220 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xm 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, Oct. 20, 1888. 



MY DEAR FOSTER We got back on Thursday, and had a very 

 good passage, and took it easy by staying the night at Dover. 

 The " Lord Warden " gave us the worst dinner we have had for 

 four months, at double the price of the good dinners. I wonder 

 why we cannot manage these things better in England. 



We are both very glad to be at home again, and trust we 

 may be allowed to enjoy our own house for a while. But, oh 

 dear, the air is not Malojal ! not even at Hampstead, whither 

 I walked yesterday, and the pump labours accordingly. 



I found the first part of the fifth edition of the Text-book 

 among the two or three cwt. of letters and books which had 

 accumulated during four months. Gratulire ! 



By the way, S. K. has sent me some inquiry about Examina- 

 tions, which I treat with contempt, as doubtless you have a dupli- 

 cate. Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



On October 25 he announces his return to Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, and laments his loss of vigour at the sea-level : 



Hames won't let me stay here in November, and I think we 

 shall go to Brighton. Unless on the flat of my back, in bed, I 

 shall not have been at home a month all this year. 



I have been utterly idle. There was a lovely case of hybrid- 

 ism, Gentiana lutea and G. punctata, in a little island in the lake 

 of Sils; but I fell ill and was confined to bed just after I found 

 it out. It would be very interesting if somebody would work 

 out Distribution five miles round the Maloja as a centre. There 

 are the most curious local differences. 



You asked me to send you a copy of my obituary of Darwin. 

 So I put one herewith, though no doubt you have seen it in 

 Proc. R. S. 



I should like to know what you think of xvii-xxii. If ever 

 I am able to do anything again I will enlarge on these heads. 



In these pages of the Obituary Notice (Proc. Roy. Soc. 

 XLIV., No. 269) he endeavours 



to separate the substance of the theory from its accidents, and to 

 show that a variety, not only of hostile comments, but of friendly 

 would-be improvements lose their raison d'etre to the careful 

 student. . . . 



It is not essential to Darwin's theory that anything more 

 should be assumed than the facts of heredity, variation, and un- 

 limited multiplication; and the validity of the deductive reason- 



