CHAPTER 2.16.
1884-1885.
[Towards the end of September he went to the West country to try to improve his health before the session began again in London. Thus he writes, on September 26, to Mr. W.F. Collier, who had invited him to Horrabridge, and on the 27th to Sir M. Foster:—]
Fowey, September 26, 1884.
Many thanks for the kind offer in your letter, which has followed me here. But I have not been on the track you might naturally have supposed I had followed. I have been trying to combine hygiene with business, and betook myself, in the first place, to Dartmouth, afterwards to Totnes, and then came on here. From this base of operations I could easily reach all my places of meeting. To-morrow I have to go to Bodmin, but I shall return here, and if the weather is fine (raining cats and dogs at present), I may remain a day or two to take in stock of fresh air before commencing the London campaign.
I am very glad to hear that your health has improved so much. You must feel quite proud to be such an interesting "case." If I set a good example myself I would venture to warn you against spending five shillings worth of strength on the ground of improvement to the extent of half-a-crown.
I am not quite clear as to the extent to which my children have colonised Woodtown at present. But it seems to me that there must be three or four Huxleys (free or in combination, as the chemists say) about the premises. Please give them the paternal benediction; and with very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier, believe me,
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Fowey Hotel, Fowey, Cornwall, September 27, 1884.
My dear Foster,
I return your proof, with a few trifling suggestions here and there…
I fancy we may regard the award as practically settled, and a very good award it will be.
The address is beginning to loom in the distance. I have half a mind to devote some part of it to a sketch of the recent novelties in histology touching the nucleus question and molecular physiology.
My wife sent me your letter. By all means let us have a confabulation as soon as I get back and settle what is to be done with the "aged P."
I am not sure that I shall be at home before the end of the week. My lectures do not begin till next week, and the faithful Howes can start the practical work without me, so that if I find myself picking up any good in these parts, I shall probably linger here or hereabouts. But a good deal will depend on the weather—inside as well as outside. I am convinced that the prophet Jeremiah (whose works I have been studying) must have been a flatulent dyspeptic—there is so much agreement between his views and mine.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[But the net result of this holiday is summed up in a note, of October 5, to Sir M. Foster:—]
I got better while I was in Cornwall and Wales, and, at present, I don't think there is anything the matter with me except a profound disinclination to work. I never before knew the proper sense of the term "vis inertiae."
[And writing in the same strain to Sir J. Evans, he adds:]
But I have a notion that if I do not take a long spell of absolute rest before long I shall come to grief. However, getting into harness again may prove a tonic—it often does, e.g. in the case of cab-horses.
[Three days later he found himself ordered to leave England immediately, under pain of a hopeless breakdown.]
4 Marlborough Place, October 8, 1884.
My dear Foster,
We shall be very glad to see you on Friday. I came to the conclusion that I had better put myself in Clark's hands again, and he has been here this evening overhauling me for an hour.
He says there is nothing wrong except a slight affection of the liver and general nervous depression, but that if I go on the latter will get steadily worse and become troublesome. He insists on my going away to the South and doing nothing but amuse myself for three or four months.
This is the devil to pay, but I cannot honestly say that I think he is wrong. Moreover, I promised the wife to abide by his decision.
We will talk over what is to be done.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, October 13, 1884.
My dear Morley,
I heartily wish I could be with you on the 25th, but it is aliter visum to somebody, whether Dis or Diabolis, I can't say.
The fact is, the day after I saw you I had to put myself in Clark's hands, and he ordered me to knock off work and go and amuse myself for three or four months, under penalties of an unpleasant kind.
So I am off to Venice next Wednesday. It is the only tolerably warm place accessible to any one whose wife will not let him go within reach of cholera just at present.
If I am a good boy I am to come back all sound, as there is nothing organic the matter; but I have had enough of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and shall extricate myself from that Trinity as soon as may be. Perhaps I may get within measurable distance of Berkeley ("English Men of Letters" edited by J.M.) before I die!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, October 18, 1884.
My dear Foster,
Best thanks for your letter and route. I am giving you a frightful quantity of trouble; but as the old woman (Irish) said to my wife, when she gave her a pair of my old trousers for her husband, "I hope it may be made up to ye in a better world."
She is clear, and I am clear, that there is no reason on my part for
not holding on if the Society really wishes I should. But, of course,
I must make it easy for the Council to get rid of a faineant
President, if they prefer that course.
I wrote to Evans an unofficial letter two days ago, and have had a very kind, straightforward letter from him. He is quite against my resignation. I shall see him this afternoon here. I had to go to my office (Fishery).
Clark's course of physic is lightening my abdominal troubles, but I am preposterously weak with a kind of shabby broken-down indifference to everything.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The "Indian summer" to which he looked forward was not to be reached without passing through a season of more than equinoctial storms and tempests. His career had reached its highest point only to be threatened with a speedy close. He himself did not exceed more than two or three years' longer lease of life, and went by easy stages to Venice, where he spent eight days.] "No place," [he writes,] "could be better fitted for a poor devil as sick in body and mind as I was when I got there.">[
Venice itself [he writes to Dr. Foster] just suited me. I chartered a capital gondolier, and spent most of my time exploring the Lagoons. Especially I paid a daily visit to the Lido, and filled my lungs with the sea air, and rejoiced in the absence of stinks. For Venice is like her population (at least the male part of it), handsome but odorous. Did you notice how handsome the young men are and how little beauty there is among the women?
I stayed eight days in Venice and then returned by easy stages first to Padua, where I wanted to see Giotto's work, then to Verona, and then here (Lugano). Verona delighted me more than anything I have seen, and we will spend two other days there as we go back.
As for myself, I really have no positive complaint now. I eat well and I sleep well, and I should begin to think I was malingering, if it were not for a sort of weariness and deadness that hangs about me, accompanied by a curious nervous irritability.
