You start subjects enough for half a dozen papers, and partly from the compression thus resulting, and partly from the absence of illustrations, I do not believe there are half a dozen men in Europe who will be able to follow you. Furthermore, though the appendix is relevant enough—every line of it—to those who have dived deep, as you and I have—to any one else it has all the aspects of a string of desultory discussions. AS YOUR FATHER CONFESSOR, I FORBID THE PUBLICATION OF THE APPENDIX. After having had all this trouble with you I am not going to have you waste your powers for want of a little method, so I tell you.
What you are to do is this. You are to rewrite the introduction and to say that the present paper is the first of a series on the structure of the vertebrate skull; that the second will be "On the development of the osseous cranium of the Common Fowl" (and here (if you are good), I will permit you to introduce the episode on cartilage and membrane [illegible]); the third will be "On the chief modifications of the cranium observed in the Sauropsida."
The fourth, "On the mammalian skull."
The fifth, "On the skull of the Ichthyopsida."
I will give you two years from this time to execute these five memoirs; and then if you have stood good-temperedly the amount of badgering and bullying you will get from me whenever you come dutifully to report progress, you shall be left to your own devices in the third year to publish a paper on "The general structure and theory of the vertebrate skull."
You have a brilliant field before you, and a start such that no one is likely to catch you. Sit deliberately down over against the city, conquer it and make it your own, and don't be wasting powder in knocking down odd bastions with random shells.
I write jestingly, but I really am very much in earnest. Come and have a talk on the matter as soon as you can, for I should send in my report. You will find me in Jermyn Street, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday mornings, Thursday afternoon, but not Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Send a line to say when you will come.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.