Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 7

The latter offered to write to the Admiralty on his behalf, giving the weight of his name to the suggestion that the work to be done would take at least twelve months, and that therefore his appointment to the "Fisguard" should not be limited to any less period.] "They might be disposed," [wrote Huxley to him,] "to cut anything I request down--on principle." [Moreover, Owen, Forbes, Bell, and Sharpey, all members of the Committee of Recommendation of the Royal Society, had expressed themselves so favourably to his views that in his application he was able to relieve the economic scruples of the Admiralty by telling them that he had a means of publishing his papers through the Royal Society.

The result of his application, thus backed, was that he obtained his appointment on November 29. It was for six months, subject to extension if he were able to report satisfactory progress with his work.

A long letter to his sister, now settled in Tennessee, gives a good idea of his aims and hopes at this time.]

41 North Bank, Regent's Park.

November 21, 1850.

My dearest Lizzie,

We have been at home now nearly three weeks, and I have been a free man again twelve days. Her Majesty's ships have been paid off on the 9th of this month. Properly speaking, indeed, we have been at home longer, for we touched at Plymouth and trod English ground and saw English green fields on the 23rd of October, but we were allowed to remain only twenty-four hours, and to my great disgust were ordered round to Chatham to be paid off. The ill-luck which had made our voyage homeward so long (we sailed from Sydney on the 2nd of May) pursued us in the Channel, and we did not reach Chatham until the 2nd of November; and what do you think was one of the first things I did when we reached Plymouth? Wrote to Eliza K. asking news of a certain naughty sister of mine, from whom I had never heard a word since we had been away--and if perchance there should be any letter, begging her to forward it immediately to Chatham.

And so, when at length we got there, I found your kind long letter had been in England some six or seven months; but hearing of the likelihood of our return, they had very judiciously not sent it to me.

Your letter, my poor Lizzie, justifies many a heartache I have had when thinking over your lot, knowing, as I well do, what emigrant life is in climates less trying than that in which you live. I have seen a good deal of bush life in Australia, and it enables me fully to sympathise with and enter into every particular you tell me--from the baking and boiling and pigs squealing, down to that ferocious landshark Mrs.

Gunther, of whose cla.s.s Australia will furnish fine specimens. Had I been at home, too, I could have enlightened the good folks as to the means of carriage in the colonies, and could have told them that the two or twenty thousand miles over sea is the smallest part of the difficulty and expense of getting anything to people living inland; as it is, I think I have done some good in the matter; their meaning was good but their discretion small. But the obtuseness of English in general about anything out of the immediate circle of their own experience is something wonderful.

I had heard here and there fractional accounts of your doings from Eliza K. and my mother--not of the most cheery description--and therefore I was right glad to get your letter, which, though it tells of sorrow and misfortune enough and to spare, yet shows me that the brave woman's heart you always had, my dearest Lizzie, is still yours, and that you have always had the warm love of those immediately around you, and now, as the doctor's letter tells us, you have one more source of joy and happiness, and this new joy must efface the bitterness--I do not say the memory, knowing how impossible that would be--of your great loss. [The death of her little daughter Jessie]. G.o.d knows, my dear sister, I could feel for you. It was as if I could see again a shadow of the great sorrow that fell upon us all years ago.

Nothing can bind me more closely to your children than I am already, but if the christening be not all over you must let me be G.o.dfather; and though I fear I am too much of a heretic to promise to bring him up a good son of the church--yet should ever the position which you prophesy, and of which I have an "Ahnung" (though I don't tell that to anybody but Nettie), be mine, he shall (if you will trust him to me) be cared for as few sons are. As things stand, I am talking half nonsense, but I mean it--and you know of old, for good and for evil, my tenacity of purpose.

