Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

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?