Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

His scientific training, moreover, made him ridicule the modern notion that it was possible to stock the sea by artificial methods. He wrote to me, when the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 was in contemplation,] "You may have seen that we have a new Fish Culture Society. C— talked gravely about our stocking the North Sea with cod! After that I suppose we shall take up herrings: and I mean to propose whales, which, as all the world knows, are terribly over fished!" [And after the exhibition was over he wrote to me again, with reference to a report which the Commission had asked me to draw up: ["I have just finished reading your report, which has given me a world of satisfaction…I am particularly glad that you have put in a word of warning to the fish culturists." [When I was asked to write the report on this Commission, I said that I would do so if Sir E. Birkbeck, its chairman, and Professor Huxley, both met me to discuss the points to be noticed. The meeting duly took place: and I opened it by asking what was the chief lesson to be drawn from the exhibition?] "Well," [said Professor Huxley,] "the chief lesson to be drawn from the exhibition is that London is in want of some open air amusement on summer evenings."

[He was not, however, equally certain that particular areas of Sea Shore might not be exhausted by our fishing. He extended in 1883 an order which Mr. Buckland and I had made in 1879 for restricting the taking of crabs and lobsters on the coast of Norfolk, and he wrote to me on that occasion:] "I was at Cromer and Sheringham last week, holding an inquiry for the Board of Trade about the working of your order of 1879. According to all accounts, the crabs have multiplied threefold in 1881 and 1882. Whether this is post hoc or propter hoc is more than I should like to say. But at any rate, this is a very good prima facie case for continuing the order, and I shall report accordingly. Anyhow, the conditions are very favourable for a long-continued experiment in the effects of regulation, and, ten years hence, there will be some means of judging of the value of these restrictions."

[If, however, Professor Huxley was strongly opposed to unnecessary interference with the labours of sea fishermen, he was well aware of the necessity of protecting migratory fish like salmon, against over-fishing: and his reports for 1882 and 1883—in which he gave elaborate accounts of the results of legislation on the Tyne and on the Severn—show that he keenly appreciated the necessity of regulating the Salmon Fisheries.

It so happened that at the time of his appointment, many of our important rivers were visited by "Saprolegnia ferax," the fungoid growth which became popularly known as Salmon Disease. Professor Huxley gave much time to the study of the conditions under which the fungus flourished: he devoted much space in his earlier reports to the subject: and he read a paper upon it at a remarkable meeting of the Royal Society in the summer of 1881. He took a keen interest in these investigations, and he wrote to me from North Wales, at the end of 1881,] "The salmon brought to me here have not been so badly diseased as I could have wished, and the fungus dies so rapidly out of the water that only one specimen furnished me with materials in lively condition. These I have cultivated: and to my great satisfaction have got some flies infected. With nine precious muscoid corpses, more or less ornamented with a lovely fur trimming of Saprolegnia, I shall return to London to-morrow, and shall be ready in a short time, I hope, to furnish Salmon Disease wholesale, retail, or for exportation."

[In carrying out the duties of our office, Professor Huxley and I were necessarily thrown into very close communication. There were few days in which we did not pass some time in each other's company: there were many weeks in which we travelled together through the river basins of this country. I think that I am justified in saying that official intercourse ripened into warm personal friendship, and that, for the many months in which we served together, we lived on terms of intimacy which are rare among colleagues or even among friends.

It is needless to say that, as a companion, Professor Huxley was the most delightful of men. Those who have met him in society, or enjoyed the hospitality of his house, must have been conscious of the singular charm of a conversation, which was founded on knowledge, enlarged by memory, and brightened by humour. But, admirable as he was in society, no one could have realised the full charm of his company who had not conversed with him alone. He had the rare art of placing men, whose knowledge and intellect were inferior to his own, at their ease. He knew how to draw out all that was best in the companion who suited him; and he had equal pleasure in giving and receiving. Our conversation ranged over every subject. We discussed together the grave problems of man and his destiny; we disputed on the minor complications of modern politics; we criticised one another's literary judgments; and we laughed over the stories which we told one another, and of which Professor Huxley had an inexhaustible fund.

In conversation Professor Huxley displayed the quality which distinguished him both as a writer and a public speaker. He invariably used the right words in the right sense. Those who are jointly responsible—as he and I were often jointly responsible—for some written document, have exceptional opportunities of observing this quality. Professor Huxley could always put his finger on a wrong word, and he always instinctively chose the right one. It was this qualification—a much rarer one than people imagine—which made Professor Huxley's essays clear to the meanest understanding, and which made him, in my judgment, the greatest master of prose of his time. The same quality was equally observable in his spoken speech. I happened to be present at the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society, at which Professor Huxley made his last speech. And, as he gave an admirable account of the share which he had taken in defending Mr. Darwin against his critics, I overheard the present Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury.) say, "What a beautiful speaker he is."

In 1882, the duties of another appointment forced me to resign the Inspectorship, which I had held for so long: and thenceforward my residence in the Isle of Man gave me fewer opportunities of seeing Professor Huxley: our friendship, however, remained unbroken; and occasional visits to London gave me many opportunities of renewing it. He retained his own appointment as Inspector for more than three years after my resignation. He served, during the closing months of his officialship, on a Royal Commission on trawling, over which the late Lord Dalhousie presided. But his health broke down before the commissioners issued their report, and he was ordered abroad. It so happened that in the spring of 1885 I was staying at Florence, when Professor and Mrs. Huxley passed through it on their way home. He had at that time seen none of his old friends, and was only slowly regaining strength. After his severe illness Mrs. Huxley encouraged me to take him out for many short walks, and I did my best to cheer him in his depressed condition. He did not then think that he had ten years of—on the whole—happy life before him. He told me that he was about to retire from all his work, and he added, that he had never enjoyed the Inspectorship after I had left it. I am happy in believing that the remark was due to the depression from which he was suffering, for he had written to me two years ago,] "The office would be quite perfect, if they did not want an annual report. I can't go in for a disquisition on river basins after the manner of Buckland, and you have exhausted the other topics. I polished off the Salmon Disease pretty fully last year, so what the deuce am I to write about?"

[I saw Professor Huxley for the last time on the Christmas day before his death. I spent some hours with him, with no other companions than Mrs. Huxley and my daughter. I had never seen him brighter or happier, and his rich, playful and sympathetic talk vividly recalled the many brilliant hours which I had passed in his company some twelve or thirteen years before.

One word more. No one could have known Professor Huxley intimately without recognising that he delighted in combat. He was never happier than when he was engaged in argument or controversy, and he loved to select antagonists worthy of his steel. The first public inquiry which we held together was attended by a great nobleman, whom Professor Huxley did not know by sight, but who rose at the commencement of our proceedings to offer some suggestions. Professor Huxley directed him to sit down, and not interrupt the business. I told my colleague in a whisper whom he was interrupting. And I was amused, as we walked away to luncheon together, by his quaint remark to me,] "We have begun very well, we have sat upon a duke." [(Of this he wrote home on March 15, 1881:] "Somebody produced the 'Punch' yesterday and showed it to me, to the great satisfaction of the Duke of —, who has attended our two meetings. I nearly had a shindy with him at starting, but sweetness and light (in my person) carried the day." [This "Punch" contained the cartoon of Huxley in nautical costume riding on a salmon; contrary to the custom of "Punch," it made an unfair hit in appending to his name the letters L.s.d. (Pounds, shillings and pence.) Never was any one who deserved the imputation less.)