Now, as to my own affairs--I am not married. Prudently, at any rate, but whether wisely or foolishly I am not quite sure yet, Nettie and I resolved to have nothing to do with matrimony for the present. In truth, though our marriage was my great wish on many accounts, yet I feared to bring upon her the consequences that might have occurred had anything happened to me within the next few years. We had a sad parting enough, and as is usually the case with me, time, instead of alleviating, renders more disagreeable our separation. I have a woman's element in me. I hate the incessant struggle and toil to cut one another's throat among us men, and I long to be able to meet with some one in whom I can place implicit confidence, whose judgment I can respect, and yet who will not laugh at my most foolish weaknesses, and in whose love I can forget all care. All these conditions I have fulfilled in Nettie. With a strong natural intelligence, and knowledge enough to understand and sympathise with my aims, with firmness of a man, when necessary, she combines the gentleness of a very woman and the honest simplicity of a child, and then she loves me well, as well as I love her, and you know I love but few--in the real meaning of the word, perhaps, but two--she and you. And now she is away, and you are away. The worst of it is I have no ambition, except as means to an end, and that end is the possession of a sufficient income to marry upon. I a.s.sure you I would not give two straws for all the honours and t.i.tles in the world. A worker I must always be--it is my nature--but if I had 400 pounds sterling a year I would never let my name appear to anything I did or shall ever do. It would be glorious to be a voice working in secret and free from all those personal motives that have actuated the best. But, unfortunately, one is not a "vox et praeterea nihil," but with a considerable corporality attached which requires feeding, and so while my inner man is continually indulging in these anchorite reflections, the outer is sedulously elbowing and pushing as if he dreamed of nothing but gold medals and professors' caps.

I am getting on very well--better I fear than I deserve. One of my papers was published in 1849 in the "Philosophical Transactions,"

another in the "Zoological Transactions," and some more may be published in the "Linnean" if I like--but I think I shall not like. Then I have worked pretty hard, and brought home a considerable amount of drawings and notes about new or rare animals, all particularly nasty slimy things, and they will most likely be published as a separate work by the Royal Society.

Owens, Forbes, Bell, and Sharpey (the doctor will tell you of what weight these names are) are all members of the committee which disposes of the money, and are all strongly in favour of my "valuable researches"

(c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!!) being published by the Society. From various circ.u.mstances I have taken a better position than I could have expected among these grandees, and I find them all immensely civil and ready to help me on, tooth and nail, particularly Professor Forbes, who is a right good fellow, and has taken a great deal of trouble on my behalf.

Owen volunteered to write to the "First Lord" on my behalf, and did so.

Sharpey, when I saw him, reminded me, as he always does, of my great contest with Stocks (do you remember throwing the shoe?), and promised me all the a.s.sistance in his power. Professor Bell, who is secretary to the Royal, and has great influence, promised to help me in every way, and asked me to dine with him and meet a lot of n.o.bs. I take all these things quite as a matter of course, but am all the while considerably astonished. The other day I dined at the Geological Club and met Lyell, Murchison, de la B[eche] Horner, and a lot more, and last evening I dined with a whole lot of literary and scientific people.

Owen was, in my estimation, great, from the fact of his smoking his cigar and singing his song like a brick.

I tell you all these things to show you clearly how I stand. I am under no one's PATRONAGE, nor do I ever mean to be. I have never asked, and I never will ask, any man for his help from mere motives of friendship. If any man thinks that I am capable of forwarding the great cause in ever so small a way, let him just give me a helping hand and I will thank him, but if not, he is doing both himself and me harm in offering it, and if it should be necessary for me to find public expression to my thoughts on any matter, I have clearly made up my mind to do so, without allowing myself to be influenced by hope of gain or weight of authority.

There are many nice people in this world for whose praise or blame I care not a whistle. I don't know and I don't care whether I shall ever be what is called a great man. I will leave my mark somewhere, and it shall be clear and distinct:

T.H.H., HIS MARK,

and free from the abominable blur of cant, humbug, and self-seeking which surrounds everything in this present world--that is to say, supposing that I am not already unconsciously tainted myself, a result of which I have a morbid dread. I am perhaps overrating myself. You must put me in mind of my better self, as you did in your last letter, when you write.

But I must come to the close of my epistle, as I have one to enclose from my mother. My next shall be longer, and I hope I shall then be able to tell you what I am doing. At any rate I hope to be in England for twelve months.

I am very much ashamed of myself for not having written to you for so long--open confession is good for the soul, they say, and I will honestly confess that I was half puzzled, half piqued, and altogether sulky at your not having answered my last letter containing my love story, of which I wrote you an account before anybody. You must not suppose my affection was a bit the less because I was half angry.

Nettie, who knows you well, could tell you otherwise. Indeed, now that I know all, I consider myself a great brute, and I will give you leave, if you will but write soon, to scold me as much as you like. All the family are well. My father is the only one who is much altered, and that in mind and strength, not in bodily health, which is very good. My mother has lost her front teeth, but is otherwise just the same amusing, nervous, distressingly active old lady she always was.

