1893 DEATH OF TYNDALL 315 



General Death had forgotten me. That must account for 

 my seeming presumption in thinking I may some day 

 " take up the threads " of late evolutionary speculation. — 

 Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



My wife joins with me in love and kind wishes to 

 you both. 



At the request of his friends, Huxley wrote for 

 the Nineteenth Century a brief appreciation of his old 

 comrade Tyndall — the tribute of a friend to a friend 

 — and, difficult task though it was, touched on the 

 closing scene, if only from a chivalrous desire to do 

 justice to the long devotion which accident had so 

 cruelly wronged : — 



I am comforted (he writes to Sir J. Hooker on January 

 3) by your liking the Tyndall article. You are quite 

 right, I shivered over the episode of the " last words," but 

 it struck me as the best way of getting justice done to her, 

 80 I took a header. I am glad to see by the newspaper 

 comments that it does not seem to have shocked other 

 people's sense of decency. 



The funeral took place on Saturday, December 9. 

 There was no storm nor fog to make the graveside 

 perilous for the survivors. In the Haslemere church- 

 yard the winter sun shone its brightest, and the 

 moorland air was crisp with an almost Alpine freshness 

 as this lover of the mountains was carried to his last 

 resting-place. But though he took no outward harm 

 from that bright still morning, Huxley was greatly 

 shaken by the event : "I was very much used up," 

 he writes to Sir M. Foster on his return home two 



