Immanuel Kant - "The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics"

Owen M. Edwards - "A Short History of Wales"

Charles Kingsley - "The Hermits"

Euripedes - "The Iphigenia in Tauris"

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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




My wife and Nettie, who is on a visit, join with me in best wishes.

Please let me have a line to say how you are--Gladstonianly on a
post-card.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 7, 1888.

My dear Foster,

"Let thy servant's face be white before thee." The obituary of Darwin
went to Rix yesterday! [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society.] It
is not for lack of painstaking if it is not worth much, but I have been
in a bad vein for work of any kind, and I thought I should never get
even this simple matter ended.

I have been bothered with praecordial uneasiness and intermittent pulse
ever since I have been here, and at last I got tired of it and went
home the day before yesterday to get carefully overhauled. Hames tells
me there is weakness and some enlargement of the left ventricle, which
is pretty much what I expected. Luckily the valves are all right.

I am to go and devote myself to coaxing the left ventricle wall to
thicken pro rata--among the mountains, and to have nothing to do with
any public functions or other exciting bedevilments. So the
International Geological Congress will not have the pleasure of seeing
its Honorary President in September. I am disgusted at having to break
an engagement, but I cannot deny that Hames is right. At present the
mere notion of the thing puts me in a funk.

I wish I could get out of the chair of the M.B.A. Also...I know that
you and Evans and Dyer will do your best, but you are all eaten up with
other occupations.

Just turn it over in your mind--there's a dear good fellow--just as if
you hadn't any other occupations.

With which eminently reasonable and unselfish request believe me,

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Bournemouth, April 10, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I send by this post the last--I hope for your sake and for that of the
recording angel--of --. [The "Heathen Deutscheree". A paper of his,
contributed to the Royal Society, had been under revision.] I agree to
all Brady's suggestions.

With all our tinkering I feel inclined to wind up the affair after the
manner of Mr. Shandy's summing up of the discussion about Tristram's
breeches--"And when he has got 'em he'll look a beast in 'em."

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[April 12. To the same:--]

I am quite willing to remain at the M.B.A. till the opening. If Evans
will be President I shall be happy.

-- is a very good man, but you must not expect too much of the
"wild-cat" element, which is so useful in the world, in him.

I am disgusted with myself for letting everything go by the run, but
there is no help for it. The least thing bowls me over just now.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 12, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

I plead not guilty. [In the matter of sending out no notices for a
meeting of the x Club.] It was agreed at the last meeting that there
should be none in April--I suppose by reason of Easter, so I sent no
notice. This is what Frankland told me in his letter of the 2nd.
However, I see you were present, so I can't make it out.

My continual absence makes me a shocking bad Treasurer, and I am sorry
to say that things will be worse instead of better. Ever since this
last pleuritic business I have been troubled with praecordial
uneasiness. [After an account of his symptoms he continues] so I am off
(with my wife) to Switzerland at the end of this month, and shall be
away all the summer. We have not seen the Engadine and Tyrol yet, so we
shall probably make a long circuit. It is a horrid nuisance to be
exiled in this fashion. I have hardly been at home one month in the
last ten. But it is of no use to growl.

Under these circumstances, would you mind looking after the x while I
am away? There is nothing to do but to send the notices on Saturday
previous to the meeting.

I am very grieved to hear about Hirst--though to say truth, the way he
has held out for so long has been a marvel to me. The last news I had
of Spencer was not satisfactory.

Eheu! the "Table Round" is breaking up. It's a great pity; we were such
pleasant fellows, weren't we?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 18, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I am cheered by your liking of the notice of Darwin. I read the "Life
and Letters," and the "Origin," Krause's "Life," and some other things
over again in order to do it. But I have not much go in me, and I was a
scandalous long time pottering over the writing.

I have sent the proof back with a variety of interpolations. I would
have brought the "Spirula" notes down here to see what I could do, but
I felt pretty sure that if I brought two things I should not do one.
Nobody could do anything with it but myself. I will try what I can do
when I go to town. How much time is there before the wind-up of the
Challenger?

