Charlotte M. Yonge - "Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1573 74"

William Makepeace Thackeray - "The History of Pendennis"

Sydney G. Fisher - "The Quaker Colonies"

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Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3

L >> Leonard Huxley >> The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3




[The remaining letters of the year are of miscellaneous interest. They
show him happily established in his retreat at Eastbourne in very fair
health, on his guard against any further repetition of his "jubilee
honour" in the shape of his old enemy pleurisy; unable to escape the
more insidious attacks of influenza, but well enough on the whole to be
in constant good spirits.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 13, 1891.

My dear Skelton,

Many thanks to you for reminding me that there are such things as
"Summer Isles" in the universe. The memory of them has been pretty well
blotted out here for the last seven weeks. You see some people can
retire to "Hermitages" as well as other people; and though even Argyll
cum Gladstone powers of self-deception could not persuade me that the
view from my window is as good as that from yours, yet I do see a fine
wavy chalk down with "cwms" and soft turfy ridges, over which an old
fellow can stride as far as his legs are good to carry him.

The fact is, that I discovered that staying in London any longer meant
for me a very short life, and by no means a merry one. So I got my
son-in-law to build me a cottage here, where my wife and I may go
down-hill quietly together, and "make our sowls" as the Irish say,
solaced by an occasional visit from children and grandchildren.

The deuce of it is, that however much the weary want to be at rest the
wicked won't cease from troubling. Hence the occasional skirmishes and
alarms which may lead my friends to misdoubt my absolute detachment
from sublunary affairs. Perhaps peace dwells only among the fork-tailed
Petrels!

I trust Mrs. Skelton and you are flourishing, and that trouble will
keep far from the hospitable doors of Braid through the New Year.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[No sooner had he settled down in his new country home, than a strange
piece of good fortune, such as happens more often in a story-book than
in real life, enabled him at one stroke to double his little estate, to
keep off the unwelcome approach of the speculative builder, and to give
himself scope for the newly-discovered delights of the garden. The sale
of the house in Marlborough Place covered the greater part of the cost
of Hodeslea; but almost on the very day on which the sale was
concluded, he became the possessor of another house at Worthing by the
death of Mr. Anthony Rich, the well-known antiquarian. An old man,
almost alone in the world, his admiration for the great work done
recently in natural science had long since led him to devise his
property to Darwin and Huxley, to the one his private fortune, to the
other his house and its contents, notably a very interesting library.

As a matter of feeling, Huxley was greatly disinclined to part with
this house, Chapel Croft, as soon as it had come into his hands. A year
earlier, he might have made it his home; but now he had settled down at
Eastbourne, and Chapel Croft, as it stood, was unlikely to find a
tenant. Accordingly he sold it early in July, and with the proceeds
bought the piece of land adjoining his house. Thus he writes to Sir J.
Hooker:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 17, 1891.

My dear Hooker,

My estate is somewhat of a white elephant. There is about a couple of
acres of ground well situated and half of it in the shape of a very
pretty lawn and shrubbery, but unluckily, in building the house, dear
old Rich thought of his own convenience and not mine (very wrong of
him!), and I cannot conceive anybody but an old bachelor or old maid
living in it. I do not believe anybody would take it as it stands. No
doubt the site is valuable, and it would be well worth while to anybody
with plenty of cash to spare to build on to the house and make it
useful. But I neither have the cash, nor do I want the bother. However,
Waller is going to look at the place for me and see what can be done.
It seems hardly decent to sell it at once; and moreover the value is
likely to increase. I suppose at present it is worth 2000 pounds, but
that is only a guess.

Apropos of naval portrait gallery, can you tell me if there is a
portrait of old John Richardson anywhere extant? I always look upon him
as the founder of my fortunes, and I want to hang him up (just over
your head) on my chimney breast. Voici! [sketch showing the position of
the pictures above the fireplace]:--

By your fruits ye shall judge them! My cold was influenza, I have been
in the most preposterously weak state ever since; and at last my wife
lost patience and called in the doctor, who is screwing me up with nux
vomica.

Sound wind and limb otherwise.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again on July 3:--]

I have just been offered 2800 pounds for Anthony Rich's place and have
accepted it. It is probably worth 3000 pounds, but if I were to have it
on my hands and sell by auction I should get no more out of the
transaction.

