120 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. IV 



I have carried my own permissive bill, and no canteen 

 (except for my friends who still sit in darkness) is allowed 

 on the premises. And as this is the third letter I have 

 written before breakfast (a thing 1 never could achieve in 

 the days when I wallowed in the stye of Epicurus), you 

 perceive that I am as vigorous as ever I was in my life. 



Let me have news of you, and believe me Ever yours 

 very faithfuUy, T. H. H. 



ATHEN.EUM CLUB, 

 Nov. 3, 1873. 



ME DEAR DARWIN You will have heard (in fact I 

 think I mentioned the matter when I paid you my 



pleasant visit the other day) that is ill and obliged 



to go away for six months to a warm climate. It is a 

 great grief to me, as he is a man for whom I have great 

 esteem and affection, apart from his high scientific merits, 

 and his symptoms are such as cause very grave anxiety. 

 I shall be happily disappointed if that accursed con- 

 sumption has not got hold of him. 



The college authorities have behaved as well as they 

 possibly could to him, and I do not suppose that his 

 enforced retirement for a while gives him the least 

 pecuniary anxiety, as his people are all well off, and he 

 himself has an income apart from his college pay. 

 Nevertheless, under such circumstances, a man with half 

 a dozen children always wants all the money he can lay 

 hands on ; and whether he does or no, he ought not to be 

 allowed to deprive himself of any, which leads me to the 

 gist of my letter. His name was on your list as one of 

 those hearty friends who came to my rescue last year, and 

 it was the only name which made me a little uneasy, for 

 I doubted whether it was right for a man with his 

 responsibilities to make sacrifices of this sort. However, 

 I stifled that feeling, not seeing what else I could do 

 without wounding him. But now my conscience won't 

 let me be, and I do not think that any consideration 



