From which premisses I am going to draw a conclusion which you do not expect, namely, that the paper must by no manner of means go into the Royal Society in its present shape. And for the reasons following:—
In the first place, the style is ultra-Parkerian. From a literary point of view, my dear friend, you remind me of nothing so much as a dog going home. He has a goal before him which he will certainly reach sooner or later, but first he is on this side the road, and now on that; anon, he stops to scratch at an ancient rat-hole, or maybe he catches sight of another dog, a quarter of a mile behind, and bolts off to have a friendly, or inimical sniff. In fact, his course is…(here a tangled maze is drawn) not —. In the second place, you must begin with an earlier stage…That is the logical starting-point of the whole affair.
Will you come and dine at 6 on Saturday, and talk over the whole business?
If you have drawings of earlier stages you might bring them. I suspect that what is wanted might be supplied in plenty of time to get the paper in.
[In 1874 he re-dissects the skull of Axolotl to clear up the question as to the existence of the] "ventral head or pedicle" [which Parker failed to observe:] "If you disbelieve in that pedicle again, I shall be guilty of an act of personal violence." [Later,] "I am benevolent to all the world, being possessed of a dozen live axolotls and four or five big dead mesobranchs. Moreover, I am going to get endless Frogs and Toads by judicious exchange with Gunther. [Dr. A.C.L.G. Gunther, of the British Museum, where he was appointed Keeper of the Department of Zoology in 1875.] We will work up the Amphibia as they have not been done since they were crea— I mean evolved."
[The question of the pedicle comes up again when he simplifies some of Parker's results as to the development of the Columella auris in the Frog.] "Your suprahyomandibular is nothing but the pedicle of the suspensorium over again. It has nothing whatever to do with the Columella auris…The whole thing will come out as simply as possible without any of your coalescences and combotherations. How you will hate me and the pedicle."
[Tracing the development of the columella was a long business, but it grew clearer as young frogs of various ages were examined.] "Don't be aggravated with yourself," [he writes to Parker in July,] "it's tough work, this here Frog." [And on August 5:] "I have worked over Toad and I have worked over Frog, and I tell an obstinate man that s.h.m. [suprahyomandibular] is a figment—or a vessel, whichever said obstinate man pleases." [The same letter contains what he calls his final views on the columella, but by the end of the year he has gone further, and writes:—]
Be prepared to bust-up with all the envy of which your malignant nature is capable. The problem of the vertebrate skull is solved. Fourteen segments or thereabouts in Amphioxus; all but one (barring possibilities about the ear capsule) aborted in higher vertebrata. Skull and brain of Amphioxus shut up like an opera-hat in higher vertebrata. So! (Sketch in illustration.)
P.S.—I am sure you will understand the whole affair from this.
Probably published it already in "Nature!"
[A letter to the "Times" of July 8, 1874, on women's education, was evoked by the following circumstances. Miss Jex Blake's difficulties in obtaining a medical education have already been referred to. A further discouragement was her rejection at the Edinburgh examination. Her papers, however, were referred to Huxley, who decided that certain answers were not up to the standard.]