158 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. vii 



All of which doubtless goes down to my account just 

 as my poor innocent articles confer a reputation for long- 

 suffering mildness on you. 



Well ! well ! there is no justice in this world ! With 

 our best love to you both — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



(The confusion in the popular mind continued 

 steadily, so that at last, when Tyndall died, Huxley 

 received the doubtful honour of a funeral sermon.) 



Dr. Pelseneer, to whom the next letter is addressed, 

 is a Belgian morphologist, and an authority upon the 

 Mollusca. He it was who afterwards completed 

 Huxley's unfinished memoir on Spirula for the 

 Challenger report. 



4 Marlborough Place, 

 Jiine 10, 1890. 



Dear Dr. Pelseneer — I gave directions yesterday 

 for the packing up and sending to your address of the 

 specimens of Trigonia, and I trust that they wiU reach 

 you safely. 



I am rejoiced that you are about to take up the 

 subject. I was but a beginner when I worked at 

 Trigonia, and I had always promised myself that I 

 would try to make good the many deficiencies of my 

 little sketch. But three or four years ago my health 

 gave way completely, and though I have recovered (no 

 less to my own astonishment than to that of the doctors) 

 I am compelled to live out of London and to abstain from 

 all work which involves much labour. 



Thus science has got so far ahead of me that I hesitate 

 to say much about a difficult morphological question — 

 all the more, as old men like myself should be on their 

 guard against over-much tenderness for their own specula- 

 tions. And I am conscious of a great tenderness for 

 those contained in my ancient memoir on the " Morphology 



