1884 LETTERS FROM ITALY 383 



account of the Fishery Keport. I cannot be so long 

 absent from the Home Office whatever I might manage 

 with S.K. 



With our love to Mrs. Foster and you Ever yours 

 very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



This letter, as he says a week later, was written 

 when he " was rather down in the mouth from the 

 wretched cold weather, and the wife being laid up 

 with a bad cold," besides his own ailments. 



I find I have to be very careful about night air, but 

 nothing does me so much good as six or seven miles' 

 walk between breakfast and lunch at a good sharp pace. 

 So I conclude that there cannot be much the matter, and 

 yet I am always on the edge, so to speak, of that infernal 

 hypochondria. 



We have settled down here very comfortably, and I 

 do not think we shall care to go any further south. 

 Madame Dohrn and all the people at the stazione are 

 very kind, and want to do all sorts of things for us. 

 The other day we went in the launch to Capri, intending 

 next day to go to Amalfi. But it threatened bad weather, 

 so we returned in the evening. The journey knocked 

 us both up, and we had to get out of another projected 

 excursion to Ischia to-day. The fact is, 1 get infinitely 

 tired with talking to people and can't stand any deviation 

 from regular and extremely lazy habits. Fancy my 

 being always in bed by ten o'clock and breakfasting at 

 nine ! 



On the 10th, writing to Sir John Evans, who as 

 Vice-President, was acting in his stead at the Royal 

 Society, he says : 



In spite of snow on the ground we had three or four 

 days at Ravenna which is the most interesting deadly 