I expect that this is the upshot of the terrible anxiety I have had about my daughter M—.
I would give a great deal to be able to escape facing the wedding, for my nervous system is in the condition of that of a frog under opium.
But my R. must not go off without the paternal benediction.
[For the first three weeks he was alone, his wife staying to make preparations for the third daughter's wedding on November 6th, for which occasion he was to return, afterwards taking her abroad with him. Unfortunately, just as he started, news was brought him at the railway station that his second daughter, whose brilliant gifts and happy marriage seemed to promise everything for her future, had been stricken by the beginnings of an insidious and, as he too truly feared, hopeless disease. Nothing could have more retarded his own recovery. It was a bitter grief, referred to only in his most intimate letters, and, indeed, for a time kept secret even from the other members of the family. Nothing was to throw a shade over the brightness of the approaching wedding.
But on his way home, he writes of that journey:—]
I had to bear my incubus, not knowing what might come next, until I reached Luzern, when I telegraphed for intelligence, and had my mind set at ease as to the measures which were being adopted.
I am a tough subject, and have learned to bear a good deal without crying out; but those four-and-twenty hours between London and Luzern have taught me that I have yet a good deal to learn in the way of "grinning and bearing."
[And although he writes,] "I would give a good deal not to face a lot of people next week,"…"I have the feelings of a wounded wild beast and hate the sight of all but my best friends," [he hid away his feelings, and made this the occasion for a very witty speech, of which, alas! I remember nothing but a delightfully mixed polyglot exordium in French, German, and Italian, the result, he declared, of his recent excursion to foreign parts, which had obliterated the recollection of his native speech.
During his second absence he appointed his youngest daughter secretary to look after necessary correspondence, about which he forwarded instructions from time to time.
The chief matters of interest in the letters of this period are accounts of health and travel, sometimes serious, more often jesting, for the letters were generally written in the bright intervals between his dark days: business of the Royal Society, and the publication of the new edition of the "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," upon which he and Dr. Foster had been at work during the autumn. But the four months abroad were not productive of very great good; the weather was unpropitious for an invalid—] "as usual, a quite unusual season" [—while his mind was oppressed by the reports of his daughter's illness. Under these circumstances recovery was slow and travel comfortless; all the Englishman's love of home breaks out in his letter of April 8, when he set foot again on English soil.]
Hotel de Londres, Verona, November 18, 1884.
Dearest Babs,
1. Why, indeed, do they ask for more? Wait till they send a letter of explanation, and then say that I am out of the country and not expected back for several years.
2. I wholly decline to send in any name to Athenaeum. But don't mention it.
3. Society of Arts be bothered, also —.
4. Write to Science and Art Club to engage three of the prettiest girls as partners for evening. They will look very nice as wallflowers.
5. Penny dinners? declined with thanks.
6. Ask the meeting of Herts N.H. Society to come here after next Thursday, when we shall be in Bologna.
Business first, my sweet girl secretary with the curly front; and now for private affairs, though as your mother is covering reams with them, I can only mention a few of the more important which she will forget.
The first is that she has a habit of hiding my shirts so that I am unable to find them when we go away, and the chambermaid comes rushing after us with the garment shamefully displayed.
The second is that she will cover all the room with her things, and I am obliged to establish a military frontier on the table.
The third is that she insists on my buying an Italian cloak. So you will see your venerable pater equipped in this wise. [Sketch of a cloaked figure like a brigand of melodrama.] except in these two particulars, she behaves fairly well to me.
In point of climate, so far, Italy has turned out a fraud. We dare not face Venice, and Mr. Fenili will weep over my defection; but that is better than that we should cough over his satisfaction.
I am quite pleased to hear of the theological turn of the family. It must be a drop of blood from one of your eight great-grandfathers, for none of your ancestors that I have known would have developed in this way.
…Best love to Nettie and Harry. Tell the former that cabbages do not cost 5 shillings apiece, and the latter that 11 P.M. is the cloture.
Ever your affectionate Pater.
Hotel Brittanique, Naples, November 30, 1884.
My dear Foster,
Which being St. Andrew's Day, I think the expatriated P. ought to give you some account of himself.
We had a prosperous journey to Locarno, but there plumped into bitter cold weather, and got chilled to the bone as the only guests in the big hotel, though they did their best to make us comfortable. I made a shot at bronchitis, but happily failed, and got all right again.
Pallanza was as bad. At Milan temperature at noon 39 degrees F., freezing at night. Verona much the same. Under these circumstances, we concluded to give up Venice and made for Bologna. There found it rather colder. Next Ravenna, where it snowed. However, we made ourselves comfortable in the queer hotel, and rejoiced in the mosaics of that sepulchral marsh.
At Bologna I had assurances that the Sicilian quarantine was going to be taken off at once, and as the reports of the railway travelling and hotels in Calabria were not encouraging, I determined to make for Naples, or rather, by way of extra caution, for Castellamare. All the way to Ancona the Apennines were covered with snow, and much of the plain also. Twenty miles north of Ancona, however, the weather changed to warm summer, and we rejoiced accordingly. At Foggia I found that the one decent hotel that used to exist was non-extant, so we went on to Naples.
Arriving at 10.30 very tired, got humbugged by a lying Neapolitan, who palmed himself off as the commissaire of the Hotel Bristol, and took us into an omnibus belonging to another hotel, that of the Bristol being, as he said, "broke." After a drive of three miles or so got to the Bristol and found it shut up! After a series of adventures and a good deal of strong language on my part, knocked up the people here, who took us in, though the hotel was in reality shut up like most of those in Naples. [Owing to the cholera and consequent dearth of travellers.]
As usual the weather is "unusual"—hot in the sun, cold round the corner and at night. Moreover, I found by yesterday's paper that the beastly Sicilians won't give up their ten days' quarantine. So all chance of getting to Catania or Palermo is gone. I am not sure whether we shall stay here for some time or go to Rome, but at any rate we shall be here a week.
