358 MISCELLANEOUS LETTEBS, 1886-1897 



give me wooden walls; with wooden beef, weevilly biscuits, 

 and bilge water. 



But I vowed when I began this that I would not yarn 

 to you till you are right well. 



With love from us both to you both, and bottom hopes 

 for your speedy recoveries. 



Ever, dear Huxley, your devoted J. D. H. 



I am sending you the ugliest and most insignificant 

 rock plant in my garden. I sent it home from Hermite 

 Island, off Cape Horn, in 1842 ! It is a Composite, Cotula 

 reptans, with a puny head of flowers, like a daisy without 

 the ray. It is a capital rock plant, growing on dry or damp 

 earth — between, not on stones, and forms a lively carpet 

 even on very arid rockery, green all the winter, and very 

 aromatic. It likes water of course, but gets none here. 

 Along of my blessing it has lived 52 years at Kew. 



To Ayerst Hooker 



June 23, 1895. 



It was indeed a relief to hear that you had reassuring 

 news of Ayerst [his son], for I need not say that we both felt 

 deeply anxious. As one gets older one thinks more of young 

 lives than of old in the way of Hope ; for as to us old ones, 

 it is no use the expecting fortune to take our side against 

 nature. Huxley's state distresses me much. I had a very 

 brief note of affectionate regard from him the other day ; the 

 last I suppose he will ever write, for outside the cover his 

 wife has written, saying, that the effort had brought on 

 sea-sickness, and she begged me not to let any of his friends 

 know that he had written to me. Poor Mrs. Huxley is I 

 believe as ill as can well be ; happily their children are all 

 that one could wish, and so with you my dear friend I am 

 solaced to know. 



Yes, Huxley's attitude to the Atom is — well ! just like 

 himself. It was not given out as an axiom of his belief, 

 but as a smart rejoinder. At one of our little monthly 

 coteries (of Huxley, Tyndall, Lubbock, Busk, Hirst, Spencer, 

 Frankland, Spottiswoode and self), who dined together once 

 a month for twenty years, and admitted nobody but an 

 occasional foreigner ; the discussion about Atoms waxed 



