It will be jolly to see you again. Wife unites in love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To return home was not only a great pleasure; it gave him a fillip for the time, and he writes to Sir M. Foster, April 12:—]
It is very jolly to be home, and I feel better already. Clark has just been here overhauling me, and feels very confident that he shall screw me up.
I have renounced dining out and smoking (!!!) by way of preliminaries. God only knows whether I shall be permitted more than the smell of a mutton chop for dinner. But I have great faith in Andrew, who set me straight before when other "physicians' aid was vain."
[But his energy was fitful; lassitude and depression again invaded him. He was warned by Sir Andrew Clark to lay aside all the burden of his work. Accordingly, early in May, just after his sixtieth birthday, he sent in his formal resignation of the Professorship of Biology, and the Inspectorship of Salmon Fisheries; while a few days later he laid his resignation of the Presidency before the Council of the Royal Society. By the latter he was begged to defer his final decision, but his health gave no promise of sufficient amendment before the decisive Council meeting in October.
He writes on May 27:—]
I am convinced that what with my perennial weariness and my deafness I ought to go, whatever my kind friends may say.
[A curious effect of his illness was that for the first time in his life he began to shrink involuntarily from assuming responsibilities and from appearing on public occasions; thus he writes on June 16:—]