[Hereupon he was allowed six months longer, but with the intimation that no further leave would be granted. A final application from the scientific authorities resulted in fresh inquiries as to the length of time still required, and the deadlock between the two departments of State being unchanged, he replied to the same effect as before, but to no purpose. His formal application for leave in January 1854 was met by orders to join the "Illustrious" at Portsmouth. He appealed to the Admiralty that this appointment might be cancelled, giving a brief summary of the facts, and pointing out that it was the inaction of the Treasury which had absolutely prevented him from completing his work.]

I would therefore respectfully submit that, under these circumstances, my request to be permitted to remain on half-pay until the completion of the publication of the results of some years' toil is not wholly unreasonable. It is the only reward for which I would ask their Lordships, and indeed, considering the distinct pledge given in the minute to which I have referred, to grant it would seem as nearly to concern their Lordships' honour as my advantage.

[The counter to this bold stroke was crushing, if not convincing. He was ordered to join his ship immediately under pain of being struck off the Navy list. He was of course prepared for this ultimatum, and whether he could manage to pursue science in England or might be compelled to set up as a doctor in Sydney, he considered that he would be better off than as an assistant surgeon in the Navy. Accordingly he stood firm, and the threat was carried into effect in March 1854. An unexpected consequence followed. As long as he was in the navy, with direct claims upon a Government department for assistance in publishing his work, the Royal Society had not felt justified in allotting him any part of the Government Grant. But now that he had left the service, this objection was removed, and in June 1854 the sum of 300 pounds sterling was assigned for this purpose, while the remainder of the expense was borne by the Ray Society, which undertook the publication under the title of "Oceanic Hydrozoa." Thus he was able to record with some satisfaction how he at last has got the grant, though indirectly, from the Government, and considers it something of a triumph for the principle of the family motto, tenax propositi.

While these fruitless negotiations with the Admiralty were in progress, he had done a good deal, both in publishing what he could of his "Rattlesnake" work, and in trying to secure some scientific appointment which would enable him to carry out his two chief objects: the one his marriage, the other the unhampered pursuit of science. In addition to the papers sent home from the cruise—one on the Medusae, published in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" for 1849, and one on the Animal of Trigonia, published in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" for the same year—he had reported to the Admiralty in June 1851 the publication of seven memoirs:—

1. On the Auditory Organs of the Crustacea. Published in the "Annals of Natural History."

2. On the Anatomy of the genus Tethea. Published in the "Annals of Natural History."

3. Report upon the Development of the Echinoderms. To appear in the "Annals" for July.

4. On the Anatomy and Physiology of the Salpae, with four plates. Read at the Royal Society, and to be published in the next part of the "Philosophical Transactions."

5. On two Genera of Ascidians, Doliolum and Appendicularia, with one plate. Read at the Royal Society, and to be published in the next part of the "Philosophical Transactions."

6. On some peculiarities in the Circulation of the Mollusca. Sent to M. Milne-Edwards, at his request, to be published in the "Annales des Sciences."

7. On the Generative Organs of the Physophoridae and Diphydae. Sent to Professor Muller of Berlin for publication in his "Archiv."

By the end of the year he had four more to report:—

1. On the Hydrostatic Acalephae; 2. On the genus Sagitta, both published in the "Report of the British Association" for 1851; 3. On Lacinularia socialis, a contribution to the anatomy and physiology of the Rotifera, in the "Transactions of the Microscopical Society" 4. On Thalassicolla, a new zoophyte, in the "Annals of Natural History." Next year he read before the British Association a paper entitled "Researches into the Structure of the Ascidians," and a very important one on the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca, afterwards published in the "Philosophical Transactions." In addition he had prepared a great part of his longer work for publication; out of twenty-four or twenty-five plates, nineteen were ready for the engraver when he wrote his appeal to the Duke of Northumberland. In this same year, 1852, he was also awarded the Royal Medal in Physiology for the value of his contributions to the "Philosophical Transactions."

In 1853, besides seeing some of these papers through the press, he published one on the existence of Cellulose in the Tunic of Ascidians, read before the Microscopical Society, and two papers on the Structure of the Teeth; the latter, of course, like a paper of the previous year on Echinococcus, being distinct from the "Rattlesnake" work. The greater work on Oceanic Hydrozoa, over which the battle of the grant in aid had been waged so long, did not see the light until 1858, when his interest had been diverted from these subjects, and to return to them was more a burden than a pleasure.

In the second place, the years 1851-53, so full of profitless successes in pure science, and delusive hopes held out by the Government, were marked by an equally unsuccessful series of attempts to obtain a professorship. If a chair of Natural History had been established, as he hoped, in the projected university at Sydney, he would gladly have stood for it. Sydney was a second home to him; he would have been backed by the great influence of Macleay; and in his eyes a naturalist could not desire a finer field for his labours than the waters of Port Jackson. But this was not to be, and the first chair he tried for was the newly-instituted chair of Zoology at the University of Toronto. The vacancy was advertised in the summer of 1851; the pay of full 300 pounds sterling a year was enough to marry on; his friends reassured him as to his capacity to fill the post, which, moreover, did not debar him from the hope of returning some day to fill a similar post in England.]

1 Edward Street, St. John's Wood Terrace,

July 29 [1851].

My dear Henfrey,

I have been detained in town, or I hope we should long since have had our projected excursion.

What do you think of my looking out for a Professorship of Natural History at Toronto? Pay 350 pounds sterling, with chances of extra fees. I think that out there one might live comfortably upon that sum—possibly even do the domestic and cultivate the Loves and Graces as well as the Muses.

Seriously, however, I should like to know what you think of it. The choice of getting anything over here without devoting one's self wholly to Mammon, seems to me very small. At least it involves years of waiting.

Toronto is not very much out of the way, and the pay is decent and would enable me to devote myself wholly to my favourite pursuits. Were it in England, I could wish nothing better; and, as it is, I think it would answer my purpose very well for some years at any rate.

If they go fairly to work I think I shall have a very good chance of being elected; but I am told that these matters are often determined by petty intrigues.

Francis and I looked for you everywhere at the Botanic Gardens, and finding you were too wise to come, came here, grieving your absence, and had an aesthetic "Bier." [(Dr. William Francis, one of the editors of the "Philosophical Magazine," and a member of the publishing firm of Taylor and Francis.)

He obtained a remarkably strong set of testimonials from all the leading anatomists and physiologists in the kingdom, as well as one from Milne-Edwards in Paris.

I have put together [he writes] twelve or fourteen testimonials from the first men. I will have no other.

[His newly-obtained F.R.S. was a recommendation in itself. So that he writes:—]

There are, I learn, several other candidates, but no one I fear at all, if they only have fair play. There is no one of the others who can command anything like the scientific influence which is being exercised for me, whatever private influence they may have.

What makes all the big-wigs so marvellously zealous on my behalf I know not. I have sought none of them and flattered none of them, that I can say with a good conscience, and I think you know me well enough to believe it. I feel very grateful to them; and if it ever happens that I am able to help a young man on (when I am a big-wig myself!) I shall remember it.

[And again, September 23, 1851:—]

When I have once sent away my testimonials and done all that is to be done, I shall banish the subject from my mind and make myself quite easy as to results. For the present I confess to being somewhat anxious.

[Nevertheless, after many postponements, a near relative of an influential Canadian politician was at length appointed late in 1853. By an amusing coincidence, Huxley's newly-made friend, Tyndall, was likewise a candidate for a chair at Toronto, and likewise rejected. Two letters, concerning Tyndall's election to the Royal Society, contain references both to Toronto and to Sydney.]

4 Upper York Place, St. John's Wood

December 4 [1851].

My dear Sir,

I was greatly rejoiced to find I could be of service to you in any way, and I only regret, for your sake, that my name is not a more weighty one. Your election, I should think, can be a matter of no doubt.

As to Toronto, I confess I am not very anxious about it. Sydney would have been far more to my taste, and I confess I envy you what, as I hear, is the very good chance you have of going there.

It used to be our headquarters in the "Rattlesnake" and my home for three months in the year. Should you go, I should be very happy, if you like, to give you letters to some of my friends.

Greatly as I wish we had been destined to do our work together, I cannot but offer you the most hearty wishes for your success in Sydney.

Ever yours very faithfully,

Thomas H. Huxley.

John Tyndall, Esq.

41 North Bank, Regent's Park,

May 7, 1852.

My dear Tyndall,

Allow me to be one of the first to have the pleasure of congratulating you on your new honours. I had the satisfaction last night to hear your name read out as one of the selected of the Council of the Royal Society for election to the Fellowship this year, and you are therefore as good as elected.

