Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1

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[On the whole, life among the company of officers was satisfactory
enough. (The Assistant-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
assumption 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 tittle 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 reassure 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 Botafago 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 title 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 glass, 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 ashore two or three times. The town is like most Portuguese
towns, hot and stinking, the odours here being improved by a strong
flavour of nigger 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 class 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 butterflies, 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 assertions.

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 class 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 title 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 illustrate 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 anticipations 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 passage from the Cape, we made the
highland of the Isle of France on the afternoon of the 3rd of this
month, and passing 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 classic
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 grassy 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 passenger, 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 balls 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 assure 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 multitude 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 class, 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 homologies. I will call these two membranes as such,
and independently of any modifications into particular organs,
"foundation membranes."

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