I doubt, or at least I have no confidence in, the doctrine of ultimate happiness, and I am more inclined to look the opposite possibility fully in the face, and if that also be inevitable, make up my mind to bear it also.
You will tell me there are better consolations than Stoicism; that may be, but I do not possess them, and I have found my "grin and bear it" philosophy stand me in such good stead in my course through oceans of disgust and chagrin, that I should be loth to give it up.
[The summer of 1854 was spent in company with the Busks at Tenby, amid plenty of open-air work and in great peace of mind, varied with a short visit to Liverpool in order to talk business with his friend Forbes, who was eager that Huxley should join him in Edinburgh.]
Tenby, South Wales, September 3, 1854.
I have been here since the middle of August, getting rid of my yellow face and putting on a brown one, banishing dyspepsias and hypochondrias and all such other town afflictions to the four winds, and rejoicing exceedingly that I am out of the way of that pest, the cholera, which is raging just at present in London.
After I had arranged to come here to do a lot of work of my own which can only be done by the seaside, our Director, Sir Henry de la Beche, gave me a special mission of his own whereby I have the comfort of having my expenses paid, but at the same time get it taken out of me in additional labour, so my recreation is anything but leisure.
October 14.
I left this place for a week's trip to Liverpool in the end of September. The meeting of the British Association was held there, but I went not so much to be present as to meet Forbes, with whom I wanted to talk over many matters concerning us both. Forbes had a proposition that I should go to Edinburgh to take part of the duties of the Professor of Physiology there, who is in bad health, with the ultimate aim of succeeding to the chair. It was a tempting offer made in a flattering manner, and presenting a prospect of considerably better emolument than my special post, but it had the disadvantage of being but an uncertain position. Had I accepted, I should have been at the mercy of the actual Professor—and that is a position I don't like standing in, even with the best of men, and had he died or resigned at any time the Scotch chairs are so disposed of that there would have been nothing like a certainty of my getting the post, so I definitely declined—I hope wisely.
After some talk, Forbes agreed with my view of the case, so he is off to Edinburgh, and I shall go off to London. I hope to remain there for my life long.
[He had long felt that London gave the best opportunities for a
scientific career, and it was on his advice that Tyndall had left
Queenwood College for the Royal Institution, where he was elected
Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1853:—]