Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the 21st he writes:—]
The formation of Huxley sulphide will be brought to a sudden termination to-morrow when we return to London. The process has certainly done my wife a great deal of good and I wish it could have gone on a week or two longer, but our old arrangements are upset and we must start with the chicks for Switzerland on the 27th, that is next Tuesday.
CHAPTER 2.19.
1886.
[The earlier start was decided upon for the sake of one of his daughters; who had been ill. He went first to Evolena, but the place did not suit him, and four days after his arrival went on to Arolla, whence he writes on August 3:—]
We reached Evolena on Thursday last…We had glorious weather Thursday and Friday, and the latter day (having both been told carefully to avoid over-exertion) the wife and I strolled, quite unintentionally, as far as the Glacier de Ferpecle and back again. Luckily the wife is none the worse, and indeed, I think in which more tired of the two. But we saw at once that Evolena was a mistake for our purpose, and were confirmed in that opinion by the deluge of rain on Saturday. The hotel is down in a hole at the tail of a dirty Swiss village, and only redeemed by very good cooking. So, Sunday being fine, I, E. and H. started up here to prospect, 18 miles up and down, and 2000 feet to climb, and did it beautifully. It is just the place for us, at the tail of a glacier in the midst of a splendid amphitheatre of 11 to 12,000 feet snow heights, and yet not bare and waste, any quantity of stone-pines growing about…I rather long for the flesh-pots of Evolena—cooking here being decidedly rudimentary—otherwise we are very well off.
[The keen air of six thousand feet above sea level worked wonders with the invalids. The lassitude of the last two years was swept away, and Huxley came home eager for active life. Here too it was that, for occupation, he took up the study of gentians; the beginning of that love of his garden which was so great a delight to him in his last years. On his return home he writes:—]
4 Marlborough Place, September 10, 1886.