I always made sure of your success, but I am not the less pleased that it is now a fait accompli.

I am, my dear Tyndall, faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.—I have heard nothing of Toronto, and I begin to think that the whole affair, University and all, is a myth.

[His hopes of the Colonies failing, he tried each of the divisions of the United Kingdom in turn, with uniform ill-success; in 1852-53 at Aberdeen and at Cork; in 1853 at King's College, London. He had great hopes of Aberdeen at first; the appointment lay with the Home Secretary, a personal friend of Sir J. Clark, who was interested in Huxley though not personally acquainted with him. But no sooner had he written to urge the latter's claims than a change of ministry took place, and other influences commanded the field. It was cold comfort that Clark told him only to wait—something must turn up. There was still a great probability of the Toronto chair falling to a Cork professor; so with this in view, he gave up a trip to Chamounix with his brother, and attended the meeting of the British Association at Belfast in August 1852, in order to make himself known to the Irish men of science, for, as his friends told him, personal influence went for so much, and while most men's reputations were better than themselves, he might flatter himself that he was better than his reputation. But this, too, came to nothing, and the King's College appointment also went to the candidate who was backed by the most powerful influence.

A fatality seemed to dog his efforts; nevertheless he writes at the end of 1851:—]

Among my scientific friends the monition I get on all sides is that of Dante's great ancestor to him—

A te sequi la tua stella.

If this were from personal friends only, I should disregard it; but it comes from men to whose approbation it would be foolish affectation to deny the highest value. I find myself treated on a footing of equality ("my proud self," as you may suppose, would not put up with any other) by men whose names and works have been long before the world. My opinions are treated with a respect altogether unaccountable to me, and what I have done is quoted as having full authority. Without canvassing a soul or making use of any influence, I have been elected into the Royal Society at a time when that election is more difficult than it has ever been in the history of the Society. Without my knowledge I was within an ace of getting the Royal Society medal this year, and if I go on I shall very probably get it next time.

[In 1852 he was not only to receive this coveted honour (See Chapter 7.), but also to be elected upon the Royal Society Council. In January 1852, when standing for Toronto, he describes how Colonel Sabine, then Secretary of the Royal Society, dissuaded him from the project, saying that a brilliant prospect lay before him if he would only wait.]

"Make up your mind to get something fairly within your reach, and you will have us all with you." Professor Owen again offers to do anything in his power for me; Professor Forbes will move heaven and earth for me if he can; Gray, Bell, and all the leading men are, I know, similarly inclined. Fate says wait, and you shall reach the goal which from a child you have set before yourself. On the other hand, a small voice like conscience speaks of one who is wasting youth and life away for your sake.

[Other friends, who, while recognising his general capacities, were not scientific, and had no direct appreciation of his superlative powers in science, thought he was following a course which would never allow him to marry, and urged him to give up his unequal battle with fate, and emigrate to Australia. Of this he writes on August 5, 1852, to Miss Heathorn:—]

I must make up my mind to it if nothing turns up. However, I look upon such a life as would await me in Australia with great misgiving. A life spent in a routine employment, with no excitement and no occupation for the higher powers of the intellect, with its great aspirations stifled and all the great problems of existence set hopelessly in the background, offers to me a prospect that would be utterly intolerable but for your love...Sometimes I am half mad with the notion of bringing all my powers in a surer struggle for a livelihood. Sometimes I am equally wild at thinking of the long weary while that has passed since we met. There are times when I cannot bear to think of leaving my present pursuits, when I feel I should be guilty of a piece of cowardly desertion from my duty in doing it, and there come intervals when I would give truth and science and all hopes to be folded in your arms...I know which course is right, but I never know which I may follow; help me...for there is only one course in which there is either hope or peace for me.

[These repeated disappointments deepened the fits of depression which constantly assailed him. He was torn by two opposing thoughts. Was it just, was it right, to demand so great a sacrifice from the woman who had entrusted her future to the uncertain chances of his fortunes? Could he ask her to go on offering up the best years of her life to aspirations of his which were possibly chimerical, or perhaps merely selfishness in disguise, which ought to yield to more imperative duties? Why not clip the wings of Pegasus, and descend to the sober, everyday jog-trot after plain bread and cheese like other plain people? Time after time he almost made up his mind to throw science to the winds; to emigrate and establish a practice in Sydney; to try even squatting or storekeeping. And yet he knew only too well that with his temperament no life would bring him the remotest approach to lasting happiness and satisfaction except one that gave scope to his intellectual passion. To yield to the immediate pressure of circumstances was perhaps ignoble, was even more probably a surer road to the loss of happiness for himself and for his wife than the repeated and painful sacrifices of the present. With all this, however, and the more when assured of her entire confidence in his judgment, he could not but feel a sense of remorse that she willingly accepted the sacrifice, and feared that she might have done so rather to gratify his wishes than because reason approved it as the right course to follow.

Here is another typical extract from his correspondence. Hearing that Toronto is likely to go to a relative of a Canadian minister, he writes, January 2, 1852:—]

I think of all my dreams and aspirations, and of the path which I know lies before me if I can only bide my time, and it seems a sin and a shameful thing to allow my resolve to be turned; and then comes the mocking suspicion, is this fine abstract duty of yours anything but a subtlety of your own selfishness? Have you not other more imperative duties?

You may fancy whether my life is a very happy one thus spent without even the satisfaction of the sense of right-doing. I must come to some resolution about it, and that shortly. I was talking seriously with Fanning the other night about the possibility of finding some employment of a profitable kind in Australia, storekeeping, squatting, or the like. As I told him, any change in my mode of life must be TOTAL. If I am to change at all, the change must be total and complete. I will not attempt my own profession. I should only be led astray to think and to work as of old, and sigh continually for my old dear and intoxicating pursuits. I wish I understood Brewing, and I would make a proposition to come and help your father. You may smile, but I am as serious as ever I was in my life.

[The distance between them made it doubly difficult to keep in touch with one another, when the post took from four and a half to five or even six months to reach England from Australia. The answer to a letter would come when the matter in question was long done with. The assurance that he was doing right at one moment seemed inadequate when circumstances had altered and hope sunk lower. It was all too easy to suspect that she did not understand his aims, his thirst for action, nor the fact that he was no longer free to do as he liked, whether to stay in the navy, to go into practice, or follow his own pursuits and pleasure. Yet it made him despair to be so hedged in by circumstances. With all his efforts, he seemed as though he had done nothing but earn the reputation of being a very promising young man. How much easier to continue the struggle if he could but have seen her face to face, and read her thoughts as to whether he were right or wrong in the course he was pursuing. He appeals to her faith that he is choosing the nobler path in pursuing knowledge, than in turning aside to the temptation of throwing it up for the sake of their speedier union. Still she was right in claiming a share in his work; but for her his life would have been wasted.

The clouds gathered very thickly about him when in April 1852 his mother died, while his father was hopelessly ill.] "Belief and happiness," [he writes,] "seem to be beyond the reach of thinking men in these days, but courage and silence are left." [Again the clouds lifted, for in October he received Miss Heathorn's] "noble and self-sacrificing letter, which has given me more comfort than anything for a long while," [the keynote of which was that a man should pursue those things for which he is most fitted, let them be what they will. He now felt free to tell the vicissitudes of thought and will he had passed through this twelvemonth, and how the idea of giving up all had affected him.] "The spectre of a wasted life has passed before me—a vision of that servant who hid his talent in a napkin and buried it."

[Early in 1853 he writes how much he was cheered by his sister's advice and encouragement to persist in the struggle; but the darkest moment was still to come. His hopes from his candidature crumbled away one after the other; his leave from the Admiralty was coming to an end, and there was small hope of renewing it; the grant from Government remained as unattainable as ever; the long struggle had taught him the full extent of his powers only, it seemed, to end by denying him all opportunity for their use.]

And so the card house I have been so laboriously building up these two years with all manner of hard struggling will be tumbled down again, and my small light will be ignominiously snuffed out like that of better men...I can submit if the fates are too strong. The world is no better than an arena of gladiators, and I, a stray savage, have been turned into it to fight my way with my rude club among the steel-clad fighters. Well, I have won my way into the front rank, and ought to be thankful and deem it only the natural order of things if I can get no further.

