Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[This year Huxley was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum, an office which he had held ex officio from 1883 to 1885, as President of the Royal Society.
This is referred to in the following letter of March 9:—]
My dear Hooker,
Having nothing to do plays the devil with doing anything, and I suppose that is why I have been so long about answering your letter.
There is nothing the matter with me now except want of strength. I am tired out with a three-mile walk, and my voice goes if I talk for any time. I do not suppose I shall do much good till I get into high and dry air, and it is too early for Switzerland yet….
You see I was honoured and gloried by a trusteeship of the British Museum. [Replying on the 2nd to Sir John Evans' congratulations, he says:—"It is some months since Lord Salisbury made the proposal to me, and I was beginning to wonder what had happened—whether Cantaur had put his foot down for example, and objected to bad company.">[ These things, I suppose, normally come when one is worn-out. When Lowe was Chancellor of the Exchequer I had a long talk with him about the affairs of the Natural History Museum, and I told him that he had better put Flower at the head of it and make me a trustee to back him. Bobby no doubt thought the suggestion cheeky, but it is odd that the thing has come about now that I don't care for it, and desire nothing better than to be out of every description of bother and responsibility.
Have not Lady Hooker and you yet learned that a large country house is of all places the most detestable in cold weather? The neuralgia was a mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am rejoiced it has vanished.
Pronouns got mixed somehow.