On the other hand, if I republish what stands in the article, the
Encyclopaedia very naturally growls.
What do the sweetest of Editors and the most liberal of Proprietors say ought to be done under the circumstances?
I pause for a reply.
I have carried about Stanley's note in my pocket-book until I am sorry to say the flyleaf has become hideously stained. [The Dean's handwriting was proverbial.]
The wife and daughters could make nothing of it, but I, accustomed to the manuscript of certain correspondents, have no doubt as to the fourth word of the second sentence. It is "Canterbury." [The writing of this word is carefully slurred until it is almost as illegible as the original.] Nothing can be plainer.
Hoping the solution is entirely satisfactory,
Believe me, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Though he refused to undertake the article on "Distribution," he managed to write that on "Evolution" (republished in "Collected Essays" 2 187). Thus on July 28, 1877, he writes:—]
I ought to do "Evolution," but I mightn't and I shouldn't. Don't see how it is practicable to do justice to it with the time at my disposal, though I really should like to do it, and I am at my wits' end to think of anybody who can be trusted with it.