CHAPTER XVI 

 1890-91 



THREE letters of the first half of the year may con- 

 veniently be placed here. The first is to Tyndall, who had 

 just been delivering an anti-Gladstonian speech at Belfast. 

 The opening reference must be to some newspaper para- 

 graph which I have not been able to trace, just as the 

 second is to a paragraph in 1876, not long after Tyndall's 

 marriage, which described Huxley as starting for America 

 with his titled bride. 



3 JEVINGTON GARDENS, EASTBOURNE, 

 Feb. 24, 1890. 



MY DEAR TYNDALL Put down the three half-pints and the 

 two dozen to the partnership account. Ever since the " titled 

 bride " business I have given up the struggle against the popular 

 belief that you and I constitute a firm. 



It's very hard on me in the decline of life to have a lively 

 young partner who thinks nothing of rushing six or seven hun- 

 dred miles to perform a war-dance on the sainted G.O.M., and 

 takes the scalp of Historicus as a Jiors d'ocuvre. 



All of which doubtless goes down to my account just as my 

 poor innocent articles confer a reputation for long-suffering 

 mildness on you. 



Well ! well ! there is no justice in this world ! With our best 

 love to you both Ever yours, T. H. HUXLEY. 



(The confusion in the popular mind continued steadily,' 

 so that at last, when Tyndall died, Huxley received the 

 doubtful honour of a funeral sermon.) 



Dr. Pelseneer, to whom the next letter is addressed, is a 

 Belgian morphologist, and an authority upon the Mollusca. 

 He it was who afterwards completed Huxley's unfinished 

 memoir on Spirula for the Challenger report. 

 274 