We go up to town Monday next, and I am thinking of being off the Monday
following (April 30). I have come to the same conclusion as yourself,
that Glion would be better than Grindelwald. I should like very much to
see you. Just drop me a line to say when you are likely to turn up.

Poor Arnold's death has been a great shock [Matthew Arnold died
suddenly of heart disease at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his
daughter on her return from America.]--rather for his wife than
himself--I mean on her account than his. I have always thought sudden
death to be the best of all for oneself, but under such circumstances
it is terrible for those who are left. Arnold told me years ago that he
had heart disease. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of an
immediate catastrophe in my own case. I should not go abroad if there
were. Imagine the horror of leaving one's wife to fight all the
difficulties of sudden euthanasia in a Swiss hotel! I saw enough of
that two years ago at Arolla.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, April 25, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

All my beautiful Swiss plans are knocked on the head--at any rate for
the present--in favour of horizontality and Digitalis here. The journey
up on Monday demonstrated that travelling, at present, was
impracticable.

Hames is sanguine I shall get right with rest, and I am quite satisfied
with his opinion, but for the sake of my belongings he thinks it right
to have Clark's opinion to fortify him.

It is a bore to be converted into a troublesome invalid even for a few
weeks, but I comfort myself with my usual reflection on the chances of
life, "Lucky it is no worse." Any impatience would have been checked by
what I heard about Moseley this morning--that he has sunk into hopeless
idiocy. A man in the prime of life!

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, May 4, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

Best thanks for your note and queries.

I remember hearing what you say about Darwin's father long ago, I am
not sure from what source. But if you look at page 20 of the "Life and
Letters" you will see that Darwin himself says his father's mind "was
not scientific." I have altered the passage so as to use these exact
words.

I used "malice" rather in the French sense, which is more innocent than
ours, but "irony" would be better if "malice" in any way suggests
malignity. "Chaff" is unfortunately beneath the dignity of a Royal
Society obituary.

I am going to add a short note about Erasmus Darwin's views.

It is a great comfort to me that you like the thing. I am getting
nervous over possible senility--63 to-day, and nothing of your
evergreen ways about me.

I am decidedly mending, chiefly to all appearance by allowing myself to
be stuffed with meat and drink like a Strasburg goose. I am also very
much afraid that abolishing tobacco has had something to do with my
amendment.

But I am mindful of your maxim--keep a tight hold over your doctor.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S. 1.--Can't say I have sacrificed anything to penmanship, and am not
at all sure about lucidity!

P.S. 2.--It is "Friday"--there is a dot over the i--reopened my letter
to crow!

[The following letter to Mr. Spencer is in answer to a note of
condolence on his illness, in which the following passage occurs:--]

I was grieved to hear of so serious an evil as that which [Hirst]
named. It is very depressing to find one's friends as well as one's
self passing more and more into invalid life.

Well, we always have one consolation, such as it is, that we have made
our lives of some service in the world, and that, in fact, we are
suffering from doing too much for our fellows. Such thoughts do not go
far in the way of mitigation, but they are better than nothing.

4 Marlborough Place, May 8, 1888.

My dear Spencer,

I have been on the point of writing to you, but put it off for lack of
anything cheerful to say.

After I had recovered from my pleurisy, I could not think why my
strength did not come back. It turns out that there is some weakness
and dilatation of the heart, but lucky no valvular mischief. I am
condemned to the life of a prize pig--physical and mental idleness, and
corporeal stuffing with meat and drink, and I am certainly improving
under the regimen.

I am told I have a fair chance of getting all right again. But I take
it as a pretty broad hint to be quiet for the rest of my days. At
present I have to be very quiet, and I spend most of my time on my back.

You and I, my dear friend, have had our innings, and carry our bats out
while our side is winning. One could not reasonably ask for more. And
considering the infinite possibilities of physical and moral suffering
which beset us, I, for my part, am well pleased that things are no
worse.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 1, 1888.