Our cruisers visit New Orleans sometimes, and if ever I am on the West India station, who knows, I may take a run up to see you all. Kindest love to the children. Tell Florry that I could not get her the bird with the long tail, but that some day I will send her some pictures of copper-coloured gentlemen with great big wigs and no trousers, and tell her her old uncle loves her very much and never forgets her nor anybody else.

G.o.d bless you, dearest Lizzie. Write soon.

Ever your brother,

Tom.

[Thus within a month of landing in England, Huxley had secured his footing in the scientific world. He was freed for the time from the more irksome part of his profession; his service in the navy had become a stepping-stone to the pursuits in which his heart really was. He had long been half in despair over the work which he had sent out like the dove from the ark, if haply it might find him some standing ground in the world; no news of it had reached him till he was about to start on his homeward voyage, but he returned to discover that at a single stroke it had placed him in the front rank of naturalists.]

41 North Bank, Regent's Park.

January 3, 1851.

My progress [he writes (When not otherwise specified, the extracts in this chapter are from letters to his future wife.)], must necessarily be slow and uncertain. I cannot see two steps forwards. Much depends upon myself, much upon circ.u.mstances. Hitherto all has gone as well as I could wish. I have gained each object that I had set before myself--that is, I have my sh.o.r.e appointment, I have found a means of publishing what I have done creditably, and I have continued to come into communication with some of the first men in England in my department of science. But, as I have found to be the case in all things that are gained, from money to friendship, it is not so much getting as keeping. It is by no means difficult if you are decently introduced, have tolerably agreeable manners, and some smattering of science, to take a position among these folks, but it is a mighty different affair to keep it and turn it to account. Not like the man who, at the Enchanted Castle, had the courage to blow the horn but not to draw the sword, and was consequently shot forth from the mouth of the cave by which he entered with most ignominious haste,--one must be ready to fight immediately after one's arrival has been announced, or be blown into oblivion.

I HAVE drawn the sword, but whether I am in truth to beat the giants and deliver my princess from the enchanted castle is yet to be seen.

[For several months he lived with his brother George and his wife at North Bank, St. John's Wood (the house was pulled down in 1896 for the Great Central Railway), but the surroundings were too easy, and not conducive to hard work.]

I must, I fear, emigrate to some "two pair back," which shall have the feel and manner of a workshop, where I can leave my books about and dissect a marine nastiness if I think fit, sallying forth to meet the world when necessary, and giving it no more time than necessary. If it were not for a fear that P. would take it unkindly I should go at once.

I must summon up moral courage somehow (how difficult when it is to pain those we love!) and trust to her good sense for the rest.

[And later:--]

...I have been very busy looking about for the last two days, and have been in fifty houses if I have been in one. I want some place with a decent address, cheap, and beyond all things, clean. The dirty holes that some of these lodgings are! such tawdry finery and such servants, with their faces and hands not merely dirty, but absolutely macadamised.

And they all make this confounded great Exhibition a plea for about doubling the rent.

[So in April 1851 he removed to lodgings hard by, at 1 Hanover Place, Clarence Gate, Regent's Park] ("which sounds grand, but means nothing more than a sitting-room and bedroom in a small house"), [then to St.

Anne's Gardens, and after that to Upper York Place, while making a second home with his brother. His other great friends already in London were the Fannings, who had left Australia a few months before his own return. In the scientific world he soon made acquaintance with most of the leading men, and began a close friendship with Edward Forbes, with George Busk (then surgeon to H.M.S. "Dreadnought" at Greenwich, afterwards President of the College of Surgeons) and his accomplished wife, and later in the year with both Hooker and Tyndall. The Busks, indeed, showed him the greatest kindness throughout this period of struggle, and the sympathy and intellectual stimulus he received from their society were of the utmost help. They were always ready to welcome him at Greenwich, and he not only often ran down there for a week-end, but would spend part of his vacations with them at Lowestoft or Tenby, where naturalists could find plenty of occupation.

But from a worldly point of view, it was too soon clear that science was sadly unprofitable. There seemed no speedy prospect of making enough to marry on. As early as March 1851 he writes:--]

The difficulties of obtaining a decent position in England in anything like a reasonable time seem to me greater than ever they were. To attempt to live by any scientific pursuit is a farce. Nothing but what is absolutely practical will go down in England. A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story--wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood. I am not at all sure if...it would be the most prudent thing to stick by the Service: there at any rate is certainty in health and in sickness.

