100 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. IV 



The wife has just come in and sends her love (but is 

 careful to add " second-best "). The chicks grow visibly 

 and audibly, and Jess looks quite a woman. All are 

 well except myself, and I am getting better from a fresh 

 breakdown of dyspepsia. I find that if I am to exist at 

 all it must be on strictly ascetic principles, so there is 

 hope of my dying in the odour of sanctity yet. If you 

 recollect, Lancelot did not know that he should " die a 

 holy man" till rather late in life. I have forgotten to 

 tell you about the Rectorship of Aberdeen. I refused to 

 stand at first, on the score of health, and only consented 

 on condition that I should not be called upon to do any 

 public work until after the long vacation. It was a very 

 hard fight, and although I had an absolute majority of 

 over fifty, the mode of election is such that one vote, in 

 one of the four nations, would have turned the scale by 

 giving my opponent the majority in that nation. We 

 should then have been ties, and as the chancellor, who 

 has under such circumstances a casting vote, would have 

 (I believe) given it against me, I should have been beaten. 



As it is, the fact of any one, who stinketh in the 

 nostrils of orthodoxy, beating a Scotch peer at his own 

 gates in the most orthodox of Scotch cities, is a curious 

 sign of the times. The reason why they made such a 

 tremendous fight for me is, I believe, that I may carry 

 on the reforms commenced by Grant Duff, my predecessor. 

 Unlike other Lord Rectors, he of Aberdeen is a power 

 and can practically govern the action of the University 

 during his tenure of office. 



I saw Pollock yesterday, and he says that they want 

 you back again. Curiously the same desire is epidemically 

 prevalent among your friends, not least here. Ever 

 yours, T. H. HUXLEY. 



In spite of his anxieties, his health was slowly 

 improving under careful regimen. He published no 

 scientific memoirs this year, but in addition to his 



