404 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xvi 



pain or discomfort. I can walk for a couple of hours or 

 more without fatigue. But half an hour's talking wearies 

 me inexpressibly, and " saying a few words," would finish 

 me for the day. For all that, I do not mean to confess 

 myself finally beaten till I have had another try. 



That is to say, he was still bent upon delivering 

 his regular course of lectures at South Kensington as 

 soon as he returned, in spite of the remonstrances of 

 his wife and his friends. 



In the same letter he contrasts Florence with 

 Siena and its "fresh, elastic air," its "lovely country 

 that reminds one of a magnified version of the Surrey 

 weald." The Florentine climate was trying. 1 "And 

 then there is the awful burden of those miles of 

 'treasures of art.'" He had been to the Uffizii; 

 "and there is the Pitti staring me in the face like 

 drear fate. Why can't I have the moral courage to 

 come back and say I haven't seen it? I should be 

 the most distinguished of men." 



There is another reference to Gordon : 



What an awful muddle you are all in in the bright 

 little, tight little island. I hate the sight of the English 



1 A week later he writes to Sir J. Evans "I begin to look 

 forward with great satisfaction to the equability of English weather 

 to that dear little island where doors and windows shut close 

 where fires warm without suffocating where the chief business of 

 the population in the streets is something else than expectoration 

 and where I shall never see fowl with salad again. 



"Yon perceive I am getting better by this prolonged growl. 

 . . . But half an hour's talking knocks me up, and I am such an 

 effete creature that I think of writing myself p. R. S. with a 

 small p." 