Dohrn is away getting subsidies in Germany for his new ship. We inspected the Aquarium this morning. Eisig and Mayer are in charge. Madame is a good deal altered in the course of the twelve years that have elapsed since I saw her, but says she is much better than she was.
As for myself, I got very much better when in North Italy in spite of the piercing cold. But the fatigue of the journey from Ancona here, and the worry at the end of it, did me no good, and I have been seedy for a day or two. However, I am picking up.
I see one has to be very careful here. We had a lovely drive yesterday out Pausilippo, but the wife got chilled and was shaky this morning. However, we got very good news of our daughter this evening, and that has set us both up.
My blessing for to-morrow will reach you after date. Let us hear how everything went off.
Your return in May project is really impracticable on account of the Fishery Report. I cannot be so long absent from the Home Office whatever I might manage with South Kensington.
With our love to Mrs. Foster and you.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This letter, as he says a week later, was written when he] "was rather down in the mouth from the wretched cold weather, and the wife being laid up with a bad cold," [besides his own ailments.]
I find I have to be very careful about night air, but nothing does me so much good as six or seven miles' walk between breakfast and lunch—at a good sharp pace. So I conclude that there cannot be much the matter, and yet I am always on the edge, so to speak, of that infernal hypochondria.
We have settled down here very comfortably, and I do not think we shall care to go any further south. Madame Dohrn and all the people at the stazione are very kind, and want to do all sorts of things for us. The other day we went in the launch to Capri, intending next day to go to Amalfi. But it threatened bad weather, so we returned in the evening. The journey knocked us both up, and we had to get out of another projected excursion to Ischia to-day. The fact is, I get infinitely tired with talking to people and can't stand any deviation from regular and extremely lazy habits. Fancy my being always in bed by ten o'clock and breakfasting at nine!
[On the 10th, writing to Sir John Evans, who as Vice-President, was acting in his stead at the Royal Society, he says:—]
In spite of snow on the ground we had three or four days at Ravenna—which is the most interesting deadly lively sepulchre of a place I was ever in in my life. The evolution of modern from ancient art is all there in a nutshell…
I lead an altogether animal life, except that I have renewed my old love for Italian. At present I am rejoicing in the Autobiography of that delightful sinner, Benvenuto Cellini. I have some notion that there is such a thing as science somewhere. In fact I am fitting myself for Neapolitan nobility.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Hotel Brittanique, Naples, December 22, 1884.
But we have had no letters from home for a week…Moreover, if we don't hear to-day or to-morrow we shall begin to speculate on the probability of an earthquake having swallowed up 4 Marlborough Place "with all the young barbarians at play—And I their sire trying to get a Roman holiday" (Byron). For we are going to Rome to-morrow, having had enough of Naples, the general effect of which city is such as would be produced by the sight of a beautiful woman who had not washed or dressed her hair for a month. Climate, on the whole, more variable than that of London.
We had a lovely drive three days ago to Cumae, a perfect summer's day; since then sunshine, heat, cold wind, calms all durcheinander, with thunder and lightning last night to complete the variety.
The thermometer and barometer are not fixed to the walls here, as they would be jerked off by the sudden changes. At first, it is odd to see them dancing about the hall. But you soon get used to it, and the porter sees that they don't break themselves.
With love to Nettie and Harry, and hopes that the pudding will be good.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[In January 1885 he went to Rome, whence he writes:—]
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, Rome, January 8, 1885.
My dear Foster,
We have been here a fortnight very well lodged—south aspect, fireplace, and all the rest of the essentials except sunshine. Of this last there is not much more than in England, and the grey skies day after day are worthy of our native land. Sometimes it rains cats and dogs all day by way of a change—as on Christmas Day—but it is not cold. "Quite exceptional weather," they tell us, but that seems to be the rule everywhere. We have done a respectable amount of gallery-slaving, and I have been amusing myself by picking up the topography of ancient Rome. I was going to say Pagan Rome, but the inappropriateness of the distinction strikes me, papal Rome being much more stupidly and childishly pagan than imperial. I never saw a sadder sight than the kissing a wretched bedizened doll of a Bambino that went on in the Ara Coeli on Twelfth Day. Your puritan soul would have longed to arise and slay…
As to myself, though it is a very unsatisfactory subject and one I am very tired of bothering my friends about, I am like the farmer at the rent-dinner, and don't find myself much "forrarder." That is to say, I am well for a few days and then all adrift, and have to put myself right by dosing with Clark's pills, which are really invaluable. They will make me believe in those pills I saw advertised in my youth, and which among other things were warranted to cure "the indecision of juries." I really can't make out my own condition. I walked seven or eight miles this morning over Monte Mario and out on the Campagna without any particular fatigue, and yesterday I was as miserable as an owl in sunshine. Something perhaps must be put down to the relapse which our poor girl had a week ago, and which became known to us in a terrible way. She had apparently quite recovered, and arrangements were made for their going abroad, and now everything is upset. I warned her husband that this was very likely, but did not sufficiently take the warning to myself.
You are taking a world of trouble for me, and Donnelly writes I am to do as I like so far as they are concerned. I have heard nothing from the Home Office, and I suppose it would be proper for me to write if I want any more leave. I really hardly know what to do. I can't say I feel very fit for the hurly-burly of London just now, but I am not sure that the wholesomest thing for me would not be at all costs to get back to some engrossing work. If my poor girl were well, I could perhaps make something of the dolce far niente, but at present one's mind runs to her when it is not busy in something else.
I expect we shall be here a week or ten days more—at any rate, this address is safe—afterwards to Florence.
What am I to do in the Riviera? Here and at Florence there is always some distraction. You see the problem is complex.
My wife, who is very lively, thanks you for your letter (which I have answered) and joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[Writing on the same day to Sir J. Evans, he proposed a considerable alteration in the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society.]
