116 LITE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. IT 



4 MABLBOROUGH PLACE, 

 Oct. 17, 1873. 



MY DEAR DOHRN Your letter reached me nearly a 

 week ago, and I have been turning over its contents in my 

 mind as well as I could, but have been able to come to 

 no clear conclusion until now. I have been incessantly 

 occupied with other things. 



I will do for you, and gladly, anything I would do 

 for myself, but I could not apply on my own behalf to 

 any of those rich countrymen of mine, unless they were 

 personally well known to me, and I had the opportunity 

 of feeling my way with them. But if you are disposed 

 to apply to any of the people you mention, I shall be 

 only too glad to back your application with all the force 

 I am master of. You may make use of my name to any 

 extent as guarantor of the scientific value and importance 

 of your undertaking and refer any one to whom you may 

 apply to ma It may be, in fact, that this is all you 

 want, but as you have taken to the caprice of writing in 

 my tongue instead of in that vernacular, idiomatic and 

 characteristically Dohrnian German in which I delight, I 

 am not so sure about your meaning. There is a rub for 

 you. If you write to me in English again I will send 

 the letter back without paying the postage. 



In any case let me have a precise statement of your 

 financial position. I may have a chance of talking to 

 some Croesus, and the first question he is sure to ask me 

 is How am I to know that this is a stable affair, and 

 that I am not throwing my money into the sea ? . . . 



(Referring to an unpleasant step it seemed necessary to 

 take) . . . you must make up your mind to act decidedly 

 and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this 

 world by hesitation. . . . 



I hope you are physically better. Look sharply after 

 your diet, take exercise and defy the blue-devils, and you 

 will weather the storm. Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



