It is a great loss to me to be cut off from all my old friends, but sticking closely to my hermitage, with fresh air and immense quantities of rest, have become the conditions of existence for me, and one must put up with them.
I have not paid all the debt incurred in my Oxford escapade yet—the last "little bill" being a sharp attack of lumbago, out of which I hope I have now emerged. But my deafness alone should bar me from decent society. I have not the moral courage to avoid making shots at what people say, so as not to bore them; and the results are sometimes disastrous.
I don't see there is any real difference between us. You are charitable enough to overlook the general immorality of the cosmos on the score of its having begotten morality in one small part of its domain.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
To Mr. G— S—. [See above.]
Hodeslea, October 31, 1894.
Dear Mr. S—,
"Liver," "lumbago," and other small ills the flesh is heir to, have been making me very lazy lately, especially about letter-writing.
You have got into the depths where the comprehensible ends in the incomprehensible—where the symbols which may be used with confidence so far begin to get shaky.