You know that I served a seven years' apprenticeship as Secretary, and that experience gave me very solid grounds for the conviction that, with the present arrangements, a great deal of the time of the Secretaries is wasted over the almost mechanical drudgery of proof-reading.
[He suggests new arrangements, and proceeds:—]
At the same time it would be very important to adopt some arrangement by which the "Transactions" papers can be printed independently of one another.
Why should not the papers be paged independently and be numbered for each year. Thus—"Huxley Idleness and Incapacity in Italy." "Phil. Trans." 1885 6.
People grumble at the delay in publication, and are quite right in doing so, though it is impossible under the present system to be more expeditious, and it is not every senior secretary who would slave at the work as Stokes does…
But it is carrying coals to Newcastle to talk of such business arrangements as these to you.
The only thing I am strong about, is the folly of going on cutting blocks with our Secretarial razors any longer.
I am afraid I cannot give a very good account of myself.
The truth of the answer to Mallock's question "Is life worth living?"—that depends on the liver—is being strongly enforced upon me in the hepatic sense of liver, and I must confess myself fit for very little. A week hence we shall migrate to Florence and try the effect of the more bracing air. The Pincio is the only part of Rome that is fit to live in, and unfortunately the Government does not offer to build me a house there.
However, I have got a great deal of enjoyment out of ancient Rome—papal Rome is too brutally pagan (and in the worst possible taste too) for me.
[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]
January 11, 1885.
We have now had nearly three weeks in Rome. I am sick of churches, galleries, and museums, and meanly make M— go and see them and tell me about them. As we are one flesh, it is just the same as if I had seen them.
Since the time of Constantine there has been nothing but tawdry rubbish in the shape of architecture [For his appreciation of the great dome of the Pantheon, see below.]—the hopeless bad taste of the Papists is a source of continual gratification to me as a good Protestant (and something more). As for the skies, they are as changeable as those of England—the only advantage is the absence of frost and snow—(raining cats and dogs this Sunday morning).
But down to the time of Constantine, Rome is endlessly interesting, and if I were well I should like to spend some months in exploring it. As it is, I do very little, though I have contrived to pick up all I want to know about pagan Rome and the Catacombs, which last are my especial weakness.
My master and physician is bothered a good deal with eczema—otherwise very lively. All the chief collections in Rome are provided with a pair of her spectacles, which she leaves behind. Several new opticians' shops are set up on the strength of the purchases in this line she is necessitated to make.
I want to be back at work, but I am horribly afraid I should be no good yet. We are thinking of going to Florence at the end of this week to see what the drier and colder air there will do.
With our dear love to you all—we are wae for a sight of you.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, January 16, 1885.
My dear Foster,
It seems to me that I am giving my friends a world of trouble…
I have had a bad week of it, and the night before last was under the impression that I was about to succumb shortly to a complication of maladies, and moreover, that a wooden box that my wife had just had made would cost thousands of pounds in the way of payment for extra luggage before we reached home. I do not know which hypochondriacal possession was the most depressing. I can laugh at it now, but I really was extraordinarily weak and ill.
We had made up our minds to bolt from Rome to Florence at once, when I suddenly got better, and to-day am all right. So as we hear of snow at Florence we shall stop where we are. It has been raining cats and dogs here, and the Tiber rose 40 feet and inundated the low grounds. But "cantabit elevatus"; it can't touch us, and at any rate the streets are washed clean.
The climate is mild here. We have a capital room and all the sunshine that is to be had, plus a good fire when needful, and at worst one can always get a breezy walk on the Pincio hard by.
However, about the leave. Am I to do anything or nothing? I am dying to get back to steady occupation and English food, and the sort of regimen one can maintain in one's own house. On the other hand, I stand in fear of the bitter cold of February and early March, and still more of the thousand and one worries of London outside one's work. So I suppose it will be better if I keep away till Easter, or at any rate to the end of March. But I must hear something definite from the Home Office. I have written to Donnelly to the same effect. My poor Marian's relapse did not do us any good, for all that I expected it. However the last accounts are very favourable.
I wrote to Evans the other day about a re-arrangement of the duties of the Secretary and Assistant Secretary. I thought it was better to write to him than to you on that subject, and I begged him to discuss the matter with the officers. It is quite absurd that Stokes and you should waste your time in press drudgery.
We are very prudent here, and the climate suits us both, especially my wife, who is so vigorous that I depute her to go and see the Palazzi, and tell me all about them when she comes back. Old Rome is endlessly interesting to me, and I can always potter about and find occupation. I think I shall turn antiquary—it's just the occupation for a decayed naturalist, though you need not tell the Treasure I say so.
With our love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Via dei due Macelli, January 18, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
Official sentence of exile for two months more (up to May 12) arrived yesterday. So if my lords will be so kind as to concur I shall be able to disport myself with a clear conscience. I hope their lordships won't think that I am taking things too easy in not making a regular application, and I will do so if you think it better. But if it had rested with me I think I should have got back in February and taken my chance. That energetic woman that owns me, and Michael Foster, however, have taken the game out of my hands, and I have nothing to do but to submit.
On the whole I feel it is wise. I shall have more chance if I escape not only the cold but the bother of London for a couple of months more.
I was very bad a week ago, but I have taken to dosing myself with quinine, and either that or something else has given me a spurt for the last two days, so that I have been more myself than any time since I left, and begin to think that there is life in the old dog yet. If one could only have some fine weather! To-day there is the first real sunshine we have been favoured with for a week.
We are just back from a great function at St. Peter's. It is the festa of St. Peter's chair, and the ex-dragoon Cardinal Howard has been fugleman in the devout adorations addressed to that venerable article of furniture, which, as you ought to know, but probably don't, is inclosed in a bronze double and perched up in a shrine of the worst possible taste in the Tribuna of St. Peter's. The display of man-millinery and lace was enough to fill the lightest-minded woman with envy, and a general concert—some of the music very good—prevented us from feeling dull, while the ci-devant guardsman—big, burly, and bullet-headed—made God and then eat him.
