356 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xx 



rather than this last) without advice or you may find yourself 

 in a legal quagmire. Builders, as a rule, are on a level with 

 horsedealers in point of honesty I could tell you some pretty 

 stories from my small experience of them. 



The next, to Lord Farrer, is apropos of quite an exten- 

 sive correspondence in the Times as to the correct reading 

 of the well-known lines about the missionary and the casso- 

 wary, to which both Huxley and Lord Farrer had contrib- 

 uted their own reminiscences. 



HODESLEA, Oct. 15, 1892. 



MY DEAR FARRER 



If you were a missionary 



In the heat of Timbuctoo 



You'd wear nought but a nice and airy 



Pair of bands p'raps cassock too. 



Don't you see the fine touch of local colour in my version ! 

 Is it not obvious to everybody who understands the methods of 

 high a priori criticism that this consideration entirely outweighs 

 the merely empirical fact that your version dates back to 1837 

 which I must admit is before my adolescence ? It is obvious 

 to the meanest capacity that mine must be the original text in 

 "Idee," whatever your wretched " Wirklichkeit " may have to 

 say to the matter. 



And where, I should like to know, is a glimmer of a scintilla 

 of a hint that the missionary was a dissenter? I claim him for 

 my dear National Church. Ever yours, T. H. HUXLEY. 



The following is about a document which he had for- 

 gotten that he wrote : 



HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE, Nov. 24, 1892. 



MY DEAR DONNELLY It is obvious that you have somebody 

 in the Department who is an adept in the imitation of hand- 

 writing. 



As there is no way of proving a negative, and I am too loyal 

 to raise a scandal, I will just father the scrawl. 



Positively, I had forgotten all about the business. I suppose 

 because I did not hear who was appointed. It would be a good 

 argument for turning people out of office after 65 ! But I have 

 always had rather too much of the lawyer faculty of forgetting 

 things when they are done with. 



