110 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. V 



much, and I am afraid it has lengthened in the process 

 of correction. 



You have a reader in your printer's office who provides 

 me with jokes. Last time he corrected, where my MS. 

 spoke of the pigs as unwilling " porters " of the devils, j 

 into " porkers." And this time, when I, writing about 

 the Lord's Prayer, say " current formula," he has it 

 " canting formula." If only Peterborough had got hold 

 of that ! And I am capable of overlooking anything in 

 a proof. 



You see we have got to big questions now, and if 

 these are once fairly before the general mind all the 

 King's horses and all the King's men won't put the 

 orthodox Humpty Dumpty where he was before. — Ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxlet. 



After the article came out he wrote again to JNIr. 



Knowles : — 



4 Marlborotjgh Place, N.W., 

 April 14, 1889. 



My dear Knowles — I am going to try and stop 

 here, desolate as the house is now all the chicks have 

 flown, for the next fortnight. Your talk of the in- 

 clemency of Torquay is delightfully consoling. London 

 has been vile. 



I am glad you are going to let Wace have another 

 " go." My object, as you know, in the whole business 

 has been to rouse people to think. . . . 



Considering that I got named in the House of 

 Commons last night as an example of a temperate and 

 well-behaved blasphenier,^ I think I am attaining my 

 object. 



Of course I go for a last word, and I am inclined to 



^ In the debate upon the Religious Prosecutions Abolition Bill, 

 Mr. Addison said "the last article by Professor Huxley in the 

 Nineteenth Century showed that opinion was free when it was 

 honestly expressed." — Times, April 14. 



