he was elected by the students Lord Rector of Aberdeen University--a position, the duties of which consist partly in attending certain meetings of the University Court, but more especially in delivering an address. This, however, was not required for another twelvemonth, and the address on "Universities, Actual and Ideal," was delivered in fulfilment of this duty in February 1874.

CHAPTER 2.4.

1873.

[The year opens with a letter to Tyndall, then on a lecturing tour in America:--]

4 Marlborough Place, Abbey Road, N.W., January 1, 1872 [1873].

My dear Tyndall,

I cannot let this day go by without wishing you a happy New Year, and lamenting your absence from our customary dinner. But Hirst and Spencer and Michael Foster are coming, and they shall drink your health in champagne while I do the like in cold water, making up by the strength of my good wishes for the weakness of the beverage.

You see I write from the new house. Getting into it was an awful job, made worse than needful by the infamous weather we have had for weeks and months, and by the stupid delays of the workmen, whom we had fairly to shove out at last as we came in. We are settling down by degrees, and shall be very comfortable by and by, though I do not suppose that we shall be able to use the drawing-room for two or three months to come. I am very glad to have made the change, but there is a drawback to everything in "this here wale," as Mrs. Gamp says and my present thorn in the flesh is a neighbour, who says I have injured him by certain operations in my garden, and is trying to get something out of me by Chancery proceedings. Fancy finding myself a defendant in Chancery!

It is particularly hard on me, as I have been especially careful to have nothing done without Burton's sanction and a.s.surance that I was quite safe in law; and I would have given up anything [rather] than have got into bother of this kind. But "sich is life."

You seem to have been making a Royal Progress in Yankee-land. We have been uncommonly tickled with some of the reports of your lectures which reached us, especially with that which spoke of your having "a strong English accent."

The loss of your a.s.sistant seems to have been the only deduction to be made from your success. I am afraid you must have felt it much in all ways.

"My Lord" received your telegram only after the business of "securing Hirst" was done. That is one of the bright spots in a bad year for me.

Goschen consulted Spottiswood and me independently about the headship of the new Naval College, and was naturally considerably surprised by the fact that we coincided in recommending Hirst...The upshot was that Goschen asked me to communicate with Hirst and see if he would be disposed to accept the offer. So I did, and found to my great satisfaction that Hirst took to the notion very kindly. I am sure he is the very best man for the post to be met with in the three kingdoms, having that rare combination of qualities by which he gets on with all manner of men, and singularly attracts young fellows. He will not only do his duty, but be beloved for doing it, which is what few people can compa.s.s.

I have little news to give you. The tail of the X.-Hooker storm is drifting over the scientific sky in the shape of fresh attacks by Owen on Hooker. Hooker answered the last angelically, and I hope they are at an end.

The wife has just come in and sends her love (but is careful to add "second-best"). The chicks grow visibly and audibly, and Jess looks quite a woman. All are well except myself, and I am getting better from a fresh breakdown of dyspepsia. I find that if I am to exist at all it must be on strictly ascetic principles, so there is hope of my dying in the odour of sanct.i.ty yet. If you recollect, Lancelot did not know that he should "die a holy man" till rather late in life. I have forgotten to tell you about the Rectorship of Aberdeen. I refused to stand at first, on the score of health, and only consented on condition that I should not be called upon to do any public work until after the long vacation. It was a very hard fight, and although I had an absolute majority of over fifty, the mode of election is such that one vote, in one of the four nations, would have turned the scale by giving my opponent the majority in that nation. We should then have been ties, and as the chancellor, who has under such circ.u.mstances a casting vote, would have (I believe) given it against me, I should have been beaten.

As it is, the fact of any one, who stinketh in the nostrils of orthodoxy, beating a Scotch peer at his own gates in the most orthodox of Scotch cities, is a curious sign of the times. The reason why they made such a tremendous fight for me, is I believe, that I may carry on the reforms commenced by Grant Duff, my predecessor. Unlike other Lord Rectors, he of Aberdeen is a power and can practically govern the action of the University during his tenure of office.

I saw Pollock yesterday, and he says that they want you back again.

Curiously the same desire is epidemically prevalent among your friends, not least here.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[In spite of his anxieties, his health was slowly improving under careful regimen. He published no scientific memoirs this year, but in addition to his regular lectures, he was working to finish his "Manual of Invertebrate Anatomy" and his "Introductory Primer," and to write his Aberdeen address; he was also at work upon the "Pedigree of the Horse" and on "Bodily Motion and Consciousness." He delivered a course to teachers on Psychology and Physiology, and was much occupied by the Royal Commission on Science. As a governor of Owens College he had various meetings to attend, though his duties did not extend, as some of his friends seem to have thought, to the appointment of a Professor of Physiology there.]

My life (he writes to Sir Henry Roscoe) is becoming a burden to me because of --. Why I do not know, but for some reason people have taken it into their heads that I have something to do with appointments in Owens College, and no fewer than three men of whose opinion I think highly have spoken or written to me urging --'s merits very strongly.