[And again in a letter of July 6, 1853:—]

I know that these three years have inconceivably altered me—that from being an idle man, only too happy to flow into the humours of the moment, I have become almost unable to exist without active intellectual excitement. I know that in this I find peace and rest such as I can attain in no other way. From being a mere untried fledgling, doubtful whether the wish to fly proceeded from mere presumption or from budding wings, I have now some confidence in well-tried pinions, which have given me rank among the strongest and foremost. I have always felt how difficult it was for you to realise all this—how strange it must be to you that though your image remained as bright as ever, new interests and purposes had ranged themselves around it, and though they could claim no pre-eminence, yet demanded their share of my thoughts. I make no apology for this—it is man's nature and the necessary influence of circumstances which will so have it; and depend, however painful our present separation may be, the spectacle of a man who had given up the cherished purpose of his life, the Esau who had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage and with it his self-respect, would before long years were over our heads be infinitely more painful. Depend upon it, the trust which you placed in my hands when I left you—to choose for both of us—has not been abused. Hemmed in by all sorts of difficulties, my choice was a narrow one, and I was guided more by circumstances than my own free will. Nevertheless the path has shown itself to be a fair one, neither more difficult nor less so than most paths in life in which a man of energy may hope to do much if he believes in himself, and is at peace within.

My course in life is taken. I will NOT leave London—I WILL make myself a name and a position as well as an income by some kind of pursuit connected with science, which is the thing for which nature has fitted me if she has ever fitted any one for anything. Bethink yourself whether you can cast aside all repining and all doubt, and devote yourself in patience and trust to helping me along my path as no one else could. I know what I ask, and the sacrifice I demand, and if this were the time to use false modesty, I should say how little I have to offer in return...

I am full of faults, but I am real and true, and the whole devotion of an earnest soul cannot be overprized.

...It is as if all that old life at Holmwood had merely been a preparation for the real life of our love—as if we were then children ignorant of life's real purpose—as if these last months had merely been my old doubts over again, whether I had rightly or wrongly interpreted the manner and the words that had given me hope...

We will begin the new love of woman and man, no longer that of boy and girl, conscious that we have aims and purposes as well as affections, and that if love is sweet life is dreadfully stern and earnest.

[As time went on and no permanency offered—although a good deal of writing fell in his way—the strain told heavily upon him. In the autumn he was quite out of sorts, body and mind, more at war with himself than he ever was in his life before. All this, he writes, had darkened his thoughts, had made him once more imagine a hopeless discrepancy between the two of them in their ways of thinking and objects in life. It was not till November 1853 that this depression was banished by the trust and confidence of her last letter.] "I wish to Heaven," [he writes,] "it had reached me six months ago. It would have saved me a world of pain and error." [But with this, the worst period of mental suffering was over, and every haunting doubt was finally exorcised. His career was made possible by the steady faith which neither separation nor any misgiving nor its own troubles could shake. And from this point all things began to brighten. His health had been restored by a trip to the Pyrenees with his brother George in September. He had got work that enabled him to regard the Admiralty and its menaces with complete equanimity; a "Manual of Comparative Anatomy," for Churchhill the publisher, regular work on the "Westminster," and another book in prospect,] "so that if I quit the Service to-morrow, these will give me more than my pay has been." [(This regular work was the article on Contemporary Science, which in October 1854 he got Tyndall to share with him. For, he writes,] "To give some account of the books in one's own department is no particular trouble, and comes with me under the head of being paid for what I MUST, in any case, do—but I neither will, nor can, go on writing about books in other departments, of which I am not competent to form a judgment even if I had the time to give to them.") [And on December 7 he writes how he has been restored and revived by reading over her last two letters, and confesses,] "I have been unjust to the depth and strength of your devotion, but will never do so again." [Then he tells all he had gone through before leaving England in September for his holiday—how he had resolved to abandon all his special pursuits and take up Chemistry, for practical purposes, when first one publisher and then another asked him to write for them, and hopes were held out to him of being appointed to deliver the Fullerian lectures at the Royal Institution for the next three years; while, most important of all, Edward Forbes was likely before long, to leave his post at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he had already been spoken to by the authorities about filling it. This was worth some 200 pounds sterling a year, while he calculated to make about 250 pounds sterling by his pen alone.] "Therefore it would be absurd to go hunting for chemical birds in the bush when I have such in the hand."

CHAPTER 1.7.

1851-1853.

[Several letters dating from 1851 to 1853 help to fill up the outlines of Huxley's life during those three years of struggle. There is a description of the British Association meeting at Ipswich in 1851] ("Forbes advises me to go down to the meeting of the British Association this year and make myself notorious somehow or other. Thank Heaven I have impudence enough to lecture the savans of Europe if necessary. Can you imagine me holding forth?" [June 6, 1851.]), with the traditional touch of gaiety to enliven the gravity of its proceedings, and the unconventional jollity of the Red Lion Club (a dining-club of members of the Association), whose palmy days were those under the inspiration of the genial and gifted Forbes. This was the meeting at which Huxley first began his alliance with Tyndall, with whom he travelled down from town, although he does not mention his name in this letter. With Hooker he had already made acquaintance; and from this time forwards the three were closely bound together by personal regard as well as by similarity of aims and interests.

Then follow his sketch of the English scientific world as he found it in 1851, given in his letter to W. Macleay; several letters to his sister; the description of his first lecture at the Royal Institution, which, though successful on the whole, was very different in manner and delivery from the clear and even flow of his later style, with the voice not loud but distinct, the utterance never hurried beyond the point of immediate comprehension, but carrying the attention of the audience with it, eager to the end. Two letters of warning and remonstrance against the habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, suitable to a knot of students gathered round his table, but not to a large audience—of running his words, especially technical terms, together—of pouring out new and unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed, were addressed to him—one by a "working man" of his Monday evening audience at Jermyn Street in 1855, the other, undated, by Mr. Jodrell, a frequenter of the Royal Institution, and afterwards founder of the Jodrell Lectureships at University College, London, and other benefactions to science, and these he kept by him as a perpetual reminder, labelled "Good Advice." How much can be done by the frank acceptance of criticism and by careful practice is shown by the difference between the feelings of the later audiences who flocked to his lectures, and those of the members of an Institute in St. John's Wood, who, as he often used to tell, after hearing him in his early days, petitioned "not to have that young man again."]

July 12, 1851.

The interval between my letters has been a little longer than usual, as I have been very busy attending the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich. The last time I attended one was at Southampton five years ago, when I went merely as a spectator, and looked at the people who read papers as if they were somebodies. (See Chapter 2, ad fin.) This time I have been behind the scenes myself and have played out my little part on the boards. I know all about the scenery and decorations, and no longer think the manager a wizard.

Any one who conceives that I went down from any especial interest in the progress of science makes a great mistake. My journey was altogether a matter of policy, partly for the purpose of doing a little necessary trumpeting, and partly to get the assistance of the Association in influencing the Government.

On the journey down, my opposite in the railway carriage turned out to be Sir James Ross, the Antarctic discoverer. We had some very pleasant talk together. I knew all about him, as Dayman (one of the lieutenants of the "Rattlesnake") had sailed under his command; oddly enough we afterwards went to lodge at the same house, but as we were attending our respective sections all day we did not see much of one another.

When we arrived at Ipswich there was a good deal of trouble about getting lodgings. My companions located themselves about a mile out of the town, but that was too far for my "indolent habits"; I sought and at last found a room in the town a little bigger than my cabin on board ship for which I had the satisfaction of paying 30 shillings a week.

You know what the British Association is. It is a meeting of the savans of England and the Continent, under the presidency of some big-wig or other,—this year of the Astronomer-Royal,—for the purpose of exchanging information. To this end they arrange themselves into different sections, each with its own president and committee, and indicated by letters. For instance, Section A is for Mathematics and Physics; Section B for Chemistry, etc.; my own section, that of Natural History, was D, under the presidency of Professor Henslow of Cambridge. I was on the committee, and therefore saw the working of the whole affair.

On the first day there was a dearth of matter in our section. People had not arrived with their papers. So by way of finding out whether I could speak in public or not, I got up and talked to them for about twenty minutes. I was considerably surprised to find that when once I had made the plunge, my tongue went glibly enough.

On the following day I read a long paper, which I had prepared and illustrated with a lot of big diagrams, to an audience of about twenty people! The rest were all away after Prince Albert, who had been unfortunately induced to visit the meeting, and fairly turned the heads of the good people of Ipswich. On Saturday a very pleasant excursion on scientific pretences, but in fact a most jolly and unscientific picnic, took place. Several hundred people went down the Orwell in a steamer. The majority returned, but I and two others, considering Sunday in Ipswich an impossibility, stopped at a little seaside village, Felixstowe, and idled away our time there very pleasantly. Babington the botanist and myself walked into Ipswich on Sunday night. It is about eleven miles, and we did it comfortably in two hours and three quarters, which was not bad walking.