[A reminiscence of Browning in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb":—
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long.]
I must have a strong strain of Puritan blood in me somewhere, for I am possessed with a desire to arise and slay the whole brood of idolators whenever I assist at one of these ceremonies. You will observe that I am decidedly better, and have a capacity for a good hatred still.
The last news about Gordon is delightful. The chances are he will rescue Wolseley yet.
With our love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his eldest son.]
Rome, January 20, 1885.
I need hardly tell you that I find Rome wonderfully interesting, and the attraction increases the longer one stays. I am obliged to take care of myself and do but little in the way of sight-seeing, but by directing one's attention to particular objects one can learn a great deal without much trouble. I begin to understand Old Rome pretty well, and I am quite learned in the Catacombs, which suit me, as a kind of Christian fossils out of which one can reconstruct the body of the primitive Church. She was a simple maiden enough and vastly more attractive than the bedizened old harridan of the modern Papacy, so smothered under the old clothes of Paganism which she has been appropriating for the last fifteen centuries that Jesus of Nazareth would not know her if he met her.
I have been to several great papistical functions—among others to the festa of the Cathedra Petri in St. Peter's last Sunday, and I confess I am unable to understand how grown men can lend themselves to such elaborate tomfooleries—nothing but mere fetish worship—in forms of execrably bad taste, devised, one would think, by a college of ecclesiastical man-milliners for the delectation of school-girls. It is curious to notice that intellectual and aesthetic degradation go hand in hand. You have only to go from the Pantheon to St. Peter's to understand the great abyss which lies between the Roman of paganism and the Roman of the papacy. I have seen nothing grander than Agrippa's work—the popes have stripped it to adorn their own petrified lies, but in its nakedness it has a dignity with which there is nothing to compare in the ill-proportioned, worse decorated tawdry stone mountain on the Vatican.
The best thing, from an aesthetic point of view, that could be done with Rome would be to destroy everything except St. Paolo fuori le Mure, of later date than the fourth century.
But you will have had enough of my scrawl, and your mother wants to add something. She is in great force, and is gone prospecting to some Palazzo or other to tell me if it is worth seeing.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, January 25, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
Best thanks for the telegram which arrived the day before yesterday and set my mind at ease.
I have been screwing up the old machine which I inhabit, first with quinine and now with a form of strychnia (which Clark told me to take) for the last week, and I have improved a good deal—whether post hoc or proper hoc in the present uncertainty of medical science I decline to give any opinion.
The weather is very cold for Rome—ice an eighth of an inch thick in the Ludovisi Garden the other morning, and every night it freezes, but mostly fine sunshine in the day. (This is a remarkable sentence in point of grammar, but never mind.) The day before yesterday we came out on the Campagna, and it then was as fresh and bracing a breeze as you could get in Northumberland.
We are very comfortable and quiet here, and I hold on—till it gets warmer. I am told that Florence is detestable at present. As for London, our accounts make us shiver and cough.
News about the dynamiting gentry just arrived. A little more mischief and there will be an Irish massacre in some of our great towns. If an Irish Parnellite member were to be shot for every explosion I believe the thing would soon stop. It would be quite just, as they are practically accessories.
I think — would do it if he were Prime Minister. Nothing like a thorough Radical for arbitrary acts of power!
I must be getting better, as my disgust at science has ceased, and I have begun to potter about Roman geology and prehistoric work. You may be glad to learn that there is no evidence that the prehistoric Romans had Roman noses. But as I cannot find any particular prevalence of them among the modern—or ancient except for Caesar—Romani, the fact is not so interesting as it might appear, and I would not advise you to tell — of it.
Behold a Goak—feeble, but promising of better things.
My wife unites with me with love to Mrs. Donnelly and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter refers to the fourth edition of the "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," in the preparation of which Dr. Foster had been helping during the summer:—]
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, February 1, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Anything more disgraceful than the way in which I have left your letter of more than a fortnight ago unanswered, I don't know. I thought the wife had written about the leave (and she thought I had, as she has told you), but I knew I had not answered the questions about the title, still less considered the awful incubus (x 10,000 dinners by hepatic deep objection) of the preface.
There is such a thing as justice in this world—not much of it, but still some—and it is partly on that ground and partly because I want you, in view of future eventualities, to have a copyright in the book, that I proposed we should join our names.
Of course, if you would really rather not, for any good reason you may have, I have nothing further to say. But I don't think that the sentimental reason is a good one, and unless you have a better, I wish you would let the original proposal stand.
However, having stated the case afresh I leave it for you to say yes or no, and shall abide by your decision without further discussion.
As to the Preface. If I am to write it, please send me the old Preface. I think the book was published in 1864, or was it 1866? [In 1866.] and it ought to be come of age or nearly so.
You might send me the histological chapter, not that I am going to alter anything, but I should like to see how it looks. I will knock the Preface off at once, as soon as I hear from you.
The fact is, I have been much better in the course of the last few days. The weather has been very sunshiny but cool and bracing, and I have taken to quinine. Tried Clark's strychnine, but it did not answer so well.
I am in hopes that I have taken a turn for the better, and that there may yet be the making of something better than a growling hypochondriacal old invalid about me. But I am most sincerely glad that I am not obliged to be back 10 days hence—there is not much capital accumulated yet.
I find that the Italians have been doing an immense deal in prehistoric archaeology of late years, and far more valuable work than I imagined. But it is very difficult to get at, and as Loescher's head man told me the other day when I asked for an Italian book published in Rome, "Well, you see it is so difficult to get Roman books in Rome."