My dear Knowles,

I have been living the life of a prize pig for the last six weeks--no
exercise, much meat and drink, and as few manifestations of
intelligence as possible, for the purpose of persuading my heart to
return to its duty.

I am astonished to find that there is a kick left in me--even when your
friend Kropotkin pitches into me without the smallest justification.
Vide 19, June, page 820.

Just look at 19, February, page 168. I say, "AT THE PRESENT TIME, the
produce of the soil does not suffice," etc.

I did not say a word about the capabilities of the soil if, as part and
parcel of a political and social revolution on the grandest scale, we
all took to spade husbandry.

As a matter of fact, I did try to find out a year or two ago, whether
the soil of these islands could, under any circumstances, feed its
present population with wheat. I could not get any definite
information, but I understood Caird to think that it could.

In my argument, however, the question is of no moment. There must be
some limit to the production of food by a given area, and there is none
to population.

What a stimulus vanity is!--nothing but the vain dislike of being
thought in the wrong would have induced me to trouble myself or bore
you with this letter. Bother Kropotkin!

I think his article very interesting and important nevertheless.

I am getting better but very slowly.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply, Mr. Knowles begged him to come to lunch and a quiet talk,
and further suggested, "as an ENTIRELY UNBIASSED person," that he ought
to answer Kropotkin's errors in the "Nineteenth Century," and not only
in a private letter behind his back.

The answer is as follows:--]

4 Marlborough Place, June 3, 1888.

My dear Knowles,

Your invitation is tantalising. I wish I could accept it. But it is now
some six weeks that my excursions have been limited to a daily drive.
The rest of my time I spend on the flat of my back, eating, drinking,
and doing absolutely nothing besides, except taking iron and digitalis.

I meant to have gone abroad a month ago, but it turned out that my
heart was out of order, and though I am getting better, progress is
slow, and I do not suppose I shall get away for some weeks yet.

I have neither brains nor nerves, and the very thought of controversy
puts me in a blue funk!

My doctors prophesy good things, as there is no valvular disease, only
dilatation. But for the present I must subscribe myself (from an
editorial point of view).

Your worthless and useless and bad-hearted friend,

T.H. Huxley.

[The British Association was to meet at Plymouth this year; and Mr.
W.F. Collier (an uncle of John Collier, his son-in-law) invited Huxley
and any friend of his to be his guest at Horrabridge.]

4 Marlborough Place, June 13, 1888.

My dear Mr. Collier,

It would have been a great pleasure to me to be your guest once more,
but the Fates won't have it this time.

Dame Nature has given me a broad hint that I have had my innings, and,
for the rest of my time, must be content to look on at the players.

It is not given to all of us to defy the doctors and go in for a new
lease, as I am glad to hear you are doing. I declare that your open
invitation to any friend of mine is the most touching mark of
confidence I ever received. I am going to send it to my great ally
Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society. I do not know whether
he has made any other arrangements, and I am not quite sure whether he
and his wife are going to Plymouth. But I hope they may be able to
accept, for you will certainly like them, and they will certainly like
you. I will ask him to write directly to you to save time.

With very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I forgot to say that I am mending as fast as I can expect to do.


CHAPTER 3.4.

1888.

[It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up sufficiently by the
doctors for him to start for the Engadine. His first stage was to
Lugano; the second by Menaggio and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to
the Maloja. The summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he
could scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that it was
a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their surprise was the
greater when, after a couple of months, they saw him walking his ten
miles and going up two thousand feet without difficulty. As far as his
heart was concerned, the experiment of sending him to the mountains was
perfectly justified. With returning strength he threw himself once more
into the pursuit of gentians, being especially interested in their
distribution and hybridism, and the possibility of natural hybrids
explaining the apparent connecting links between species. No doubt,
too, he felt some gratification in learning from his friend Mr. (now
Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer, that the results he had already obtained in
pursuing this hobby had been of real value:--

Your important paper "On Alpine Gentians" (writes the latter) has begun
to attract the attention of botanists. It has led Baillon, who is the
most acute of the French people, to make some observations of his own.

