294 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XI 



character had been proposed to me, I have felt very 

 strongly bound to you to take the utmost care that no 

 shadow of a just cause for offence should be given, even to 

 the most orthodox of Dons. 



It seems to me that the best thing I can do is to send 

 you the lecture as it stands, notes and aU. But please 

 return it within two days at furthest, and consider it 

 strictly confidential between us two (I am not excluding 

 Mrs. Romanes, if she cares to look at the paper). No 

 consideration would induce me to give any ground for the 

 notion that I had submitted the lecture to any one but 

 yourself. 



If there is any phrase in the lecture which you think 

 likely to get you into trouble, out it shall come or be 

 modified in form. 



If the whole thing is too much for the Dons' nerves — 

 I am no judge of their delicacy — I am quite ready to give 

 up the lecture. 



In fact I do not know whether I shall be able to make 

 myself heard three weeks hence, as the influenza has left its 

 mark in hoarseness and pain in the throat after speaking. 



So you see if the thing is altogether too wicked there 

 is an easy way out of it — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



HoDESLEA, April 28, 1893. 



My dear Romanes — My mind is made easy by such a 

 handsome acquittal from you and the Lady Abbess, your 

 coadjutor in the Holy Office. 



My wife, who is my inquisitor and confessor in ordinary, 

 has gone over the lecture twice, without scenting a heresy, 

 and if she and Mrs. Romanes fail — a fico for a mere male 

 don's nose ! 



From the point of view of the complete argument, I 

 agree with you about note 19. But the dangers of open 

 collision with orthodoxy on the one hand and Spencer on 

 the other, increased with the square of the enlargement 



