CHAPTER XII 

 1888 



HUXLEY had returned to town before Christmas, for 

 the house in St. John's Wood was still the rallying-point 

 for the family, although his elder children were now mar- 

 ried and dispersed. But he did not stay long. Wife won- 

 derfully better," he writes to Sir M. Foster on January 8, 

 " self as melancholy as a pelican in the wilderness." He 

 meant to have left London on the i6th, but his depressed 

 condition proved to be the beginning of a second attack of 

 pleurisy, and he was unable to start for Bournemouth till 

 the 24th. 



Here, however, his recovery was very slow. He was 

 unable to come up to the first meeting of the x Club. ' I 

 trust," he writes, <; I shall be able to be at the next x but I 

 am getting on very slowly. I can't walk above a couple of 

 miles without being exhausted, and talking for twenty min- 

 utes has the same effect. I suppose it is all Anno Domini." 



But he had a pleasant visit from one of the .v, and 

 writes : 



CASALINI, WEST CLIFF, BOURNEMOUTH, Jan. 29, 1888. 



MY DEAR HOOKER Spencer was here an hour ago as lively 

 as a cricket. He is going back to town on Tuesday to plunge 

 into the dissipations of the Metropolis. I expect he will insist 

 on your all going to Evans' (or whatever represents that place 

 to our descendants) after the x. 



Bellows very creaky took me six weeks to get them mended 

 last time, so I suppose I may expect as long now. Ever yours 

 very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



As appears from the letters which follow, he had been 

 busied with writing an article for the Nineteenth Century, for 



198 



