260 LIFE OF FROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. XI 



Here the weather has been tropical. The bananas in 

 the new garden are nearly ripe, and the cocoaniits are 

 coming on. But of course you expect this, for if it is 

 unbearably sunny in London what must it be here ? 



All our loves to all of you. — Ever yours affectionately. 



Pater. 



HoDESLEA, Eastbourne, 

 Feb. 1, 1892. 



Mt dear Hooker — I hear you have influenza 

 rampaging about the Camp ; ^ and I want to point out 

 to you that if you want a regular bad bout of it, the best 

 thing you can do is to go home next Thursday evening, 

 at ten o'clock at night, and plunge into the thick of the 

 mitrobes, tired and chilled. 



If you don't get it then, you will, at any rate, have 

 the satisfaction of feeling that you have done your best ! 



I am going to the x, but then you see I fly straight 

 after dinner to Collier's per cab, and there is no particular 

 microbe army in Eton Avenue lying in wait for me. 



Either let me see after the dinner, or sleep in town, 

 and don't worry. — ^Yours affectionately, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, 

 Feh. 19, 1892. 



Mt dear Hooker — I have just received a notice that 

 Hirst's funeral is to-morrow. But we are in the midst of 

 the bitterest easterly gale and snowfall we have had all 

 the winter, and there is no sign of the weather mending. 



Neither you nor I have any business to commit suicide 

 for that which after all is a mere sign of the aftection we 

 have no need to prove for our dear old friend, and the 

 chances are that half an hour cold chapel and grave-side 

 on a day like this would finish us. 



^ The name of Sir J. Hooker's house at Sunningdale. 