I am ashamed to be here two months without paying my respects to the Lincei, and I am going to-day. The unaccountable creatures meet at 1 o'clock—lunch time!
Best love from my wife and self to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Rome, February 14, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Voila the preface—a work of great labour! and which you may polish and alter as you like, ALL BUT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. You see I have caved in. I like your asking to have your own way "for once." My wife takes the same line, does whatever she pleases, and then declares I leave her no initiative.
If I talk of public affairs, I shall simply fall a-blaspheming. I see the "Times" holds out about Gordon, and does not believe he is killed. Poor fellow! I wish I could believe that his own conviction (as he told me) is true, and that death only means a larger government for him to administer. Anyhow, it is better to wind up that way than to go growling out one's existence as a ventose hypochondriac, dependent upon the condition of a few square inches of mucous membrane for one's heaven or hell.
As to private affairs, I think I am getting solidly, but very slowly, better. In fact, I can't say there is much the matter with me, except that I am weaker than I ought to be, and that a sort of weary indolence hangs about me like a fog. M— is wonderfully better, and her husband has taken a house for them at Norwood. If I could be rejoiced at anything, I should be at that; but it seems to me as if since that awful journey when I first left England, "the springs was broke," as that vagabond tout said at Naples.
It has turned very cold here, and we are uncertain when to leave for Florence, but probably next week. The Carnival is the most entirely childish bosh I have ever met with among grown people. Want to finish this now for post, but will write again speedily. Moseley's proposition is entirely to my mind, and I have often talked to it. The Royal Society rooms ought to be house-of-call and quasi-club for all F.R.S. in London.
Wife is bonny, barring a cold. It is as much as I can do to prevent her sporting a mask and domino!
With best love,
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, February 16, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
I have had it on my mind to write to you for the last week—ever since the hideous news about Gordon reached us. But partly from a faint hope that his wonderful fortune might yet have stood him in good stead, and partly because there is no great satisfaction in howling with rage, I have abstained.
Poor fellow! I wonder if he has entered upon the "larger sphere of action" which he told me was reserved for him in case of such a trifling accident as death. Of all the people whom I have met with in my life, he and Darwin are the two in whom I have found something bigger than ordinary humanity—an unequalled simplicity and directness of purpose—a sublime unselfishness.
Horrible as it is to us, I imagine that the manner of his death was not unwelcome to himself. Better wear out than rust out, and better break than wear out. The pity is that he could not know the feeling of his countrymen about him.
I shall be curious to see what defence the super-ingenious Premier has to offer for himself in Parliament. I suppose, as usual, the question will drift into a brutal party fight, when the furious imbecility of the Tories will lead them to spoil their case. That is where we are; on the one side, timid imbecility "waiting for instructions from the constituencies"; furious imbecility on the other, looking out for party advantage. Oh! for a few months of William Pitt.
I see you think there may be some hope that Gordon has escaped yet. I am afraid the last telegram from Wolseley was decisive. We have been watching the news with the greatest anxiety, and it has seemed only to get blacker and blacker.
…
[Touching a determined effort to alter the management of certain
Technical Education business.]
I trust he may succeed, and that the unfitness of these people to be trusted with anything may be demonstrated. I regret I am not able to help in the good work. Get the thing out of their hands as fast as possible. The prospect of being revenged for all the beastly dinners I sat out and all the weary discussions I attended to no purpose, really puts a little life into me. Apropos of that, I am better in various ways, but curiously weak and washed out; and I am afraid that not even the prospect of a fight would screw me up for long. I don't understand it, unless I have some organic disease of which nobody can find any trace (and in which I do not believe myself), or unless the terrible trouble we have had has accelerated the advent of old age. I rather suspect that the last speculation is nearest the truth. You will be glad to hear that my poor girl is wonderfully better, and, indeed, to all appearance quite well. They are living quietly at Norwood.
I shall be back certainly by the 12th April, probably before. We have found very good quarters here, and have waited for the weather to get warmer before moving; but at last we have made up our minds to begin nomadising again next Friday. We go to Florence, taking Siena, and probably Pisa, on our way, and reaching Florence some time next week. Address—Hotel Milano, Via Cerretani.
For the last week the Carnival has been going on. It strikes me as the most elaborate and dreariest tomfoolery I have ever seen, but I doubt if I am in the humour to judge it fairly. It is only just to say that it entertains my vigorous wife immensely. I have been expecting to see her in mask and domino, but happily this is the last day, and there is no sign of any yet. I have never seen any one so much benefited by rest and change as she is, and that is a good thing for both of us.
After Florence we shall probably make our way to Venice, and come home by the Lago di Garda and Germany. But I will let you know when our plans are settled.
With best love from we two to you two.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Siena, February 23, 1885.
Dearest Ethel,
The cutting you sent me contains one of the numerous "goaks" of a Yankee performing donkey who is allowed to disport himself in one of the New York papers. I confess it is difficult to see the point of the joke, but there is one if you look close. I don't think you need trouble to enlighten the simple inquirer. He probably only wanted the indignant autograph which he won't get.
The Parker Museum must take care of itself. The public ought to support it, not the men of science.
As a grandfather, I am ashamed of my friends who are of the same standing; but I think they would take it as a liberty if, in accordance with your wish, I were to write to expostulate.
After your mother had exhausted the joys of the Carnival, she permitted me to leave Rome for this place, where we arrived last Friday evening. My impression is that if we had stayed in Rome much longer we should never have left. There is something idle and afternoony about the air which whittles away one's resolution.
The change here is wonderfully to the good. We are perched more than a thousand feet above the sea, looking over the Tuscan hills for twenty or thirty miles every way. It is with them enough sit with the window wide open and yet the air is prior and more bracing than in any place we have visited. Moreover, the hotel (Grande Albergo) is very comfortable.