[Nevertheless he was mightily encouraged in the work of bringing out his "Rattlesnake" papers by a notable success in a quarter where he scarcely dared to hope for it. The Royal Society had for some time set itself to become a body of working men of science; to exclude for the future all mere dilettanti, and to admit a limited number of men whose work was such as to deserve recognition. Thanks to the initiative of Forbes, he now found this recognition accorded to him on the strength of his "Medusa" paper. He writes in February:--]

The F.R.S. that you tell me you dream of being appended to my name is nearer than one might think, to my no small surprise...I had no idea that it was at all within my reach, until I found out the other day, talking with Mr. Bell, that my having a paper in the "Transactions" was one of the best of qualifications.

My friend Forbes, to whom I am so much indebted, has taken the matter in hand for me, and I am told I am sure of getting it this year or the next. I do not at all expect it this year, as there are a great many candidates, far better men than I...I shall think myself lucky if I get it next year. Don't say anything about the matter till I tell you...As the old proverb says, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

[There were thirty-eight candidates; of these the Council would select fifteen, and submit their names for election at a general meeting of the Society. He was not yet twenty-six years of age, and certainly the youngest and least known of the compet.i.tors. Others probably had been up before--possibly many times before; nevertheless, on this, his first candidature, he was placed among the selected. The formal election did not took place till June 5, but on a chance visit to Forbes he heard the great news. The F.R.S. was a formal attestation of the value of the work he had already done; it was a token of success in the present, an augury of greater success in the future. No wonder the news was exciting.]

To-day [he writes on April 14] I saw Forbes at the Museum of Practical Geology, where I often drop in on him. "Well," he said, "I am glad to be able to tell you you are all right for the Royal Society; the selection was made on Friday night, and I hear that you are one of the selected. I have not seen the list, but my authority is so good that you may make yourself easy about it." I confess to having felt a little proud, though I believe I spoke and looked as cool as a cuc.u.mber. There were thirty-eight candidates, out of whom only fifteen could be selected, and I fear that they have left behind much better men than I. I shall not feel certain about the matter until I receive some official announcement. I almost wish that until then I had heard nothing about it. Notwithstanding all my cuc.u.mbery appearance, I will confess to you that I could not sit down and read to-day after the news. I wandered hither and thither restlessly half over London...Whether I have it or not, I can say one thing, that I have left my case to stand on its own strength; I have not asked for a single vote, and there are not on my certificate half the names that there might be. If it be mine, it is by no intrigue.

[Again, on May 4, 1851]

I am twenty-six to-day...and it reminds me that I have left you now a whole year. It is perfectly frightful to think how the time is slipping by, and yet seems to bring us no nearer.

What have I done with my twenty-sixth year? Six months were spent at sea, and therefore may be considered as so much lost; and six months I have had in England. That, I may say, has not been thrown away altogether without fruit. I have read a good deal and I have written a good deal. I have made some valuable friends, and have found my work more highly estimated than I had ventured to hope. I must tell you something, because it will please you, even if you think me vain for doing so.

I was talking to Professor Owen yesterday, and said that I imagined I had to thank him in great measure for the honour of the F.R.S. "No," he said, "you have nothing to thank but the goodness of your own work." For about ten minutes I felt rather proud of that speech, and shall keep it by me whenever I feel inclined to think myself a fool, and that I have a most mistaken notion of my own capacities. The only use of honours is as an antidote to such fits of the "blue devils." Of one thing, however, which is by no means so agreeable, my opportunities for seeing the scientific world in England force upon me every day a stronger and stronger conviction. It is that there is no chance of living by science.

I have been loth to believe it, but it is so. There are not more than four or five offices in London which a Zoologist or Comparative Anatomist can hold and live by. Owen, who has a European reputation, second only to that of Cuvier, gets as Hunterian Professor 300 pounds sterling a year! which is less than the salary of many a bank clerk. My friend Forbes, who is a highly distinguished and a very able man, gets the same from his office of Paleontologist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. Now, these are first-rate men--men who have been at work for years laboriously toiling upward--men whose abilities, had they turned them into the many channels of money-making, must have made large fortunes. But the beauty of Nature and the pursuit of Truth allured them into a n.o.bler life--and this is the result...In literature a man may write for magazines and reviews, and so support himself; but not so in science. I could get anything I write into any of the journals or any of the Transactions, but I know no means of thereby earning five shillings.