Pray remember me very kindly to Mrs. Roscoe, and believe me, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hotel de France, Baden-Baden, July 30, 1873.
My dear Tyndall,
We find ourselves here after a very successful cruise in the Auvergne and Ardeche, successful at least so far as beauty and geological interest go. The heat was killing, and obliged us to give up all notion of going to Ursines, as we had at first intended to do. So we turned our faces north and made for Grenoble, hoping for a breath of cool air from the mountains of Dauphiny. But Grenoble was hotter even than Clermont (which, by the way, quite deserves its reputation as a competitor with hell), a neighbour's drains were adrift close to the hotel, and we got poisoned before we could escape. Luckily we got off with nothing worse than a day or two's diarrhoea. After this the best thing seemed to be to rush northward to Gernsbach, which had been described to me as a sort of earthly paradise. We reached the place last Saturday night, and found ourselves in a big rambling hotel, crammed full of people, and planted in the bottom of a narrow valley, all hot and steaming. A large pigstye "convenient" to the house mingled its vapours with those of the seventy or eighty people who ate and drank without any other earthly occupation that we could discern during the three days we were bound, by stress of letters and dirty linen, to stop. On Monday we made an excursion over here, prospecting, and the air was so fresh and good, and things in general looked so promising that I made up my mind to put up in Baden-Baden until the wife joins me. She writes me that you talk of leaving England on Friday, and I may remark that Baden is on the high road to Switzerland. Verbum sap.
I am wonderfully better, and really feel ashamed of loafing about when I might very well be at work. But I have promised to make holiday, and make holiday I will.
No proof of your answer to Forbes' biographer reached me before I left, so I suppose you had not received one in time. I am dying to see it out.
Hooker is down below, but I take upon myself to send his love. He is in great force now that he has got rid of his Grenoble mulligrubs.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.