50 LIFK OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. II 



gramme of the League were wide enough to take us both 

 for figure-heads, it must be so elastic as to verge upon 

 infinite extensibility ; and that one or other of us would 

 be in a false position. 



So I wrote to Miss to that effect, and the matter 



then dropped. 



Misrepresentation is so rife in this world that it struck 

 me I had better tell you exactly what happened. 



On the whole, your account of your own condition is 

 encouraging ; not going back is next door to going for- 

 ward. Anyhow, you have contrived to do a lot of writing. 



We are all pretty flourishing, and if my wife does not 

 get worn out with cooks falling ill and other domestic 

 worries, I shall be content. 



Now this really is the end. — Ever yours very truly, 



T. H. Huxley. 



4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., 

 March 7, 1S87. 



My dear Skelton — Wretch that I am, I see that I 

 have never had the grace to thank you for Maitland oj 

 Lethington which reached me I do not choose to remember 

 how long ago, and which I read straight off with lively 

 satisfaction. 



There is a jjaragraph in your preface, which I meant 

 to have charged you with having plagiarised from an 

 article of mine, which had not appeared when I got your 

 book. In that Hermitage of yours you are up to any 

 Esotericobuddhistotelepathic dodge ! 



It is about the value of practical discipline to historians. 

 Half of them know nothing of life, and still less of 

 government and the ways of iiien. 



I am quite useless, but have vitality enough to kick 

 and scratch a little when prodded. 



I am at present engaged on a series of experiments on 

 the thickness of skin of that wonderful little wind-bag 

 . The way that second-rate amateur poses as a 



