184 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VII 



SCIENCE SCHOOLS, S. KENSINGTON, 

 Oct. 22, 1875. 



DEAR Miss KINGSLEY I sincerely trust that you 

 believe I have been abroad and prostrated by illness, and 

 have thereby accounted for receiving no reply to your letter 

 of a fortnight back. 



The fact is that it has only just reached me, owing to 

 the neglect of the people in Jermyn Street, who ought 

 to have sent it on here. 



I assure you I have not forgotten the brief interview 

 to which you refer, and I have often regretted that the 

 hurry and worry of life (which increases with the square 

 of your distance from youth) never allowed me to take 

 advantage of your kind father's invitation to become better 

 acquainted with him and his. I found his card in Jermyn 

 Street when I returned last year, with a pencilled request 

 that I would call on him at Westminster. 



I meant to do so, but the whirl of things delayed me 

 until, as I bitterly regret, it was too late. 



I am not sure that I have any important letter of your 

 father's but one, written to me some fifteen years ago, 

 on the occasion of the death of a child who was then my 

 only son. It was in reply to a letter of my own written 

 in a humour of savage grief. Most likely he burned the 

 letter, and his reply would be hardly intelligible without 

 it. Moreover, I am not at all sure that I can lay my 

 hands upon your father's letter in a certain chaos of papers 

 which I have never had the courage to face for years. 

 But if you wish I will try. 



I am very grieved to hear of Mrs. Kingsley's indisposi- 

 tion. Pray make my kindest remembrances to her, and 

 believe me yours very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



P. S. By the way, letters addressed to my private 

 residence, 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, N.W., 

 are sure not to be delayed. And I have another reason 



