Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
You don't happen to grow gentians in your Alpine region, do you?
[Of his formal responsibility for the examinations he had written earlier in the year:—]
Wells House, Ilkley, June 15, 1886.
My dear Donnelly,
I think it is just as well that you could not lay your hands on ink, for if you had you would only have blacked them. (N.B. This is a goak.)
You know we resolved that it was as well that I should go on as Examiner (unpaid) this year. But I rather repent me of it—for although I could be of use over the questions, I have had nothing to do with checking the results of the Examination except in honours, and I suspect that Foster's young Cambridge allies tend always to screw the standard up.
I am inclined to think that I had much better be out of it next year. The attempt to look over examination papers now would reduce the little brains I have left to mere pulp—and, on the other hand, if there is any row about results, it is not desirable that I should have to say that I have not seen the answers.
When I go you will probably get seven devils worse than the first—but that it is not the fault of the first devil.