458 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XIX 



long for the flesh-pots of Evolena cooking here being 

 decidedly rudimentary otherwise we are very well off. 



The keen air of six thousand feet above sea level 

 worked wonders with the invalids. The lassitude 

 of the last two years was swept away, and Huxley 

 came home eager for active life. Here too it was 

 that, for occupation, he took up the study of gentians ; 

 the beginning of that love of his garden which was 

 so great a delight to him in his last years. On his 

 return home he writes : 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, 

 Sept. 10, 1886. 



MY DEAR FOSTER We got back last evening after a 

 very successful trip. Arolla suited us all to a T, and we 

 are all in great force. As for me, I have not known of 

 the existence of my liver, and except for the fact that I 

 found fifteen or sixteen miles with a couple of thousand 

 feet up and down quite enough, I could have deluded 

 myself into the fond imagination that I was twenty years 

 younger. 



By way of amusement I bought a Swiss Flora in 

 Lausanne and took to botandsing and my devotion to 

 the gentians led the Bishop of Chichester a dear old 

 man, who paid us (that is the hotel) a visit to declare 

 that I sought the " Ur-gentian " as a kind of Holy GraiL 

 The only interruption to our felicity was the death of a 

 poor fellow, who was brought down on a guide's back 

 from an expedition he ought not to have undertaken, and 

 whom I did my best to keep alive one night. But rapid 

 pleuritic effusion finished him the next morning, in spite 

 of (I hope not in consequence of) such medical treatment 

 as I could give him. 



I see you had a great meeting at Birmingham, but I 

 know not details. The delegation to Sydney is not a l)ad 



