60 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap. Ill 



between two dabs of jam. At present I have no moral 

 eense, but it may awake as the days get longer. 



I have been reading the Oriyin slowly again for the 

 nth time, with the view of picking out the essentials of 

 the argument, for the obituary notice. Nothing enter- 

 tains me more than to bear people call it easy reading. 



Exposition was not Darwin's forte — and his English is 

 sometimes wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb 

 sagacity about him — like that of a sort of miraculous 

 dog — and he gets to the truth by ways as dark as those 

 of the Heathen Chinee. 



I am getting quite sick of all the "paper philo- 

 sophers," as old Galileo called them, who are trying to 

 stand upon Darwin's shoulders and look bigger than he, 

 when in point of real knowledge they are not fit to black 

 his shoes. It is just as well I am collapsed or I believe 

 I should break out with a final " Fiir Darwin." 



I will think of you when I get as far as the fossils. 

 At present I am poking over P. sylvestris and P. pinnata 

 in the intervals of weariness. 



My wife joins with me in love to you both. — -Ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxlet. 



Snow and cold winds here. Hope you are as badly 

 off at Cambridge. 



Bournemouth, Feb. 21, 1888. 



My dear Foster — We have had nothing but frost 

 and snow here lately, and at present half a gale of the 

 bitterest north-easter I have felt since we were at 

 Florence is raging.^ 



I believe I am getting better, as I have noticed that 

 at a particular stage of my convalescence from any sort 

 of illness I pass through a condition in which things in 



^ Similarly to Sir J. Evans on the 28tli — " I get nij' strength 

 back but slowly, and think of migrating to Greenland or Spitz- 

 bergen for a milder climate." 



