It may be worth our while to go in for this, and trust to time for the other. What say you?
Merry Christmas to you. The G.O.M. is going to reply, so I am likely to have a happy New Year! I expect some fun, and I mean to make it an occasion for some good earnest.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[So ends 1885, and with it closes another definite period of Huxley's life. Free from official burdens and official restraints, he was at liberty to speak out on any subject; his strength for work was less indeed, but his time was his own; there was hope that he might still recover his health for a few more years. And though the ranks of his friends were beginning to thin, though he writes (May 20, to Professor Bartholomew Price):—]
The "gaps" are terrible accompaniments of advancing life. It is only with age that one realises the full truth of Goethe's quatrain:—
Eine Bruche ist ein jeder Tag, etc.
[and again:—]
The x Club is going to smithereens, as if a charge of dynamite had been exploded in the midst of it. Busk is slowly fading away. Tyndall is, I fear, in a bad way, and I am very anxious about Hooker:—
[Still the club hung together for many years, and outside it were other devoted friends, who would have echoed Dr. Foster's good wishes on the last day of the year:—