I am greatly inclined to put some of the money into a piece of land--a
Naboth's vineyard--in front of my house and turn horticulturist. I find
nailing up creepers a delightful occupation.

[In the same letter he describes two meetings with old friends:--]

Last Friday I ran down to Hindhead to see Tyndall. He was very much
better than I hoped to find him, after such a long and serious illness,
quite bright and "Tyndalloid" and not aged as I feared he would
be...The local doctor happened to be there during my visit and spoke
very confidently of his speedy recovery. The leg is all right again,
and he even talks of Switzerland, but I begged Mrs. Tyndall to persuade
him to keep quiet and within reach of home and skilled medical
attendance.

Saturday to Monday we were at Down, after six or seven years'
interruption of our wonted visits. It was very pleasant if rather sad.
Mrs. Darwin is wonderfully well--naturally aged--but quite bright and
cheerful as usual. Old Parslow turned up on Sunday, just eighty, but
still fairly hale. Fuimus fuimus!

[(Parslow was the old butler who had been in Mr. Darwin's service for
many years.)

To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1891.

You dear people must have entered into a conspiracy, as I had letters
from all yesterday. I have never been so set up before, and begin to
think that fathers (like port) must improve in quality with age. (No
irreverent jokes about their getting crusty, Miss.)

Julian and Joyce taken together may perhaps give a faint idea of my
perfections as a child. I have not only a distinct recollection of
being noticed on the score of my good looks, but my mother used to
remind me painfully of them in my later years, looking at me mournfully
and saying, "And you were such a pretty boy!"

[Much as he would have liked to visit the Maloja again this year, the
state of his wife's health forbade such a long journey. He writes just
after his attack of influenza to Sir M. Foster, who had been suffering
in the same way:--]

Hodeslea, May 12, 1891.

My dear Foster,

I was very glad to hear from you. Pray don't get attempting to do
anything before you are
set up again.

I am in a ridiculous state of weakness, and bless my stars that I have
nothing to do. I find it troublesome to do even that.

I wish ballooning had advanced so far as to take people to Maloja, for
I do not think my wife ought to undertake such a journey, and yet I
believe the high air would do us both more good than anything else....

The University of London scheme appears to be coming to grief, as I
never doubted it would.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[So instead of going abroad, he stayed in Eastbourne till the end of
August, receiving a short visit from his old friend Jowett, who, though
sadly enfeebled by age, still persisted in travelling by himself, and a
longer visit from his elder son and his family. But from September 11
to the 26th he and his wife made a trip through the west country,
starting from Salisbury, which had so delighted him the year before,
and proceeding by way of the Wye valley, which they had not visited
since their honeymoon, to Llangollen. The first stage on the return
journey was Chester, whence they made pious pilgrimage to the cradle of
his name, Old Huxley Hall, some nine miles from Chester. Incorporated
with a modern farm-house, and forming the present kitchen, are some
solid stone walls, part of the old manor-house, now no longer belonging
to any one of the name. From here they went to Coventry, where he had
lived as a boy, and found the house which his father had occupied still
standing.

A letter to an old pupil contains reflections upon the years of work to
which he had devoted so much of his energies.]

To Professor T. Jeffery Parker, Otago.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 11, 1891.

My dear Parker,

It is a long time since your letter reached me, but I was so unwise as
to put off answering it until the book arrived and I had read it. The
book did not reach me for a long time, and what with one thing and
another I have but just finished it. I assure you I am very proud of
having my name connected with such a thorough piece of work, no less
than touched by the kindness of the dedication.

Looking back from the aged point of view, the life which cost so much
wear and tear in the living seems to have effected very little, and it
is cheering to be reminded that one has been of some use.

Some years of continued ill-health, involving constant travelling about
in search of better conditions than London affords, and long periods of
prostration, have driven me quite out of touch with science. And indeed
except for a certain toughness of constitution I should have been
driven out of touch with terrestrial things altogether.

It is almost indecent in a man at my time of life who has had two
attacks of pleurisy, followed by a dilated heart, to be not only above
ground but fairly vigorous again. However, I am obliged to mind my P's
and Q's; avoid everything like hard work, and live in good air.