On Monday at Section D again. Forbes brought forward the subject of my application to Government in committee, and it was unanimously agreed to forward a resolution on the subject to the Committee of Recommendations. I made a speechification of some length in the Section about a new animal.

On Thursday morning I attended a meeting of the Ray Society, and to my infinite astonishment, the secretary, Dr. Lankester, gave me the second motion to make. The Prince of Casino moved the first, so I was in good company. The great absurdity of it was that not being a member of the Society I had properly no right to speak at all. However, it was only a vote of thanks, and I got up and did the "neat and appropriate" in style.

After this a party of us went out dredging in the Orwell in a small boat. We were away all day, and it rained hard coming back, so that I got wet through, and had to pull five miles to keep off my enemy, the rheumatics.

Then came the President's dinner, to which I did not go, as I preferred making myself comfortable with a few friends elsewhere. And after that, the final evening meeting, when all the final determinations are announced.

Among them I had the satisfaction to hear that it was resolved—that the President and Council of the British Association should co-operate with the Royal Society in representing the value and importance, etc., of Mr. T.H. Huxley's zoological researches to Her Majesty's Government for the purpose of obtaining a grant towards their publication. Subsequently I was introduced to Colonel Sabine, the President of the Association in 1852, and a man of very high standing and considerable influence. He had previously been civil enough to sign my certificate at the Royal Society, unsolicited, and therefore knew me by reputation—I only mean that as a very small word. He was very civil and promised me every assistance in his power.

It is a curious thing that of the four applications to Government to be made by the Association, two were for Naval Assistant-Surgeons, namely one for Dr. Hooker, who had just returned from the Himalaya Mountains, and one for me. How I envied Hooker; he has long been engaged to a daughter of Professor Henslow's, and at this very meeting he sat by her side. He is going to be married in a day or two. His father is director of the Kew Gardens, and there is little doubt of his succeeding him.

Whether the Government accede to the demand that will be made upon them or not, I can now rest satisfied that no means of influencing them has been left unused by me. If they will not listen to the conjoint recommendations of the Royal Society and the British Association, they will listen to nothing...

July 16, 1851.

I went yesterday to dine with Colonel Sabine. We had a long discourse about the prospects and probable means of existence of young men trying to make their way to an existence in the scientific world. I took, as indeed what I have seen has forced me to take, rather the despairing side of the question, and said that as it seemed to me England did not afford even the means of existence to young men who were willing to devote themselves to science. However, he spoke cheeringly, and advised me by no means to be hasty, but to wait, and he doubted not that I should succeed. He cited his own case as an instance of waiting, eventually successful. Altogether I felt the better for what he said...

There has been a notice of me in the "Literary Gazette" for last week, much more laudatory than I deserve, from the pen of my friend Forbes. [An appreciation of his papers on the Physophoridae and Sagitta, speaking highly both of his observations and philosophic power, in the report of the proceedings in Section D.]

In the same number is a rich song from the same fertile and versatile pen, which was sung at one of our Red Lion meetings. That is why I want you to look at it, not that you will understand it, because it is full of allusions to occurrences known only in the scientific circles. At Ipswich we had a grand Red Lion meeting; about forty members were present, and among them some of the most distinguished members of the Association. Some foreigners were invited (the Prince of Casino, Buonaparte's nephew, among others), and were not a little astonished to see the grave professors, whose English solemnity and gravity they had doubtless commented on elsewhere, giving themselves up to all sorts of fun. Among the Red Lions we have a custom (instead of cheering) of waving and wagging one coat-tail (one Lion's tail) when we applaud. This seemed to strike the Prince's fancy amazingly, and when he got up to return thanks for his health being drunk, he told us that as he was rather out of practice in speaking English, he would return thanks in our fashion, and therewith he gave three mighty roars and wags, to the no small amusement of every one. He is singularly like the portraits of his uncle, and seems a very jolly, good-humoured old fellow. I believe, however, he is a bit of a rip. It was remarkable how proud the Quakers were of being noticed by him.

To W. Macleay, of Sydney.

41 North Bank, Regent's Park, November 9, 1851.

My dear Sir,

It is a year to-day since the old "Rattlesnake" was paid off, and that reminds me among other things that I have hardly kept my promise of giving you information now and then upon the state of matters scientific in England. My last letter is, I am afraid, nine or ten months old, but here in England the fighting and scratching to keep your place in the crowd exclude almost all other thoughts. When I last wrote I was but at the edge of the crush at the pit-door of this great fools' theatre—now I have worked my way into it and through it, and am, I hope, not far from the check-takers. I have learnt a good deal in my passage.

[Follows an account of his efforts to get his papers published—substantially a repetition of what has already been given.]

Rumours there are scattered abroad of a favourable cast, and I am told on all hands that something will certainly be done. I only asked for 300 pounds sterling, something less than the cost of a parliamentary blue-book which nobody ever hears of. They take care to obliterate any spark of gratitude that might perchance arise for what they do, by keeping one so long in suspense that the result becomes almost a matter of indifference. Had I known they would keep me so long, I would have published my work as a series of papers in the "Philosophical Transactions."

In the meanwhile I have not been idle, as I hope to show you by the various papers enclosed with this. You will recollect that on the Salpae. No one here knew anything about them, and I thought that all my results were absolutely new—until, me miserum! I found them in a little paper of Krohn's in the "Annales des Sciences" for 1846, without any figures to draw anybody's attention.

The memoir on the Medusae (which I sent to you) has, I hear, just escaped a high honour—to wit, the Royal Medal. The award has been made to Newport for his paper on "Impregnation." I had no idea that anything I had done was likely to have the slightest claim to such distinction, but I was informed yesterday by one of the Council that the balance hung pretty evenly, and was only decided by their thinking my memoir was too small and short.

I have been working in all things with a reference to wide views of zoological philosophy, and the report upon the Echinoderms is intended in common with the mem. on the Salpae to explain my views of Individuality among the lower animals—views which I mean to illustrate still further and enunciate still more clearly in my book that is to be. [He lectured on this subject at the Royal Institution in 1852.] They have met with approval from Carpenter, as you will see by the last edition of his "Principles of Physiology," and I think that Forbes and some others will be very likely eventually to come round to them, but everything that relates to abstract thought is at a low ebb among the mass of naturalists in this country.

In the paper upon "Thalassicolla," and in that which I read before the British Association, as also in one upon the organisation of the Rotifera, which I am going to have published in the Microscopical Society's "Transactions," I have been driving in a series of wedges into Cuvier's Radiata, and showing how selon moi they ought to be distributed.

I am every day becoming more and more certain that you were on the right track thirty years ago in your views of the order and symmetry to be traced in the true natural system.

During the next session I mean to send in a paper to the Royal Society upon the "Homologies of the Mollusca," which shall astonish them. I want to get done for the Mollusca what Savigny did for the Articulata, namely to show how they all—Cephalopoda, Gasteropoda, Pteropoda, Heteropoda, etc.—are organised in each. What with this and the book, I shall have enough to do for the next six months.

You will doubtless ask what is the practical outlook of all this? whether it leads anywhere in the direction of bread and cheese? To this also I can give a tolerably satisfactory answer.

As you WON'T have a Professor of Natural History at Sydney—to my great sorrow—I have gone in as a candidate for a Professorial chair at the other end of the world, Toronto in Canada. In England there is nothing to be done—it is the most hopeless prospect I know of; of course the Service offers nothing for me except irretrievable waste of time, and the scientific appointments are so few and so poor that they are not tempting...

Had the Sydney University been carried out as originally proposed, I should certainly have become a candidate for the Natural History Chair. I know no finer field for exertion for any naturalist than Sydney Harbour itself. Should such a Professorship be hereafter established, I trust you will jog the memory of my Australian friends in my behalf. I have finally decided that my vocation is science, and I have made up my mind to the comparative poverty which is its necessary adjunct, and to the no less certain seclusion from the ordinary pleasures and rewards of men. I say this without the slightest idea that there is anything to be enthusiastic about in either science or its professors. A year behind the scenes is quite enough to disabuse one of all rose-pink illusions.

But it is equally clear to me that for a man of my temperament, at any rate, the sole secret of getting through this life with anything like contentment is to have full scope for the development of one's faculties. Science alone seems to me to afford this scope—Law, Divinity, Physic, and Politics being in a state of chaotic vibration between utter humbug and utter scepticism.

