1891 LETTERS 207 



everybody prophesied we should be roasted alive here in 

 summer. 



We are all flourishing, and send our best love to Jack 

 and you. Tell Joyce the w^allflowers have grown quite 

 high in her garden. — Ever your loving Pater. 



Politics are not often touched upon in the letters 

 of this period, but an extract from a letter of October 

 25, 1891, is of interest as giving his reason for 

 supporting a Unionist Government, many of whose 

 tendencies he was far from sympathising with : — 



The extract from the Guardian is wonderful. The 

 Gladstonian tee-to-tum cannot have many more revolu- 

 tions to make. The only thing left for him now, is to 

 turn Agnostic, declare Homer to be an old bloke of a 

 ballad-monger, and agitate for the prohibition of the 

 study of Greek in all universities. . . . 



It is just because I do not want to see our children 

 involved in civil war that I postpone all political conr 

 siderations to keeping up a Unionist Government. 



I may be quite wrong ; but right or wrong, it is no 

 question of party. " Rads delight not me nor Tories 

 neither," as Hamlet does not say. 



The following letter to Sir M. Foster shows bow 

 little Huxley was now able to do in the way of public 

 business without being knocked up : — 



HODESLEA, Oct. 20, 1891. 

 My dear Foster — If I had known the nature of the 

 proceedings at the College of Physicians yesterday, I 

 should have braved the tedium of listening to a lecture I 

 could not liear in order to see you decorated. Clark had 

 made a point of my going to the dinner,^ and, worse luck, 



^ i.e. at the College of Pliy.siciaus. 