The last condition we have achieved by setting up a house close to the
downs here; and I begin to think with Candide that "cultivons notre
jardin" comprises the whole duty of man.

I was just out of the way of hearing anything about the University
College chair; and indeed, beyond attending the Council of the school
when necessary, and meetings of Trustees of the British Museum, I
rarely go to London.

I have had my innings, and it is now for the younger generation to have
theirs.

With best wishes, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[As for being no longer in touch with the world of science, he says the
same thing in a note to Sir M. Foster, forwarding an inquiry after a
scientific teacher (August 1).]

Please read the enclosed, and if you know of anybody suitable please
send his name to Mr. Thomas.

I have told him that I am out of the way of knowing, and that you are
physiologically omniscient, so don't belie the character!

[This year a number of Huxley's essays were translated into French.
"Nature" for July 23, 1891 (volume 44 page 272),--notes the publication
of "Les Sciences Naturelles et l'Education," with a short preface by
himself, dwelling upon the astonishing advance which had been made in
the recognition of science as an instrument of education, but warning
the younger generation that the battle is only half won, and bidding
them beware of relaxing their efforts before the place of science is
entirely assured. In the issue for December 31 ("Nature" 46 397), is a
notice of "La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature," a re-issue of a
translation of more than twenty years before, together with three
ethnological essays, newly translated by M. H. de Varigny, to whom the
following letters are addressed.]

To H. De Varigny.

May 17, 1891.

I am writing to my publishers to send you "Lay Sermons", "Critiques",
"Science and Culture", and "American Addresses", pray accept them in
expression of my thanks for the pains you are taking about the
translation. "Man's Place in Nature" has been out of print for years,
so I cannot supply it.

I am quite conscious that the condensed and idiomatic English into
which I always try to put my thoughts must present many difficulties to
a translator. But a friend of mine who is a much better French scholar
than I am, and who looked over two or three of the essays, told me he
thought you had been remarkably successful.

The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue,
and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays
half-a-dozen times before I can get them into the proper shape; and I
believe I become more fastidious as I grow older.

November 25, 1891.

I am very glad you have found your task pleasant, for I am afraid it
must have cost you a good deal of trouble to put my ideas into the
excellent French dress with which you have provided them. It fits so
well that I feel almost as if I might be a candidate for a seat among
the immortal forty!

As to the new volume, you shall have the refusal of it if you care to
have it. But I have my doubts about its acceptability to a French
public which I imagine knows little about Bibliolatry and the ways of
Protestant clericalism, and cares less.

These essays represent a controversy which has been going on for five
or six years about Genesis, the deluge, the miracle of the herd of
swine, and the miraculous generally, between Gladstone, the
ecclesiastical principal of King's College, various bishops, the writer
of "Lux Mundi", that spoilt Scotch minister the Duke of Argyll, and
myself.

My object has been to stir up my countrymen to think about these
things; and the only use of controversy is that it appeals to their
love of fighting, and secures their attention.

I shall be very glad to have your book on "Experimental Evolution". I
insisted on the necessity of obtaining experimental proof of the
possibility of obtaining virtually infertile breeds from a common stock
in 1860 (in one of the essays you have translated). Mr. Tegetmeier made
a number of experiments with pigeons some years ago, but could obtain
not the least approximation to infertility.

From the first, I told Darwin this was the weak point of his case from
the point of view of scientific logic. But, in this matter, we are just
where we were thirty years ago, and I am very glad you are going to
call attention to the subject.

Sending a copy of the translation soon after to Sir J. Hooker, he
writes:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 11, 1892.

My dear Hooker,

We have been in the middle of snow for the last four days. I shall not
venture to London, and if you deserve the family title of the
"judicious," I don't think you will either.

I send you by this post a volume of the French translation of a
collection of my essays about Darwinism and Evolution, 1860-76, for
which I have written a brief preface. I was really proud of myself when
I discovered on re-reading them that I had nothing to alter.