There is a great stir in the scientific world at present about who is to occupy Konig's place at the British Museum, and whether the whole establishment had better not, quoad Zoology, be remodelled and placed under Owen's superintendence. The heart-burnings and jealousies about this matter are beyond all conception. Owen is both feared and hated, and it is predicted that if Gray and he come to be officers of the same institution, in a year or two the total result will be a caudal vertebra of each remaining after the manner of the Kilkenny cats.

However, I heard yesterday, upon what professed to be very good authority, that Owen would not leave the College under any circumstances.

It is astonishing with what an intense feeling of hatred Owen is regarded by the majority of his contemporaries, with Mantell as arch-hater. The truth is, he is the superior of most, and does not conceal that he knows it, and it must be confessed that he does some very ill-natured tricks now and then. A striking specimen of one is to be found in his article on Lyell in the last Quarterly, where he pillories poor Quekett—a most inoffensive man and his own immediate subordinate—in a manner not more remarkable for its severity than for its bad taste. That review has done him much harm in the estimation of thinking men—and curiously enough, since it was written, reptiles have been found in the old red sandstone, and insectivorous mammals in the Trias! Owen is an able man, but to my mind not so great as he thinks himself. He can only work in the concrete from bone to bone, in abstract reasoning he becomes lost—witness "Parthenogenesis" which he told me he considered one of the best things he had done!

He has, however, been very civil to me, and I am as grateful as it is possible to be towards a man with whom I feel it necessary to be always on my guard.

Quite another being is the other leader of Zoological Science in this country—I mean Edward Forbes, Paleontologist to the Geological Survey. More especially a Zoologist and a Geologist than a Comparative Anatomist, he has more claims to the title of a Philosophic Naturalist than any man I know of in England. A man of letters and an artist, he has not merged the MAN in the man of science—he has sympathies for all, and an earnest, truth-seeking, thoroughly genial disposition which win for him your affection as well as your respect. Forbes has more influence by his personal weight and example upon the rising generation of scientific naturalists than Owen will have if he write from now till Doomsday.

Personally I am greatly indebted to him (though the opinion I have just expressed is that of the world in general). During my absence he superintended the publication of my paper, and from the moment of my arrival until now he has given me all the help one man can give another. Why he should have done so I do not know, as when I left England I had only spoken to him once.

The rest of the naturalists stand far below these two in learning, originality, and grasp of mind. Goodsir of Edinburgh should I suppose come next, but he can't write intelligibly. Darwin might be anything if he had good health. Bell is a good man in all the senses of the word, but wants qualities 2 and 3. Newport is a laborious man, but wants 1 and 3. Grant and Rymer Jones—arcades ambo—have mistaken their vocation.

My old chief Richardson is a man of men, but troubles himself little with anything but detail zoology. What think you of his getting married for the third time just before his last expedition? I hardly know by which step he approved himself the bolder man.

I think I have now fulfilled my promise of supplying you with a little scientific scandal—and if this long epistle has repaid your trouble in getting through it, I am content.

Believe me, I have not forgotten, nor ever shall forget, your kindness to me at a time when a little appreciation and encouragement were more grateful to me and of more service than they will perhaps ever be again. I have done my best to justify you.

I send copies of all the papers I have published with one exception, of which I have none separate. Of the Royal Society papers I send a double set. Will you be kind enough to give one with my kind regards and remembrances to Dr. Nicholson? I feel I ought to have written to him before leaving Sydney, but I trust he will excuse my not having done so.

I shall be very glad if you can find time to write.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

W. Macleay, Esq.

P.S.—Muller has just made a most extraordinary discovery, no less than the generation of Molluscs from Holothuriae!!! You will find a translation of his paper by me in the "Annals" for January 1852.

December 13, 1851.

[To his sister.]

May 20, 1851.

...Owen has been amazingly civil to me, and it was through his writing to the First Lord that I got my present appointment. He is a queer fish, more odd in appearance than ever...and more bland in manner. He is so frightfully polite that I never feel thoroughly at home with him. He got me to furnish him with some notes for the second edition of the "Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry," and I find that in it Darwin and I (comparisons are odious) figure as joint authorities on some microscopic matters!!

Professor Forbes, however, is my great ally, a first-rate man, thoroughly in earnest and disinterested, and ready to give his time and influence—which is great—to help any man who is working for the cause. To him I am indebted for the supervision of papers that were published in my absence, for many introductions, and most valuable information and assistance, and all done in such a way as not to oppress one or give one any feeling of patronage, which you know (so much do I retain of my old self) would not suit me. My notions are diametrically opposed to his in some matters, and he helps me to oppose him. The other night, or rather nights, for it took three, I had a long paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such a man and yet respect myself.

I have been aspiring to great honours since I wrote to you last, to wit the F.R.S., and found no little to my astonishment that I had a chance of it, and so went in. I must tell you that they have made the admission more difficult than it used to be. Candidates are not elected by the Society alone, but fifteen only a year are selected by a committee, and then elected as a matter of course by the Society. This year there were thirty-eight candidates. I did not expect to come in till next year, but I find I am one of the selected. I fancy I shall be the junior Fellow by some years. Singularly enough, among the non-selected candidates were Ward, the man who conducted the Botanical Honours Examination of Apothecaries' Hall nine years ago, and Bryson, the surgeon of the "Fisguard," i.e. nominally my immediate superior, and who, as he frequently acts as Sir William Burnett's deputy, WILL VERY LIKELY EXAMINE ME WHEN I PASS FOR SURGEON R.N.!! That is awkward and must be annoying to him, but it is not my fault. I did not ask for a single name that appeared upon my certificate. Owen's name and Carpenter's, which were to have been appended, were not added. Forbes, my recommender, told me beforehand not to expect to get in this year, and did not use his influence, and so I have no intriguing to reproach myself with or to be reproached with. The only drawback is that it will cost me 14 pounds sterling, which is more than I can very well afford.

By the way, I have not told you that after staying for about five months with George, I found that if I meant to work in earnest his home was not the place, so, much to my regret,—for they made me very happy there,—I summoned resolution and "The Boy's Own Book" and took a den of my own, whence I write at present. You had better, anyhow, direct to George, as I am going to move and don't know how long I may remain at my next habitation. At present I am living in the Park Road, but I find it too noisy and am going to St. Anne's Gardens, St. John's Wood, close to my mother's, against whose forays I shall have to fortify myself.

[It was a minor addition to his many troubles that after a time Huxley found a grudging and jealous spirit exhibited in some quarters towards his success, and influence used to prevent any further advance that might endanger the existing balance of power in the scientific world. But this could be battled with directly; indeed it was rather a relief to have an opportunity for action instead of sitting still to wait the results of uncertain elections. The qualities requisite for such a contest he possessed, in a high ideal of the dignity of science as an instrument of truth; a standard of veracity in scientific workers to which all should subordinate their personal ambitions; a disregard of authority as such unless its claims were verified by indisputable fact; and as a beginning, the will to subject himself to his own most rigid canons of accuracy, thoroughness, and honesty; then to maintain his principle and defend his position against all attempts at browbeating.]

March 5, 1852

I told you I was very busy, and I must tell you what I am about and you will believe me. I have just finished a Memoir for the Royal Society ["On the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca" "Scientific Memoirs" volume 1 page 152.], which has taken me a world of time, thought, and reading, and is, perhaps, the best thing I have done yet. It will not be read till May, and I do not know whether they will print it or not afterwards; that will require care and a little manoeuvring on my part. You have no notion of the intrigues that go on in this blessed world of science. Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be. Merit alone is very little good; it must be backed by tact and knowledge of the world to do very much.

For instance, I know that the paper I have just sent in is very original and of some importance, and I am equally sure that if it is referred to the judgment of my "particular friend" — that it will not be published. He won't be able to say a word against it, but he will pooh-pooh it to a dead certainty.

You will ask with some wonderment, Why? Because for the last twenty years — has been regarded as the great authority on these matters, and has had no one to tread on his heels, until at last, I think, he has come to look upon the Natural World as his special preserve, and "no poachers allowed." So I must manoeuvre a little to get my poor memoir kept out of his hands.

The necessity for these little stratagems utterly disgusts me. I would so willingly reverence and trust any man of high standing and ability. I am so utterly unable to comprehend this petty greediness. And yet withal you will smile at my perversity. I have a certain pleasure in overcoming these obstacles, and fighting these folks with their own weapons. I do so long to be able to trust men implicitly. I have such a horror of all this literary pettifogging. I could be so content myself, if the necessity of making a position would allow it, to work on anonymously, but — I see is determined not to let either me or any one else rise if he can help it. Let him beware. On my own subjects I am his master, and am quite ready to fight half a dozen dragons. And although he has a bitter pen, I flatter myself that on occasions I can match him in that department also.

