360 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XV 



together it was a question which was the greyest 

 old chap. 



April 14. I have almost given up reading the 

 Egyptian news, I am so disgusted with the whole 

 business. I saw several pieces of land to let for build- 

 ing purposes about Falmouth, but did not buy. (This 

 was to twit his wife with her constant desire that he 

 should buy a bit of land in the country to settle upon in 

 their old age.) 



April 18. You don't say when you go back, so I 

 direct this to Rogate. I shall expect to see you quite set 

 up. We must begin to think seriously about getting out 

 of the hurly-burly a year or two hence, and having an 

 Indian summer together in peace and quietness. 



April 15, Sunday, Falmouth. I went out at ten 

 o'clock this morning, and did not get back till near seven. 

 But I got a cup of tea and some bread and butter in a 

 country village, and by the help of that and many pipes 

 supported nature. There was a bitter east wind blowing, 

 but the day was lovely otherwise, and by judicious 

 dodging in coves and creeks and sandy bays, I escaped 

 the wind and absorbed a prodigious quantity of 

 sunshine. * 



I took a volume of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 

 Empire with me. I had not read the famous 15th and 

 16th chapters for ages, and I lay on the sands and 

 enjoyed them properly. A lady came and spoke to me 

 as I returned, who knew L. at Oxford very well can't 

 recollect her name and her father and mother are here, 

 and I have just been spending an hour with them. Also 

 a man who sat by me at dinner knew me from Jack's 

 portrait So my incognito is not very good. I feel quite 

 set up by my day's wanderings. 



May 11, Torquay. We went over to Brixham yester- 

 day to hold an inquiry, getting back here to an eight - 

 o'clock or nearer nine dinner. . . . Dalhousie has dis- 

 covered that the officer now in command of the Britannia 