What times those days were! Fuimus.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[The same subject of experimental evolution reappears in a letter to
Professor Romanes of April 29. A project was on foot for founding an
institution in which experiments bearing upon the Darwinian theory
could be carried out. After congratulating Professor Romanes upon his
recent election to the Athenaeum Club, he proceeds:--]

In a review of Darwin's "Origin" published in the "Westminster" for
1860 ("Lay Sermons" pages 323-24), you will see that I insisted on the
logical incompleteness of the theory so long as it was not backed by
experimental proof that the cause assumed was competent to produce all
the effects required. (See also "Lectures to Working Men" 1863 pages
146 and 147.) In fact, Darwin used to reproach me sometimes for my
pertinacious insistence on the need of experimental verification.

But I hope you are going to choose some other title than "Institut
transformiste," which implies that the Institute is pledged to a
foregone conclusion, that it is a workshop devoted to the production of
a particular kind of article. Moreover, I should say that as a matter
of prudence, you had better keep clear of the word "experimental."
Would not "Biological Observatory" serve the turn? Of course it does
not exclude experiment any more than "Astronomical Observatory"
excludes spectrum analysis.

Please think over this. My objection to "Transformist" is very strong.

[In August his youngest daughter wrote to him to find out the nature of
various "objects of the seashore" which she had found on the beach in
South Wales. His answers make one wish that there had been more
questions.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 14, 1891.

Dearest Babs,

1. "Ornary" or not "ornary" B is merely A turned upside down and viewed
with the imperfect appreciation of the mere artistic eye!

2. Your little yellow things are, I expect, egg-cases of dog whelks.
You will find a lot of small eggs inside them, one or two of which grow
faster than the rest, and eat up their weaker brothers and sisters.

The dog whelk is common on the shores. If you look for something like
this [sketch of a terrier coming out of a whelk shell], you will be
sure to recognise it.

3. Starfish are NOT born in their proper shape and don't come from your
whitish yellow lumps. The thing that comes out of a starfish egg is
something like this [sketch], and swims about by its cilia. The
starfish proper is formed inside, and it is carried on its back
this-uns.

Finally starfish drops off carrying with it t'other one's stomach, so
that the subsequent proceedings interest t'other one no more.

4. The ropy sand tubes that make a sort of banks and reefs are houses
of worms, that they build up out of sand, shells, and slime. If you
knock a lot to pieces you will find worms inside.

5. Now, how do I know what the rooks eat? But there are a lot of
unconsidered trifles about and if you get a good telescope and watch,
you will have a glimpse as they hover between sand and rooks' beaks.

It has been blowing more or less of a gale here from the west for
weeks--usually cold, often foggy--so that it seems as if summer were
going to be late, probably about November.

But we thrive fairly well. L. and J. and their chicks are here and seem
to stand the inclemency of the weather pretty fairly. The children are
very entertaining.

M-- has been a little complaining, but is as active as usual.

My love to Joyce, and tell her I am glad to hear she has not forgotten
her astronomy.

In answer to your inquiry, Leonard says that Trevenen has twenty-five
teeth. I have a sort of notion this can be hardly accurate, but never
having been a mother can't presume to say.

Our best love to you all.

Ever your loving Pater.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 26, 1891.

Dearest Babs,

'Pears to me your friend is a squid or pen-and-ink fish, Loligo among
the learned. Probably Loligo media which I have taken in that region.
They have ten tentacles with suckers round their heads, two much longer
than the others. They are close to cuttlefish, but have a thin horny
shell inside them instead of the "cuttle-bone." If you can get one by
itself in a tub of water, it is pretty to see how they blush all over
and go pale again, owing to little colour-bags in the skin, which
expand and contract. Doubtless they took you for a heron, under the
circumstances [sketch of a wader].

With slight intervals it has been blowing a gale from the west here for
some months, the memory of man indeed goeth not back to the calm. I
have not been really warm more than two days this so-called summer. And
everybody prophesied we should be roasted alive here in summer.

We are all flourishing, and send our best love to Jack and you. Tell
Joyce the wallflowers have grown quite high in her garden.

Ever your loving Pater.

[Politics are not often touched upon in the letters of this period, but
an extract from a letter of October 25, 1891, is of interest as giving
his reason for supporting a Unionist Government, many of whose
tendencies he was far from sympathising with:--]

The extract from the "Guardian" is wonderful. The Gladstonian
tee-to-tum cannot have many more revolutions to make. The only thing
left for him now, is to turn Agnostic, declare Homer to be an old bloke
of a ballad-monger, and agitate for the prohibition of the study of
Greek in all universities...