Then there is one of the most wonderful cathedrals to be seen in all North Italy—free from all the gaudy finery and atrocious bad taste which have afflicted me all over South Italy. The town is the quaintest place imaginable—built of narrow streets on several steep hills to start with, and then apparently stirred up with a poker to prevent monotony of effect.
Moreover, there is Catherine of Siena, of whom I am reading a delightful Catholic life by an Italian father of the Oratory. She died 500 years ago, but she was one of twenty-five children, and I think some of them must have settled in Kent and allied themselves with the Heathorns. Otherwise, I don't see why her method of writing to the Pope should have been so much like the way my daughters (especially the youngest) write to their holy father.
I wish she had not had the stigmata—I am afraid there must have been a LEETLE humbug about the business—otherwise she was a very remarkable person, and you need not be ashamed of the relationship.
I suppose we shall get to Florence some time this week; the address was sent to you before we left Rome—Hotel Milano, Via Cerretani. But I am loth to leave this lovely air in which, I do believe, I am going to pick up at last. The misfortune is that we did not intend to stay here more than three days, and so had letters sent to Florence. Everybody told us it would be very cold, and, as usual, everybody told taradiddles.
M— unites in fondest love to you all.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his son.]
Siena, February 25, 1885.
…If you had taken to physical science it would have been delightful for me for us to have worked together, and I am half inclined to take to history that I may earn that pleasure. I could give you some capital wrinkles about the physical geography and prehistoric history (excuse bull) of Italy for a Roman History primer! Joking apart, I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it a process of evolution—intelligible to the young. The Italians have been doing wonders in the last twenty years in prehistoric archaeology, and I have been greatly interested in acquainting myself with the general results of their work.
We moved here last Friday, and only regret that the reports of the weather prevented us from coming sooner. More than 1000 feet above the sea, in the midst of a beautiful hill country, and with the clearest and purist air we have met with in Italy, Siena is perfectly charming. The window is wide open and I look out upon a vast panorama, something like that of the Surrey hills, only on a larger scale—"Raw Siena," "Burnt Siena," in the foreground, where the colour of the soil is not hidden by the sage green olive foliage, purple mountains in the distance.
The old town itself is a marvel of picturesque crookedness, and the cathedral a marvel. M. and I have been devoting ourselves this morning to St. Catarina and Sodoma's pictures.
I am reading a very interesting life of her by Capecelatro, and if my liver continues out of order, may yet turn Dominican.
However, the place seems to be doing me good, and I may yet, like another person, decline to be a monk.
[To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]
March 8.
The great merit of Rome is that you have never seen the end of it. M. and I have not worked very hard at our galleries and churches, but I have got so far as a commencing dislike for the fine arts generally. Perhaps after a week or two I shall take to science out of sheer weariness.
Hotel de Milano, Florence, March 12, 1885.
My dear Foster,
My wife and I send you our hearty good wishes (antedated by four days). I am not sure we ought not to offer our best thanks to your mother for providing us with as staunch a friend as people ever were blessed with. It is possible that she did not consider that point nine and forty years ago; but we are just as grateful as if she had gone through it all on our own account.
We start on our way homeward to-morrow or next day, by Bologna to Venice, and then to England by the way we came—taking it easy. The Brenner is a long way round and I hear very cold. I think we may stay a few days at Lugano, which I liked very much when there before. Florence is very charming, but there is not much to be said for the climate. My wife has been bothered with sore throat, to which she is especially liable, ever since we have been here. Old residents console her with the remark that Florentine sore throat is a regular thing in the spring. The alternations of heat and cold are detestable. So we stand thus—Naples, bad for both—Rome, good for her, bad for me—Florence, bad for her, baddish for me. Venice has to be tried, but stinks and mosquitoes are sure to render it impossible as soon as the weather is warm. Siena is the only place that suited both of us, and I don't think that would exactly answer to live in. Nothing like foreign travel for making one content with home.
I shall have to find a country lot suited to my fortunes when I am paid off. Couldn't you let us have your gardener's cottage? my wife understands poultry and I shall probably have sufficient strength to open the gate and touch my hat to the Dons as they drive up. I am afraid E. is not steady enough for waiting-maid or I would offer her services.
…I am rejoiced to hear that the lessons and the questions are launched. [The new edition of the "Elementary Physiology.">[ They loom large to me as gigantic undertakings, in which a dim and speculative memory suggests I once took part, but probably it is a solar myth, and I am too sluggish to feel much compunction for the extra trouble you have had.
Perhaps I shall revive when my foot is on my native heath in the shady groves of the Evangelist. [St. John's Wood.]
My wife is out photograph hunting—nothing diminishes her activity—otherwise she would join in love and good wishes to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The two worst and most depressing periods of this vain pilgrimage in pursuit of health were the stay at Rome and at Florence. At the latter town he was inexpressibly ill and weak; but his daily life was brightened by the sympathy and active kindness of Sir Spencer Walpole, who would take him out for short walks, talking as little as possible, and shield him from the well-meant but tactless attentions of visitors who would try to] "rouse him and do him good" [by long talks on scientific questions.
His physical condition, indeed, was little improved.]
As for my unsatisfactory carcass [he writes on March 6, to Sir J. Donnelly], there seems nothing the matter with it now except that the brute objects to work. I eat well, drink well, sleep well, and have no earthly ache, pain or discomfort. I can walk for a couple of hours or more without fatigue. But half an hour's talking wearies me inexpressibly, and "saying a few words," would finish me for the day. For all that, I do not mean to confess myself finally beaten till I have had another try.
[That is to say, he was still bent upon delivering his regular course of lectures at South Kensington as soon as he returned, in spite of the remonstrances of his wife and his friends.