But I was telling you how busy I am. I am getting a memoir ready for the Zoological Society, and working at my lecture for the Royal Institution, which I want to make striking and original, as it is a good opportunity, besides doing a translation now and then for one of the Journals. Besides this, I am working at the British Museum to make a catalogue of some creatures there. All these things take a world of time and labour; and yield next to no direct profit; but they bring me into contact with all sorts of men, in a very independent position, and I am told, and indeed hope, that something must arise from it. So fair a prospect opens out before me if I can only wait. I am beginning to know what WORK means, and see how much more may be done by steady, unceasing, and well-directed efforts. I thrive upon it too. I am as well as ever I was in my life, and the more I work the better my temper seems to be.

April 30, 1852, 11.30 P.M.

I have just returned from giving my lecture at the Royal Institution, of which I told you in my last letter. ["On Animal Individuality" "Scientific Memoirs" volume 1 page 146 cp. supra.]

I had got very nervous about it, and my poor mother's death had greatly upset my plans for working it out.

It was the first lecture I had ever given in my life, and to what is considered the best audience in London. As nothing ever works up my energies but a high flight, I had chosen a very difficult abstract point, in my view of which I stand almost alone. When I took a glimpse into the theatre and saw it full of faces, I did feel most amazingly uncomfortable. I can now quite understand what it is to be going to be hanged, and nothing but the necessity of the case prevented me from running away.

However, when the hour struck, in I marched, and began to deliver my discourse. For ten minutes I did not quite know where I was, but by degrees I got used to it, and gradually gained perfect command of myself and of my subject. I believe I contrived to interest my audience, and upon the whole I think I may say that this essay was successful.

Thank Heaven I can say so, for though it is no great matter succeeding, failing would have been a bitter annoyance to me. It has put me comfortably at my ease with regard to all future lecturings. After the Royal Institution there is no audience I shall ever fear.

May 9.

The foolish state of excitement into which I allowed myself to get the other day completely did for me, and I have hardly done anything since except sleep a great deal. It is a strange thing that with all my will I cannot control my physical organisation.

[To his sister.]

April 17, 1852.

...I fear nothing will have prepared you to hear that one so active in body and mind as our poor mother was has been taken from us. But so it is...

It was very strange that before leaving London my mother, possessed by a strange whim, as I thought, distributed to many of us little things belonging to her. I laughed at her for what I called her "testamentary disposition," little dreaming that the words were prophetic.

[The summons to those of the family in London reached them late, and their arrival was made still later by inconvenient trains and a midnight drive, so that all had long been over when they came to Barning in Kent, where the elder Huxleys had just settled near their son James.]

Our mother had died at half-past four, falling gradually into a more and more profound insensibility. She was thus happily spared the pain of fruitlessly wishing us round her, in her last moments; and as the hand of Death was upon her, I know not that it could have fallen more lightly.

I offer you no consolation, my dearest sister; for I know of none. There are things which each must bear as he best may with the strength that has been allotted to him. Would that I were near you to soften the blow by the sympathy which we should have in common...

May 3, 1852.

So much occupation has crowded upon me between the beginning of this letter and the present time that I have been unable to finish it. I had undertaken to give a lecture at the Royal Institution on the 30th April. It was on a difficult subject, requiring a good deal of thought; and as it was my first appearance before the best audience in London, you may imagine how anxious and nervous I was, and how completely I was obliged to abstract my thoughts from everything else.

However, I am happy to say it is well over. There was a very good audience—Faraday, Professor Forbes, Dr. Forbes, Wharton Jones, and [a] whole lot of "nobs," among my auditors. I had made up my mind all day to break down, and then go and hang myself privately. And so you may imagine that I entered the theatre with a very pale face, and a heart beating like a sledge-hammer nineteen to the dozen. For the first five minutes I did not know very clearly what I was about, but by degrees I got possession of myself and of my subject, and did not care for anybody. I have had "golden opinions from all sorts of men" about it, so I suppose I may tell you I have succeeded. I don't think, however, that I ever felt so thoroughly used up in my life as I did for two days afterwards. There is one comfort, I shall never be nervous again about any audience; but at one's first attempt, to stand in the place of Faraday and such big-wigs might excuse a little weakness.

The way is clear before me, if my external circumstances will only allow me to persevere; but I fully expect that I shall have to give up my dreams.

Science in England does everything—but PAY. You may earn praise but not pudding.

I have helping hands held out to me on all sides, but there is nothing to help me to. Last year I became a candidate for a Professorship at Toronto. I took an infinity of trouble over the thing, and got together a mass of testimonials and recommendations, much better than I had any right to expect. From that time to this I have heard nothing of the business—a result for which I care the less, as I believe the chair will be given to a brother of one of the members of the Canadian ministry, who is, I hear, a candidate. Such a qualification as that is, of course, better than all the testimonials in the world.

I think I told you when I last wrote that I was expecting a grant from Government to publish the chief part of my work, done while away. I am expecting it still. I got tired of waiting the other day and wrote to the Duke of Northumberland, who is at present First Lord of the Admiralty, upon the subject. His Grace has taken the matter up, and I hope now to get it done.

With all this, however, Time runs on. People look upon me, I suppose, as a "very promising young man," and perhaps envy my "success," and I all the while am cursing my stars that my Pegasus WILL fly aloft instead of pulling slowly along in some respectable gig, and getting his oats like any other praiseworthy cart-horse.

It's a charming piece of irony altogether. It is two years yesterday since I left Sydney harbour—and of course as long since I saw Nettie. I am getting thoroughly tired of our separation, and I think she is, though the dear little soul is ready to do anything for my sake, and yet I dare not face the stagnation—the sense of having failed in the whole purpose of my existence—which would, I know, sooner or later beset me, even with her, if I forsake my present object. Can you wonder with all this, my dearest Lizzie, that often as I long for your brave heart and clear head to support and advise me, I yet rarely feel inclined to write? Pray write to me more often than you have done; tell me all about yourself and the Doctor and your children. They must be growing up fast, and Florry must be getting beyond the "Bird of Paradise" I promised her. Love and kisses to all of them, and kindest remembrances to the Doctor.

Ever your affectionate brother,

T.H. Huxley.

[To Miss Heathorn]

November 13, 1852.

Going last week to the Royal Society's library for a book, and like the boy in church "thinkin' o' naughten," when I went in, Weld, the Assistant Secretary, said, "Well, I congratulate you." I confess I did not see at that moment what any mortal man had to congratulate me about. I had a deuced bad cold, with rheumatism in my head; it was a beastly November day and I was very grumpy, so I inquired in a state of mild surprise what might be the matter. Whereupon I learnt that the Medal had been conferred at the meeting of the Council on the day before. I was very pleased...and I thought you would be so too, and I thought moreover that it was a fine lever to help us on, and if I could have sent a letter to you immediately I should have sat down and have written one to you on the spot. As it is I have waited for official confirmation and a convenient season.

And now...shall I be very naughty and make a confession? The thing that a fortnight ago (before I got it) I thought so much of, I give you my word I do not care a pin for. I am sick of it and ashamed of having thought so much of it, and the congratulations I get give me a sort of internal sardonic grin. I think this has come about partly because I did not get the official confirmation of what I had heard for some days, and with my habit of facing the ill side of things I came to the conclusion that Weld had made a mistake, and I went in thought through the whole enormous mortification of having to explain to those to whom I had mentioned it that it was quite a mistake. I found that all this, when I came to look at it, was by no means so dreadful as it seemed—quite bearable in short—and then I laughed at myself and have cared nothing about the whole concern ever since. In truth...I do not think that I am in the proper sense of the word ambitious. I have an enormous longing after the highest and best in all shapes—a longing which haunts me and is the demon which ever impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I am doing his behests. The honours of men I value so far as they are evidences of power, but with the cynical mistrust of their judgment and my own worthiness, which always haunts me, I put very little faith in them. Their praise makes me sneer inwardly. God forgive me if I do them any great wrong.

...I feel and know that all the rewards and honours in the world will ever be worthless for me as soon as they are obtained. I know that always, as now, they will make me more sad than joyful. I know that nothing that could be done would give me the pure and heartfelt joy and peace of mind that your love has given me, and, please God, shall give for many a long year to come, and yet my demon says work! work! you shall not even love unless you work.

