LOED SALISBURY AT OXFORD 311 



the weather breaking up as it seemed disposed to do. It is 

 now raining here with a N.E. wind which would be deplorable 

 in Paris. Add to this I am deep in work with my Indian 

 Flora at home and in the Herbarium at Kew ; and that all 

 my friends say I was wise! not to go, at this season, to 

 Paris. 



Occasionally he regretted his absences, as when at the 

 Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1894, Huxley 

 proposed the vote of thanks to Lord Salisbury for his pre- 

 sidential address, and in the city which had rung with the 

 first loud fight over Darwinism, gracefully countersigned his 

 somewhat hesitating acceptance of the doctrine of evolution. 

 And again, later in the autumn when he missed two speeches 

 by his friend, the one on receiving the Darwin Medal from 

 the Royal Society on November 30, the other at a dinner 

 given by Messrs. Macmillan to Sir Norman Lockyer, who 

 had edited Nature since its foundation twenty-five years 

 before. 



To T. H. Huxley 



Aug. 16, 1894. 



I was very glad to see your ' hand of write,' as the Scotch 

 say, again. I saw with surprise that you were exposing 

 yourself to the Saturnalia of the British Association. I was 

 much tempted to go, but am so bothered with deafness 

 and eczema auriculanm, that I funked it. So I accepted 

 an invitation for a fortnight to Glenfinart on the Clyde, 

 where I enjoyed visiting old haunts of sea, loch and 

 mountain. 



I was much struck with the first part of Lord Salisbury's 

 address, but had hardly patience to read the last, which is 

 silly really I thought he had more gumption. I am much 

 more disposed to believe that inability to grasp the subject, 

 i.e. to conceive of the operation than a surrender is at the 

 bottom of his hesitation. The fact is, that like many other 

 physicists, he with difficulty entertains any but mathematical 

 reasoning. 



I hope that your ' Discourses ' are not exhausted. I call 

 them my ' Pick me ups,' they are such refreshers. 



