The fact is that it has only just reached me, owing to the neglect of the people in Jermyn Street, who ought to have sent it on here.
I assure you I have not forgotten the brief interview to which you refer, and I have often regretted that the hurry and worry of life (which increases with the square of your distance from youth) never allowed me to take advantage of your kind father's invitation to become better acquainted with him and his. I found his card in Jermyn Street when I returned last year, with a pencilled request that I would call on him at Westminster.
I meant to do so, but the whirl of things delayed me until, as I bitterly regret, it was too late.
I am not sure that I have any important letter of your father's but one, written to me some fifteen years ago, on the occasion of the death of a child who was then my only son. It was in reply to a letter of my own written in a humour of savage grief. Most likely he burned the letter, and his reply would be hardly intelligible without it. Moreover, I am not at all sure that I can lay my hands upon your father's letter in a certain chaos of papers which I have never had the courage to face for years. But if you wish I will try.
I am very grieved to hear of Mrs. Kingsley's indisposition. Pray make my kindest remembrances to her, and believe me your very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—By the way, letters addressed to my private residence,
4 Marlborough Place, N.W.,
are sure not to be delayed. And I have another reason for giving the address—the hope that when you come to Town you will let my wife and daughters make your acquaintance.
[His continued interest in the germ-theory and the question of the origin of life ("Address at the British Association" 1870 see 2 page 14, sq.), appears from the following:—]