1886 LETTER TO SIR M. FOSTER 445 



responsibility to the body of scientific men in the 

 country. Some of his younger colleagues on the 

 Council, who had not enjoyed the same experience, 

 thought that he had set aside their expressions of 

 opinion too brusquely, and begged Sir M. Foster, as 

 at once a close friend of his, and one to whose opinion 

 he paid great respect, to make representations to him 

 on their behalf, which he did in writing, being kept 

 at home by a cold. To this letter, in which his friend 

 begged him not to be vexed at a very plain statement 

 of the other point of view, but to make it possible 

 for the younger men to continue to follow his lead, 

 he replied : 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, 

 April 5, 1886. 



MY DEAR FOSTER Mrs. Foster is quite right in 

 looking sharp after your colds, which is very generous of 

 me to say, as I am down in the mouth and should have 

 been cheered by a chat. 



I am very glad to know what our younger friends are 

 thinking about I made up my mind to some such 

 result of the action I have thought it necessary to take. 

 But I have no ambition to lead, and no desire to drive 

 them, and if we can't agree, the best way will be to go 

 our ways separately. . . . 



Heaven forbid that I should restrain anybody from ex- 

 pressing any opinion in the world. But it is so obvious 

 to me that not one of our friends has the smallest notion 

 of what administration in fishery questions means, or of 

 the danger of creating a scientific Frankenstein in that 

 which he is clamouring for, that I suppose I have been 

 over-anxious to prevent mischief, and seemed domi- 

 neering. 



