iS 9 4 LETTERS 4! 5 



ing all the time? I don't think we shall have any more first of 

 December criticisms. 



Lord help you through all this screed. With our love to you 

 both Ever yours affectionately, T. H. HUXLEY. 



Abram, Abraham became 



By will divine ; 

 Let pickled Brian's name 

 Be changed to Brine !* 



Poetae Minores. 

 Poor Brian. Brutal jest ! 



The following was written to a friend who had alluded 

 to his painful recollection of a former occasion when he was 

 Huxley's guest at the anniversary dinner of the Royal 

 Society, and was hastily summoned from it to find his wife 

 dying. 



I fully understand your feeling about the R.S. Dinner. I 

 have not forgotten the occasion when you were my guest : still 

 less my brief sight of you when I called the next day. 



These things are the " lachrymae rerum " the abysmal 

 griefs hidden under the current of daily life, and seemingly for- 

 gotten, till now and then they come up to the surface a flash 

 of agony like the fish that jumps in a calm pool. 



One has one's groan and goes to work again. 



If I knew of anything else for it, I would tell you ; but all 

 my experience ends in the questionable thanksgiving, " It's 

 lucky it's no worse." 



With which bit of practical philosophy, and our love, believe 

 me, ever yours affectionately, T. H. HUXLEY. 



Before speaking of his last piece of work, in the vain 

 endeavour to complete which, he exposed himself to his old 

 enemy, influenza, I shall give several letters of miscellane- 

 ous interest. 



The first is in reply to Lord Farrer's inquiry as to where 

 he could obtain a fuller account of the subject tersely dis- 

 cussed in the chapter he had contributed to the Life of 

 Owen, f 



* Sir Joseph's son, Brian, had fallen into a pan of brine, 

 f "Which," wrote Lord Farrer, "is just what I wanted as an out- 

 line of the Biological and Morphological discussion of the last 100 



