20 LITE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. I 



existence ; an illustration of J. Paul's saying that a man 

 has but to write down his yesterday's doings, and forth- 

 with they appear surrounded with a poetic halo. 



But after all, these are but the top skimmings of these 

 five years' living. I hardly care to look back into the 

 seething depths of the working and boiling mass that lay 

 beneath all this froth, and indeed I hardly know whether 

 I could give myself any clear account of it. Remem- 

 brances of physical and mental pain . . . absence of 

 sympathy, and thence a choking np of such few ideas as 

 I did form clearly within my own mind. 



Grief too, yet at the misfortune of others, for I have 

 had few properly my own ; so much the worse, for in 

 that case I might have said or done somewhat, but here 

 was powerless. 



Oh, Tom, trouble not thyself about sympathy ; thou 

 hast two stout legs and young, wherefore need a staff ? 



Furthermore, it is twenty minutes past two, and time 

 to go to bed. 



Biichlein, it will be long before my secretiveness 

 remains so quiet again ; make the most of what thou 

 hast got 



