Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

[And later:—]

…I have been very busy looking about for the last two days, and have been in fifty houses if I have been in one. I want some place with a decent address, cheap, and beyond all things, clean. The dirty holes that some of these lodgings are! such tawdry finery and such servants, with their faces and hands not merely dirty, but absolutely macadamised. And they all make this confounded great Exhibition a plea for about doubling the rent.

[So in April 1851 he removed to lodgings hard by, at 1 Hanover Place, Clarence Gate, Regent's Park] ("which sounds grand, but means nothing more than a sitting-room and bedroom in a small house"), [then to St. Anne's Gardens, and after that to Upper York Place, while making a second home with his brother. His other great friends already in London were the Fannings, who had left Australia a few months before his own return. In the scientific world he soon made acquaintance with most of the leading men, and began a close friendship with Edward Forbes, with George Busk (then surgeon to H.M.S. "Dreadnought" at Greenwich, afterwards President of the College of Surgeons) and his accomplished wife, and later in the year with both Hooker and Tyndall. The Busks, indeed, showed him the greatest kindness throughout this period of struggle, and the sympathy and intellectual stimulus he received from their society were of the utmost help. They were always ready to welcome him at Greenwich, and he not only often ran down there for a week-end, but would spend part of his vacations with them at Lowestoft or Tenby, where naturalists could find plenty of occupation.

But from a worldly point of view, it was too soon clear that science was sadly unprofitable. There seemed no speedy prospect of making enough to marry on. As early as March 1851 he writes:—]

The difficulties of obtaining a decent position in England in anything like a reasonable time seem to me greater than ever they were. To attempt to live by any scientific pursuit is a farce. Nothing but what is absolutely practical will go down in England. A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story—wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood. I am not at all sure if…it would be the most prudent thing to stick by the Service: there at any rate is certainty in health and in sickness.

[Nevertheless he was mightily encouraged in the work of bringing out his "Rattlesnake" papers by a notable success in a quarter where he scarcely dared to hope for it. The Royal Society had for some time set itself to become a body of working men of science; to exclude for the future all mere dilettanti, and to admit a limited number of men whose work was such as to deserve recognition. Thanks to the initiative of Forbes, he now found this recognition accorded to him on the strength of his "Medusa" paper. He writes in February:—]

The F.R.S. that you tell me you dream of being appended to my name is nearer than one might think, to my no small surprise…I had no idea that it was at all within my reach, until I found out the other day, talking with Mr. Bell, that my having a paper in the "Transactions" was one of the best of qualifications.

My friend Forbes, to whom I am so much indebted, has taken the matter in hand for me, and I am told I am sure of getting it this year or the next. I do not at all expect it this year, as there are a great many candidates, far better men than I…I shall think myself lucky if I get it next year. Don't say anything about the matter till I tell you…As the old proverb says, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

[There were thirty-eight candidates; of these the Council would select fifteen, and submit their names for election at a general meeting of the Society. He was not yet twenty-six years of age, and certainly the youngest and least known of the competitors. Others probably had been up before—possibly many times before; nevertheless, on this, his first candidature, he was placed among the selected. The formal election did not took place till June 5, but on a chance visit to Forbes he heard the great news. The F.R.S. was a formal attestation of the value of the work he had already done; it was a token of success in the present, an augury of greater success in the future. No wonder the news was exciting.]

To-day [he writes on April 14] I saw Forbes at the Museum of Practical Geology, where I often drop in on him. "Well," he said, "I am glad to be able to tell you you are all right for the Royal Society; the selection was made on Friday night, and I hear that you are one of the selected. I have not seen the list, but my authority is so good that you may make yourself easy about it." I confess to having felt a little proud, though I believe I spoke and looked as cool as a cucumber. There were thirty-eight candidates, out of whom only fifteen could be selected, and I fear that they have left behind much better men than I. I shall not feel certain about the matter until I receive some official announcement. I almost wish that until then I had heard nothing about it. Notwithstanding all my cucumbery appearance, I will confess to you that I could not sit down and read to-day after the news. I wandered hither and thither restlessly half over London…Whether I have it or not, I can say one thing, that I have left my case to stand on its own strength; I have not asked for a single vote, and there are not on my certificate half the names that there might be. If it be mine, it is by no intrigue.