At the Maloja he stayed twelve weeks, but it was not until nearly two
months had elapsed that he could write of any decided improvement,
although even then his anticipations for the future were of the
gloomiest. The "secret" alluded to in the following letter is the
destined award to him of the Copley medal:--]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, Ober Engadine, August 17, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I know you will be glad to hear that, at last, I can report favourably
of my progress. The first six weeks of our stay here the weather was
cold, foggy, wet, and windy--in short, everything it should not be. If
the hotel had not been as it is, about the most comfortable in
Switzerland, I do not know what I should have done. As it was, I got a
very bad attack of "liver," which laid me up for ten days or so. A
Brighton doctor--Bluett by name, and well up to his work--kindly looked
after me.

With the early days of August the weather changed for the better, and
for the last fortnight we have had perfect summer--day after day. I
soon picked up my walking power, and one day got up to Lake Longhin,
about 2000 feet up. That was by way of an experiment, and I was none
the worse for it, but usually my walks are of a more modest
description. To-day we are all clouds and rain, and my courage is down
to zero, with praecordial discomfort. It seems to me that my heart is
quite strong enough to do all that can reasonably be required of it--if
all the rest of the machinery is in good order, and the outside
conditions are favourable. But the poor old pump cannot contend with
grit or want of oil anywhere.

I mean to stay here as long as I can; they say it is often very fine up
to the middle of September. Then we shall migrate lower, probably on
the Italian side, and get home most likely in October. But I really am
very much puzzled to know what to do.

My wife has not been very well lately, and Ethel has contrived to
sprain her ankle at lawn-tennis. Collier has had to go to Naples, but
we expect him back in a few days.

With our united love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I was very pleased to hear of a secret my wife communicated to me. So
long as I was of any use, I did not care much about having the fact
recognised, but now that I am used up I like the feather in my cap.
"Fuimus." Let us have some news of you.

[Sir M. Foster, who was kept in England by the British Association till
September 10, wrote that he was going abroad for the rest of September,
and proposed to spend some time at Menaggio, whence he hoped to effect
a meeting. He winds up with a jest at his recent unusual
occupation:--"I have had no end of righteousness accounted to me for
helping to entertain Bishops at Cambridge." Hence the postcript in
reply:--]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 2, 1888.

My dear Foster,

A sharp fall of snow has settled our minds, which have been long
wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel
Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ultimately leave till the
22nd.]

All the wiseacres tell us that there are fresher breezes (vento di
Lecco) at Menaggio than anywhere else in the Como country, and at any
rate we are going to try whether we can exist there. If it does not
answer, we will leave a note for you there to say where we are gone. It
would be very jolly to forgather.

I am sorry to leave this most comfortable of hotels, but I do not think
that cold would suit either of us. I am marvellously well so long as I
am taking sharp exercise, and I do my nine or ten miles without
fatigue. It is only when I am quiet that I know that I have a heart.

I do not feel at all sure how matters may be 4000 feet lower, but what
I have gained is all to the good in the way of general health. In spite
of all the bad weather we have had, I have nothing but praise for this
place--the air is splendid, excellent walks for invalids, capital
drainage, and the easiest to reach of all places 6000 feet up.

My wife sends her love, and thanks Mrs. Foster for her letter, and
looks forward to meeting her.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Wash yourself clean of all that episcopal contamination or you may
infect me!

[But adverse circumstances prevented the meeting.]

Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 24, 1888.

My dear Foster,

As ill luck would have it, we went over to Pontresina to-day (for the
first time), and have only just got back (5.30). I have just
telegraphed to you.

All our plans have been upset by the Fohn wind, which gave us four
days' continuous downpour here--upset the roads, and flooded the
Chiavenna to Colico Railway. We hear that the latter is not yet
repaired.

I was going to write to you at the Vittoria, but thought you could have
hardly got there yet. We took rooms there a week ago, and then had to
countermand them. If there are any letters kicking about for us, will
you ask them to send them on?

