My dear Dyster,
…I will do my best to help—to some alumni if the chance comes in my way, though, as you say, I don't like him. I can't help it. I respect piety, and hope I have some after my own fashion, but I have a profound prejudice against the efflorescent form of it. I never yet found in people thoroughly imbued with that pietism, the same notions of honour and straightforwardness that obtain among men of the world. It may be otherwise with —, but I can't help my pagan prejudice. So don't judge harshly of me there-anent.
About Edinburgh, I have been going to write to you for days past. I have decided on withdrawing from the candidature, and have done so. In fact the more I thought of it the less I liked it. They require nine months' lectures some four or five times a week, which would have thoroughly used me up, and completely put a stop to anything like original work; and then there was a horrid museum to be arranged, work I don't care about, and which would have involved an amount of intriguing and heart-burning, and would have required an amount of diplomacy to carry to a successful issue, for which my temper and disposition are wholly unfitted.
And then I felt above all things that it was for me an imposture. Here have I been fighting and struggling for years, sacrificing everything to be a man of science, a genuine worker, and if I had obtained the Edinburgh chair, I should have been in reality a mere pedagogue and a man of science only in name. Such were my notions, and if I hesitated at all and allowed myself to become a candidate, it was only because I have other interests to consult than my own. Intending to "range myself" one of these days and become a respectable member of society, I was bound to consider my material interests. And so I should have been still a candidate for Edinburgh had not the Government here professed themselves unwilling to lose my services, adding the "material guarantee" of an addition to my income, which, though by no means bringing it up to the point of Edinburgh, will still enable me (das heisst "us") to live comfortably here.
I must renounce the "pomps and vanities," but all those other "lusts of the flesh" which may beseem a gentleman may be reasonably gratified.
Don't you think I have been wise in my Hercules choice? After all I don't lay claim to any great merit, seeing it was anything but certain I should get Edinburgh.
The best of all is that I have every reason to believe that Government will carry out my scheme for a coast survey, so happily and pleasantly begun at Tenby last year.
The final arrangements are almost complete, and I believe you may make up your mind to have four months of me next year. Tenby shall be immortalised and Jenkyn converted into a philosopher. [Jenkyn was employed to collect shells, etc., at Tenby. He is often alluded to as "the Professor.">[ By the way, I think the best way would be to retain the shells till I come. My main purpose is to have in them a catalogue of what Tenby affords.
Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Dyster, and believe me, ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.