T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 8, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
The proofs have just arrived, but I am sorry to say that (I believe for the first time in our transactions) I shall have to disappoint you.
Just after I had sent off the manuscript influenza came down upon me with a swoop. I went to bed and am there still, with no chance of quitting it in a hurry. My wife is in the same case; item one of the maids. The house is a hospital, and by great good fortune we have a capital nurse.
Doctor says its a mild type, in which case I wonder what severe types may be like. ("But in the matter of aches and pains, restless paroxysms of coughing and general incapacity, I can give it a high character for efficiency." [To M. Foster, March 7.]) I find coughing continuously for fourteen hours or so a queer kind of mildness.
Could you put in an excuse on account of influenza?
Can't write any more.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.