80 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. Ill 



How am I ? Oh, getting along and just keeping the 

 devil of dyspepsia at arm's length. The wife and other 

 members of the H. F. are well, and would send you 

 greetings if they knew I was writing to you. Ever yours 

 faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



A little later Von Willemoes Suhm ("why the 

 deuce does he have such a long name, instead of a 

 handy monosyllable or dissyllable like Dohrn or 

 Huxley?") was recommended for the post. He 

 afterwards was one of the scientific staff of the 

 Challenger, and died during the voyage. 



MORTHOE, NEAR BARNSTAPLE, NORTH DEVON, 



Aug. 5, 1872. 



MY DEAR DOHRN I trust you have not been very 

 wroth with me for my long delay in answering your last 

 letter. For the last six weeks I have been very busy 

 lecturing daily to a batch of schoolmasters, and looking 

 after their practical instruction in the laboratory which 

 the Government has, at last, given me. In the " intervals 

 of business" I have been taking my share in a battle 

 which has been raging between my friend Hooker of Kew 

 and his official chief. . . . And moreover I have just had 

 strength enough to get my daily work done and no more, 

 and everything that could be put off has gone to the 

 wall Three days ago, the " Happy Family," bag and 

 baggage, came to this remote corner, where I propose to 

 take a couple of months' entire rest and put myself in 

 order for next winter's campaign. It is a little village 

 five miles from the nearest town (which is Ilfracombe), 

 and our house is at the head of a ravine running down to 

 the sea. Our backs are turned to England and our faces 

 to America with no land that I know of between. The 

 country about is beautiful, and if you will come we will 

 put you up at the little inn, and show you something 