By way of an additional complication, my poor wife gave herself an
unlucky strain this morning, and even if the railway is mended I do not
think she will be fit to travel for two or three days. We are very
disappointed. What is to be done?

I am wonderfully better. So long as I am taking active exercise and the
weather is dry, I am quite comfortable, and only discover that I have a
heart when I am kept quiet by bad weather or get my liver out of order.
Here I can walk nine or ten miles up hill and down dale without
difficulty or fatigue. What I may be able to do elsewhere is doubtful.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

It would do you and Mrs. Foster a great deal of good to come up here.
Not out of your way at all! Oh dear no!

Zurich, October 4, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I should have written to you at Stresa, but I had mislaid your
postcard, and it did not turn up till too late.

We made up our minds after all that we would as soon not go down to the
Lakes--where the ground would be drying up after the inundations--so we
went the other way over the Julier to Tiefenkasten, and from T. to
Ragatz, where we stayed a week. Ragatz was hot and steamy at
first--cold and steamy afterwards--but earlier in the season, I should
think, it would be pleasant.

Last Monday we migrated here, and have had the vilest weather until
to-day. All yesterday it rained cats and dogs.

To-day we are off to Neuhausen (Schweitzerhof) to have a look at the
Rhine falls. If it is pleasant we may stop there a few days. Then we go
to Stuttgart, on our way to Nuremberg, which neither of us have seen.
We shall be at the "Bavarian Hotel," and a letter will catch us there,
if you have anything to say, I daresay up to the middle of the month.
After that Frankfort, and then home.

We do not find long railway journeys very good for either of us, and I
am trying to keep within six hours at a stretch.

I am not so vigorous as I was at Maloja, but still infinitely better
than when I left England.

I hope the mosquitoes left something of you in Venice. When I was there
in October there were none!

My wife joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some friendly chaff in Sir M. Foster's reply to the latter contains at
least a real indication of the way in which Huxley became the centre of
the little society at the Maloja:--]

You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service
this summer. At most table d'hotes in the Lakes I overheard people
talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on
account of their intimacy with "Professor Huxley"!!

[But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected
quarter. This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in
Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer,
with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the
critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast
with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English
representatives of that science who came to the hotel.

A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:--]

In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in sunshine I
felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years.
It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was
not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions. Four thousand
feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I
am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return. Quite
certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth. I like the place,
but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.

I should be very glad if we could be within reach of you and help to
cheer you up, but I cannot say anything definite at present about our
winter doings...

My wife sends her kindest regards. She is much better than when we
left, which is lucky for me, as I have no mind, and could not make it
up if I had any. The only vigour I have is in my legs, and that only
when the sun shines.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[A curious incident on this journey deserves recording, as an instance
of a futile "warning." On the night of October 6-7, Huxley woke in the
night and seemed to hear an inward voice say, "Don't go to Stuttgart
and Nuremberg; go straight home." All he did was to make a note of the
occurrence and carry out his original plan, whereupon nothing happened.

The following to his youngest daughter, who had gone back earlier from
the Maloja, refers to her success in winning the prize for modelling at
the Slade School of Art.]

Schweitzerhof, Neuhausen, October 7, 1888.

Dearest Babs,

I will sit to you like "Pater on a monument smiling at grief" for the
medallion. As to the photographs, I will try to get them done to order
either at Stuttgart or Nuremberg, if we stay at either place long
enough. But I am inclined to think they had better be done at home, and
then you could adjust the length of the caoutchouc visage to suit your
artistic convenience.

We have been crowing and flapping our wings over the medal and
trimmings. The only thing I lament is that "your father's influence"
was not brought to bear; there is no telling what you might have got if
it had been. Thoughtless--very!!

So sorry we did not come here instead of stopping at Ragatz. The falls
are really fine, and the surrounding country a wide tableland, with the
great snowy peaks of the Oberland on the horizon. Last evening we had a
brilliant sunset, and the mountains were lighted up with the most
delicate rosy blush you can imagine.