Not blinded by any vanity, then, I hope...but viewing this stroke of fortune as respects its public estimation only, I think I must look upon the award of this medal as the turning-point of my life, as the finger-post teaching me as clearly as anything can what is the true career that lies open before me. For whatever may be my own private estimation of it, there can be no doubt as to the general feeling about this thing, and in case of my candidature for any office it would have the very greatest weight. And as you will have seen by my last letter, it only strengthens and confirms the conclusion I had come to. Bid me God-speed then...it is all I want to labour cheerfully.

November 28.

...You will hear all the details of the Great Duke's state funeral from the papers much better than I can tell you them. I went to the Cathedral [St Paul's] and had the good fortune to get a capital seat—in front, close to the great door by which every one entered. It was bitter cold, a keen November wind blowing right in, and as I was there from eight till three, I expected nothing less than rheumatic fever the next day; however I didn't get it. It was pitiful to see the poor old Marquis of Anglesey—a year older than the Duke—standing with bare head in the keen wind close to me for more than three quarters of an hour. It was impressive enough—the great interior lighted by a single line of light running along the whole circuit of the cornice, and another encircling the dome, and casting a curious illumination over the masses of uniforms which filled the great space. The best of our people were there and passed close to me, but the only face that made any great impression upon my memory was that of Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Scinde. Fancy a very large, broad-winged, and fierce-looking hawk in uniform. Such an eye!

When the coffin and the mourners had passed I closed up with the soldiers and went up under the dome, where I heard the magnificent service in full perfection.

All of it, however, was but stage trickery compared with the noble simplicity of the old man's life. How the old stoic, used to his iron bed and hard hair pillow, would have smiled at all the pomp—submitting to that, however, and all other things necessary to the "carrying on of the Queen's Government."

I send Tennyson's ode by way of packing—it is not worth much more, the only decent passages to my mind being those I have marked.

The day after to-morrow I go to have my medal presented and to dine and make a speech.

[The Royal Medal was conferred on November 30, and the medallists were entertained at the anniversary dinner of the Society on that day. In the words with which the President, the Earl of Rosse, accompanied the presentation of the medal, "it is not difficult," writes Sir M. Foster, "reading between the lines, to recognise the appreciation of a new spirit of anatomical inquiry, not wholly free from a timorous apprehension as to its complete validity." ("In these papers (on the Medusae) you have for the first time fully developed their structure, and laid the foundation of a rational theory for their classification." "In your second paper 'On the Anatomy of Salpa and Pyrosoma,' the phenomena, etc., have received the most ingenious and elaborate elucidation, and have given rise to a process of reasoning, the results of which can scarcely yet be anticipated, but must bear in a very important degree upon some of the most abstruse points of what may be called transcendental physiology." See "Royal Society" Obituary Notices volume 59 page 1.) For the difference between this and the labours of the greatest English comparative anatomist of the time, whose detailed work was of the highest value, but whose generalisations and speculations, based on the philosophy of Oken, proved barren and fruitless, lay in the fact that Huxley, led to it doubtless by his solitary readings in his Charing Cross days, had taken up the method of Von Baer and Johannes Muller, then almost unknown, or at least unused in England—"the method which led the anatomist to face his problems in the spirit in which the physicist faced his."

He had been warned by Forbes not to speak too strongly about the dilatoriness of the Government in the matter of the grant, so he writes:] "I will 'roar you like any sucking dove' at the dinner, though I felt tempted otherwise." [On December 1 he tells how he carried out this advice.]

My dear Forbes,

You will, I know, like to learn how I got on yesterday. The President's address to me had been drawn up by Bell. It was, of course, too flattering, but he had taken hold of the right points in my work—at least I thought so.

Bunsen spoke very well for Humboldt.

There was a capital congregation at the dinner—sixty or seventy Fellows there...

When it came to my turn to return thanks, I believe I made a very tolerable speechification, at least everybody says so. Lord Rosse had alluded to "science having to take care of itself in this country," and in winding up I gave them a small screed upon that text. That you may see I kept your caution in mind, I will tell you as nearly as may be what I said. I told them that I could not conceive that anything I had hitherto done merited the honour of that day (I looked so preciously meek over this), but that I was glad to be able to say that I had so much unpublished material as to make me hopeful of one day diminishing the debt. I then said, "The Government of this country, of this GREAT country, has been two years debating whether it should grant the three hundred pounds sterling necessary for the publication of these researches. I have been too long used to strict discipline to venture to criticise any act of my superiors, but I venture to hope that before long, in consequence of the exertions of Lord Rosse, of the President of the British Association, and the goodwill, which I gratefully acknowledge, of the present Lord of the Admiralty, I shall be able to lay before you something more worthy of to-day's award."

I had my doubts how the nobs would take it, but both Lord Rosse and Sabine warmly commended my speech and regretted I had not said even more upon the subject.

[Some light is thrown upon his habits at this time by the following, part of his letter to Forbes of November 19:—]

I have frequent visits from —. He is a good man, but direfully argumentative, and in that sense to me a bore. Besides that, the creature will come and call upon me at nine or ten o'clock in the morning before I am out of bed, or if out of bed, before I am in possession of my faculties, which never arrive before twelve or one.

[This morning incapacity was of a piece with his hatred of the breakfast-party of the period. To go abroad from home or to do any work before breakfasting ensured him a headache for the rest of the day, so that he never was one of those risers with the dawn who do half a day's work before the rest of the world is astir. And though necessity often compelled him to do with less, he always found eight hours his proper allowance of sleep.

But in the end of 1853 we hear of a reform in his ways, after a bad bout of ill-health, when he rises at eight, goes to bed at twelve, and eschews parties of every kind as far as possible, with excellent results as far as health went.

After his marriage, however, and indeed to the beginning of his last illness, he always rose early enough for an eight o'clock breakfast, after which the working day began, lasting regularly from a little after nine till midnight.

4 Upper York Place, St. John's Wood, February 6, 1853.

Many thanks, my dearest sister, for your kind and thoughtful letter—it went to my heart no little that you, amidst all your trials and troubles, should find time to think so wisely and so affectionately of mine. Though greatly tempted otherwise, I have acted in the spirit of your advice, and my reward, in the shape of honours at any rate, has not failed me, as the Royal Society gave me one of the Royal medals last year. It's a bigger one than I got under your auspices so many years ago, being worth 50 pounds sterling, but I don't know that I cared so much about it.

It was assigned to me quite unexpectedly, and in the eyes of the world I, of course, am greatly the bigger—but I will confess to you privately that I am by no means dilated, and am the identical Boy Tom I was before I achieved the attainment of my golden porter's badge. Curiously it was given for the first Memoir I have in the Royal Society's "Transactions," sent home four years ago with no small fear and trembling, and, "after many days," returning with this queer crust of bread. In the speech I had to make at the Anniversary Dinner I grew quite eloquent on that point, and talked of the dove I had sent from my ark, returning, not with the olive branch, but with a sprig of the bay and a fruit from the garden of the Hesperides—a simile which I thought decidedly clever, but which the audience—distinguished audience I ought to have said—probably didn't, as they did not applaud that, while they did some things I said which were incomparably more stupid. This was in November, and I ought to have written to you about it before, my dear Lizzie, but for one thing I am very much occupied, and for the other (shall I confess it?) I was rather puzzled that I had not heard from you since I wrote. Now my useless conscience, which never makes me do anything right in time, is pitching in to me when it is too late.

The medal, however, must not be jested at, as it is most decidedly of practical use in giving me a status in the eyes of those charming people, "practical men," such as I had not before, and I am amused to find some of my friends, whose contempt for my "dreamy" notions was not small in time past, absolutely advising me to take a far more dreamy course than I dare venture upon. However, I take very much my own course now, even as I have done before—Huxley all over.

However, that is enough about myself just now. In the next letter I will tell you more at length about my plans and prospects, which are mostly, I am sorry to say, only provocative of setting my teeth hard and saying, "Never mind, I WILL." But what I write in a hurry about and want you to do at once, is to write to me and tell me exactly how money may be sent safely to you. It is inexpedient to send without definite directions, according to the character you give your neighbours. Don't expect anything vast, but there is corn in Egypt...

Two classes of people can I deal with and no third. They are the good people—people after my own heart, and the thorough men of the world. Either of these I can act and sympathise with, but the others, who are neither for God nor for the Devil, but for themselves, as grim old Dante has it, and whom he therefore very justly puts in a most uncomfortable place, I cannot do with...

So Florry is growing up into a great girl; the child will not remember me, but kiss her and my godson for me, and give my love to them all. The Lymph shall come in my next letter for the young Yankee. I hope the juices of the English cow will prevent him from ever acquiring the snuffle.

