As to what you want to do, getting butter out of a dog's mouth is an easier job than getting patronage out of that of a lawyer or an ecclesiastic. But I am always good for a forlorn hope, and we will have a try.
We shall not be back at Eastbourne till the latter half of September, and I doubt if we shall get into our house even then. We leave this for Gloucester, where we are going to spend the festival week with my daughter to-morrow.
With our love to you both, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I see a report that Owen is sinking. Poor old man; it seems queer that just as I am hoist to the top of my tree he should be going underground. But at 88 life cannot be worth much.
To Mr. W.F. Collier.
Cors-y-Gedol Hotel, Barmouth Water, August 31, 1892.
Accept my wife's and my hearty thanks for your kind congratulations. When I was a mere boy I took for motto of an essay, "What is honour? Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday," and although I have my full share of ambition and vanity, I doubt not, yet Falstaff's philosophical observation has dominated my mind and acted as a sort of perpetual refrigerator to these passions. So I have gone my own way, sought for none of these things and expected none—and it would seem that the deepest schemer's policy could not have answered better. We must have a new Beatitude, "Blessed is the man who expecteth nothing," without its ordinary appendix.
I tell Jack [His son-in-law, Hon. John Collier.] I have worked hard for a dignity which will enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering.
[It took some time, however, to get used to the title, and it was
October before he wrote:—]