In the same letter he contrasts Florence with Siena and its] "fresh, elastic air," [its] "lovely country that reminds one of a magnified version of the Surrey weald." [The Florentine climate was trying. (A week later he writes to Sir J. Evans—] "I begin to look forward with great satisfaction to the equability of English weather—to that dear little island where doors and windows shut close—where fires warm without suffocating—where the chief business of the population in the streets is something else than expectoration—and where I shall never see fowl with salad again. You perceive I am getting better by this prolonged growl…But half an hour's talking knocks me up, and I am such an effete creature that I think of writing myself p.R.S. With a small p.") "And then there is the awful burden of those miles of 'treasures of art.'" [He had been to the Uffizii;] "and there is the Pitti staring me in the face like drear fate. Why can't I have the moral courage to come back and say I haven't seen it? I should be the most distinguished of men."
[There is another reference to Gordon:—]
What an awful muddle you are all in in the bright little, tight little island. I hate the sight of the English papers. The only good thing that has met my eye lately is a proposal to raise a memorial to Gordon. I want to join in whatever is done, and unless it will be time enough when I return, I shall be glad if you will put me down for 5 pounds to whatever is the right scheme.
[The following to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, describes the stay in
Florence.]
Hotel de Milano, Florence, March 7, 1885.
We have been here more than a week and have discovered two things, first that the wonderful "art treasures," of which all the world has heard, are a sore burden to the conscience if you don't go to see them, and an awful trial to the back and legs if you do; and thirdly, that the climate is productive of a peculiar kind of relaxed throat. M.'s throat discovered it, but on inquiry, it proved to be a law of nature, at least, so the oldest inhabitants say. We called on them to-day.
But it is a lovely place for all that, far better than Rome as a place to live in, and full of interesting things. We had a morning at the Uffizii the other day, and came back with minds enlarged and backs broken. To-morrow we contemplate attacking the Pitti, and doubt not the result will be similar. By the end of the week our minds will probably be so large, and the small of the back so small that we should probably break if we stayed any longer, so think it prudent to be off to Venice. Which Friday is the day we go, reaching Venice Saturday or Sunday. Pension Suisse, Canal Grande, as before. And mind we have letters waiting for us there, or your affectionate Pater will emulate the historical "cocky."
I got much better at Siena, probably the result of the medicinal nature of the city, the name of which, as a well-instructed girl like you knows, is derived from the senna, which grows wild there, and gives the soil its peculiar pigmentary character.
But unfortunately I forgot to bring any with me, and the effect went off during the first few days of our residence here, when I was, as the Italians say, "molto basso nel bocca." However I am picking up again now, and if people wouldn't call upon us, I feel there might be a chance for me.
I except from that remark altogether the dear Walpoles who are here and as nice as ever. Mrs. Walpole's mother and sister live here, and the W's are on a visit to them but leave on Wednesday. They go to Venice, but only for two or three days.
We shall probably stay about a fortnight in Venice, and then make our way back by easy stages to London. We are wae to see you all again.
Doctor M— [Mrs. Huxley] has just been called in to a case of sore throat in the person of a young lady here, and is quite happy. The young lady probably will not be, when she finds herself converted into a sort of inverted mustard-pot, with the mustard outside! She is one of a very nice family of girls, who (by contrast) remind us of own.
Ever your loving (to all) father,
Pater.
Mrs. M.— has just insisted on seeing this letter.
[To his youngest daughter.]
Hotel Beau Sejour, San Remo, March 30, 1885.
Dearest Babs,
We could not stand "beautiful Venice the pride of the sea" any longer. It blew and rained and colded for eight-and-forty hours consecutively. Everybody said it was a most exceptional season, but that did not make us any warmer or prevent your mother from catching an awful cold. So as soon as she got better we packed up and betook ourselves here by way of Milan and Genoa. At Milan it was so like London on a wet day, that except for the want of smoke we might have been in our dear native land. At Genoa we arrived late one afternoon and were off early in the morning—but by dint of taking a tram after dinner (not a dram) and going there and back again we are able to say we have seen that city of palaces. The basements we saw through the tram windows by mixed light of gas and moon may in fact all have belonged to palaces. We are not in a position to say they did not.
The quick train from Genoa here is believed to go fully twenty-five miles an hour, but starts at 7 A.M., but the early morning air being bad for the health, we took the slow train at 9.30, and got here some time in the afternoon. But mind you it is a full eighty miles, and when we were at full speed between the stations—very few donkeys could have gone faster. But the coast scenery is very pretty, and we didn't mind.
Here we are very well off and as nearly warm as I expect to be before reaching England. You can sit out in the sun with satisfaction, though there is a little knife-edge of wind just to remind us of Florence. Everybody, however, tells us it is quite an exceptional season, and that it ought to be the most balmy air imaginable. Besides there are no end of date-palms and cactuses and aloes and odorous flowers in the garden—and the loveliest purple sea you can imagine.
Well, we shall stop some days and give San Remo a chance—at least a week, unless the weather turns bad.
As to your postcards which have been sent on from Venice and are really shabby, I am not going to any dinners whatsoever, either Middle Temple or Academy. Just write to both that "Mr. H. regrets he is unable to accept the invitation with which — have honoured him." (It's like putting the shutters up," [he said sadly to his wife, when he felt unable to attend the Royal Academy dinner as he had done for many years.])
I have really nothing the matter with me now—but my stock of strength is not great, and I can't afford to spend any on dinners.
The blessedest thing now will be to have done with the nomadic life of the last five months—and see your ugly faces (so like their dear father) again. I believe it will be the best possible tonic for me.
M— has not got rid of her cold yet, but a few warm days here will, I hope, set her up.
I met Lady Whitworth on the esplanade to-day—she is here with Sir Joseph, and this afternoon we went to call on her. The poor old man is very feeble and greatly altered since I saw him last.
Write here on receiving this. We shall take easy stages home, but I don't know that I shall be able to give you any address.
M— sends heaps of love to all (including Charles [The cat.]).
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
Tell the "Micropholis" man that it is a fossil lizard with an armour of small scales.