Tell the Doctor all about the medal, with my kindest regards, and believe me, my dearest Lizzie, your affectionate brother,

Tom.

4 Upper York Place, St. John's Wood, April 22, 1853.

My dearest Lizzie,

First let me congratulate you on being safe over your troubles and in possession of another possible President. I think it may be worth coming over twenty years hence on the possibility of picking up something or other from one of my nephews at Washington.

[He sends some money.] Would it were more worth your having, but I have not as yet got on to Tom Tiddler's ground on this side of the water. You need not be alarmed about my having involved myself in any way—such portion of it as is of my sending has been conquered by mine own sword and spear, and the rest came from Mary. [Mrs. George Huxley]...

[After giving a summary of his struggle with the Admiralty, he proceeds]—If I were to tell you all the intriguing and humbug there has been about my unfortunate grant—which yet granted—it would occupy this letter, and though a very good illustration of the encouragement afforded to Science in this country, would not be very amusing. Once or twice it has fairly died out, only to be stirred up again by my own pertinacity. However, I have hopes of it at last, as I hear Lord Rosse is just about to make another application to the present Government on the subject. While this business has been dragging on of course I have not been idle. I have four memoirs (on various matters in Comparative Anatomy) in the "Philosophical Transactions," and they have given me their Fellowship and one of the Royal medals. I have written a whole lot of things for the journals—reviews for the "British and Foreign Quarterly Medical," etc. I am one of the editors of Taylor's "Scientific Memoirs" (German scientific translations). In conjunction with my friend Busk I am translating a great German book on the "Microscopical Anatomy of Man," and I have engaged to write a long article for Todd's "Cyclopaedia." Besides this, have read two long memoirs at the British Association, and have given two lectures at the Royal Institution—one of them only two days ago, when I was so ill with influenza I could hardly stand or speak.

Furthermore, I have been a candidate for a Professorship of Natural History at Toronto (which is not even yet decided); for one at Aberdeen, which has been given against me; and at present I am a candidate for the Professorship of Physiology at King's College, or, rather, for half of it—Todd having given up, and Bowman, who remains, being willing to take only half, and that he will soon give up. My friend Edward Forbes—a regular brick, who has backed me through thick and thin—is backing me for King's College, where he is one of the Professors. My chance is, I believe, very good, but nothing can be more uncertain than the result of the contest. If they don't take one of their own men I think they will have me. It would suit me very well, and the whole chair is worth 400 pounds sterling a year, and would enable me to live.

Something I must make up my mind to do, and that speedily. I can get honour in Science, but it doesn't pay, and "honour heals no wounds." In truth I am often very weary. The longer one lives the more the ideal and the purpose vanishes out of one's life, and I begin to doubt whether I have done wisely in giving vent to the cherished tendency towards Science which has haunted me ever since my childhood. Had I given myself to Mammon I might have been a respectable member of society with large watch-seals by this time. I think it is very likely that if this King's College business goes against me, I may give up the farce altogether—burn my books, burn my rod, and take to practice in Australia. It is no use to go on kicking against the pricks...

CHAPTER 1.8.

1854.

[The year 1854 marks the turning-point in Huxley's career. The desperate time of waiting came to an end. By the help of his lectures and his pen, he could at all events stand and wait independently of the Navy. He could not, of course, think of immediate marriage, nor of asking Miss Heathorn to join him in England; but it so happened that her father was already thinking of returning home, and finally this was determined upon just before Professor Forbes' translation to a chair at Edinburgh gave Huxley what turned out to be the long-hoped-for permanency in London.]

June 3, 1854.

I have often spoken to you of my friend Edward Forbes. He has quite recently been suddenly appointed to a Professorial Chair in Edinburgh, vacated by the death of old Jamieson. He was obliged to go down there at once and lecture, and as he had just commenced his course at the Government School of Mines in Jermyn Street, it was necessary to obtain a substitute. He had spoken to me of the possibility of his being called away long ago, and had asked if I would take his place, to which, of course, I assented, but the whole affair was so uncertain that I never in any way reckoned upon it. Even at last I did not know on the Monday whether I was to go on for him on the Friday or not. However, he did go after giving two lectures, and on Friday the 25th May I took his lecture, and I have been going on ever since, twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Called upon so very suddenly to give a course of some six and twenty lectures, I find it very hard work, but I like it and I never was in better health.

[On July 20, this temporary work, which he had undertaken as the friend of Forbes, was exchanged for one of the permanent lectureships formerly held by the latter. A hundred a year for twenty-six lectures was not affluence; it would have suited him better to have had twice the work and twice the pay. But it was his crossing of the Rubicon, and, strangely enough, no sooner had he gained this success than it was doubled.]

July 30, 1854.

I was appointed yesterday to a post of 200 pounds sterling a year. It has all come about in the strangest way. I told you how my friend Forbes had been suddenly called away to Edinburgh, and that I had suddenly taken his duties—sharp work it has been I can tell you these summer months, but it is over and done satisfactorily. Forbes got 500 pounds sterling a year, 200 pounds sterling for a double lectureship, 300 pounds sterling for another office. I took one of the lectureships, which would have given me 100 pounds sterling a year only, and another man was to have the second lectureship and the other office in question. It was so completely settled a week ago that I had written to the President of the Board of Trade who makes the appointment, accepting mine, and the other man had done the same. Happily for me, however, my new colleague was suddenly afflicted with a sort of moral colic, an absurd idea that he could not perform the duties of his office, and resigned it. The result is that a new man has been appointed to the office he left vacant, while the lectureship was offered to me. Of course I took it, and so in the course of the week I have seen my paid income doubled...So after a short interval I have become a Government officer again, but in rather a different position I flatter myself. I am chief of my own department, and my position is considered a very good one—as good as anything of its kind in London.

[Furthermore, on August 11 he was "entrusted with the Coast Survey investigations under the Geological Survey, and remunerated by fee until March 31, 1855, when he was ranked as Naturalist on the Survey with an additional salary of 200 pounds sterling, afterwards increased to 400 pounds sterling, rising to 600 pounds sterling per annum," as the official statement has it.

Then in quick succession he was offered in August a lectureship on Comparative Anatomy at St. Thomas' Hospital for the following May and June, and in September he was asked to lecture in November and March for the Science and Art Department at Marlborough House.

Now therefore, with the Heathorns coming to England, his plans and theirs exactly fitted, and he proposed to get married as soon as they came over, early in the following summer.

A letter of this year deserves quoting as illustrating the directness of Huxley's dealings with his friends, and his hatred of doing anything unknown to them which might be misreported to them or misconstrued without explanation. As a member of the Royal Society Council, it was his duty to vote upon the persons to whom the yearly medals of the Society should be awarded. For the Royal Medal first Hooker was named, and received his hearty support; then Forbes, in opposition to Hooker, in his eyes equally deserving of recognition, and almost more closely bound to him by ties of friendship, so that whatever action he took, might be ascribed to motives which should have no part in such a selection. The course actually taken by him he explained at length in letters to both Forbes and Hooker.]

November 6, 1854.

My dear Hooker,

I have been so busy with lecturing here and there that I have not had time to write and congratulate you on the award of the medal. The queer position in which I was placed prevents me from being able to congratulate MYSELF on having any finger in the pie, but I am quite sure there was no member of the Council who felt more strongly than myself that what honour the bauble could confer was most fully won, and no more than your just deserts; or who rejoiced more when the thing was settled in your favour.

However, I do trust that I shall never be placed in such an awkward position again. I would have given a great deal to be able to back Forbes tooth and nail—not only on account of my personal friendship and affection for him, but because I think he well deserves such recognition. And had I thought right to do so, I felt sure that you would have fully appreciated my motives, and that it would have done no injury to our friendship.

But as I told the Council I did not think this a case where either of you had any right to be excluded by the other. I told them that had Forbes been first named, I should have thought it injudicious to bring you forward, and that, as you were named, I for my own part should not have brought forward Forbes as a candidate; that therefore while willing to speak up to any extent for Forbes' POSITIVE merits and deserts, I would carefully be understood to give no opinion as to your and his RELATIVE standing.

They did not take much by my speech therefore either way, more especially as I voted for BOTH of you.

I hate doing anything of the kind "unbeknownst" to people, so there is the exact history of my proceedings. If I had been able to come to the clear conclusion that the claims of either of you were strongly superior to those of the other, I think I should have had the honesty and moral courage to "act accordin'," but I really had not, and so there was no part to play but that of a sort of Vicar of Bray.