Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his younger son:—]
Eastbourne, January 30, 1890.
You dear old humbug of a Boy,
Here we have been mourning over the relapse of influenza, which alone, as we said, could have torn you from your duties, and all the while it was nothing but an attack of palpitation such as young people are liable to and seem none the worse for after all. We are as happy that you are happy as you can be yourself, though from your letter that seems saying a great deal. I am prepared to be the young lady's slave; pray tell her that I am a model father-in-law, with my love. (By the way, you might mention her name; it is a miserable detail, I know, but would be interesting.) Please add that she is humbly solicited to grant leave of absence for the Teneriffe trip, unless she thinks Northampton air more invigorating.
Ever your loving dad,
T.H. Huxley.
On April 3, accompanied by his son, he left London on board the "Aorangi". At Plymouth he had time to meet his friend W.F. Collier, and to visit the Zoological Station, while], "to my great satisfaction," [he writes], "I received a revise (i.e. of 'Capital the Mother of Labour') for the May 'Nineteenth Century'—from Knowles. They must have looked sharp at the printing-office."
[It did not take him long to recover his sea-legs, and he thoroughly enjoyed even the rougher days when the rolling of the ship was too much for other people. The day before reaching Teneriffe he writes:—]