It is just because I do not want to see our children involved in civil
war that I postpone all political considerations to keeping up a
Unionist Government.

I may be quite wrong; but right or wrong, it is no question of party.
"Rads delight not me nor Tories neither," as Hamlet does not say.

The following letter to Sir M. Foster shows how little Huxley was now
able to do in the way of public business without being knocked up:--]

Hodeslea, October 20, 1891.

My dear Foster,

If I had known the nature of the proceedings at the College of
Physicians yesterday, I should have braved the tedium of listening to a
lecture I could not hear in order to see you decorated. Clark had made
a point of my going to the dinner [I.e. at the College of Physicians.],
and, worse luck, I had to "say a few words" after it, with the result
that I am entirely washed out to-day, and only able to send you the
feeblest of congratulations.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The same thing appears in the following to Sir W.H. Flower, which is
also interesting for his opinion on the question of promotion by
seniority:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, October 23, 1891.

My dear Flower,

My "next worst thing" was promoting a weak man to a place of
responsibility in lieu of a strong one, on the mere ground of seniority.

Caeteris paribus, or with even approximate equality of qualifications,
no doubt seniority ought to count; but it is mere ruin to any service
to let it interfere with the promotion of men of marked superiority,
especially in the case of offices which involve much responsibility.

I suppose as trustee I may requisition a copy of Woodward's Catalogue.
I should like to look a little more carefully at it...We are none the
worse for our pleasant glimpse of the world (and his wife) at your
house; but I find that speechifying at public dinners is one of the
luxuries that I must utterly deny myself. It will take me three weeks'
quiet to get over my escapade.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.


CHAPTER 3.9.

1892.

The revival of part of the former controversy which he had had with Mr.
Gladstone upon the story of creation, made a warlike beginning of an
otherwise very peaceful year. Since the middle of December a great
correspondence had been going on in the "Times", consequent upon the
famous manifesto of the thirty-eight Anglican clergy touching the
question of inspiration and the infallibility of the Bible. Criticism,
whether "higher" or otherwise, defended on the one side, was
unsparingly denounced on the other. After about a month of this
correspondence, Huxley's name was mentioned as one of these critics;
whereupon he was attacked by one of the disputants for "misleading the
public" by his assertion in the original controversy that while
reptiles appear in the geological record before birds, Genesis affirms
the contrary; the critic declaring that the word for "creeping things"
(rehmes) created on the sixth day, does not refer to reptiles, which
are covered by the "moving creatures" (shehretz) used of the first
appearance of animal life.

It is interesting to see how, in his reply, Huxley took care to keep
the main points at issue separate from the subordinate and unimportant
ones. His answer is broken up into four letters. The first ("Times"
January 26) rehearses the original issue between himself and Mr.
Gladstone; wherein both sides agreed that the creation of the sixth day
included reptiles, so that, formally at least, his position was secure,
though there was also a broader ground of difference to be considered.
Before proceeding further, he asks his critic whether he admits the
existence of the contradiction involved, and if not, to state his
reasons therefor. These reasons were again given on February 1 as the
new interpretation of the two Hebrew words already referred to, an
interpretation, by the way, which makes the same word stand both for
"the vast and various population of the waters" and "for such land
animals as mice, weasels, and lizards, great and small."

On February 3 appeared the second letter, in which, setting aside the
particular form which his argument against Mr. Gladstone had taken, he
described the broad differences between the teachings of Genesis and
the teachings of evolution. He left the minor details as to the
interpretation of the words in dispute, which did not really affect the
main argument, to be dealt with in the next letter of February 4. It
was a question with which he had long been familiar, as twenty years
before he had, at Dr. Kalisch's request, gone over the proofs of his
"Commentary on Leviticus".

The letter of February 3 is as follows:--]

While desirous to waste neither your space nor my own time upon mere
misrepresentations of what I have said elsewhere about the relations
between modern science and the so-called "Mosaic" cosmogony, it seems
needful that I should ask for the opportunity of stating the case once
more, as briefly and fairly as I can.