1888 RECEIVES THE COPLEY MEDAL 91 



has been mostly bad. All being well I shall attend the 

 meeting of the Society on the 30th, but "not the dinner. 

 I am very sorry to miss the latter, but I dare not face 

 the fatigue and the chances of a third dose of pleurisy. 



My wife sends kindest regards and thanks for your 

 congratulations. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



10 SouTHCLiFF Terrace, Eastbourne, 

 Nov. 17, 1888. 



My dear Flower — . . . Many thanks for taking my 

 troublesomeness in good part. My friend will be greatly 

 consoled to know that you have the poor man " in your 

 eye." Schoolmaster, naturalist, and coal merchant used to 

 be the three refuges for the incompetent. Schoolmaster 

 is rapidly being eliminated, so I suppose the pressure on 

 Natural History and coals will increase. 



I am glad you have got the Civil Service Commissioners 

 to listen to common sense. I had an awful battle with 

 them (through the Department) over Newton, who is now 

 in your paleontological department. If I recollect rightly, 

 they examined him inter alia on the working of the Poor 

 Laws ! 



The Royal Society has dealt very kindly with me. 

 They patted me on the back when I started thirty-seven 

 years ago, and it was a great encouragement. They give 

 me their best, now that my race is run, and it is a great 

 consolation. At the far end of life all one's work looks so 

 uncommonly small, that the good opinion of one's con- 

 temporaries acquires a new value. 



We have a summer's day, and I am writing before an 

 open window ! Yesterday it blew great guns. — Ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



The following letter to Lady Welby, the point of 

 which is that to be " morally convinced " is not the 



