VIII PRESSURE OF WORK 103 



of the increase of work of various sorts that keeps accumulating 

 around. Life is a combat with a hydra-headed monster — when 

 one head is disposed of two seem to spring up in its place. Not 

 that the disposing of them is, as a general rule, by any means an 

 unpleasant or painful process, rather the contrary. But there is 

 so much of it. Now they are asking about that book of mine. 

 Macmillan has just sent me an invitation to dine on May i, and 

 compare notes with the other authors of the series, and I have 

 nothing satisfactory to report in the way of progress. What a 

 contrast to the life Professor van Beneden leads at Louvain ! 

 A lecture from 8 till 9 in the morning, and after that nothing to 

 do but what he likes ; no society, no distractions. His ten days 

 in London was a great change, and he enjoyed it much. . . . 

 Above all, he was surprised at the cultivation and charm of 

 English ladies, and to hear them talking about science and art 

 and at the same time attending to their family and household 

 affairs. But then he saw favourable specimens in Mrs. Smyth 

 and her daughters. It was very curious. One day he asked me 

 if I could tell him about an English lady who had published 

 some drawings of small marine animals, which had interested 

 him extremely, but of which he had not been able to find any 

 further information. So I took him one evening to Inverness 

 Road, where he found all the original drawings and specimens, 

 which they have let him have to take back to Belgium to 

 work at. 



The drawings in question were by Ellen Toynbee, 

 sister of Flower's wife. 



His inaugural lecture at Lincoln's Inn Fields 

 took place on February 16, 1870, before a distin- 

 guished audience. He declared that had John 

 Hunter's papers been preserved they would prob- 

 ably have proved the most valuable contribution 

 ever made by one man to the science of Comparative 

 Anatomy. Passing to the present, he affirmed his 

 belief that the Darwinian hypothesis was now firmly 



