98 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. V 



news. The F.R.S. was a formal attestation of the 

 value of the work he had already done; it was a 

 token of success in the present, an augury of greater 

 success in the future. No wonder the news was 

 exciting. 



To-day (he writes on April 14) I saw Forbes at the 

 Museum of Practical Geology, where I often drop in on 

 him. " Well," he said, " I am glad to he ahle to tell you 

 you are all right for the Royal Society ; the selection was 

 made on Friday night, and I hear that you are one of 

 the selected. I have not seen the list, hut my authority 

 is so good that you may make yourself easy ahout it." 

 I confess to having felt a little proud, though I believe 

 I spoke and looked as cool as a cucumber. There were 

 thirty-eight candidates, out of whom only fifteen could 

 be selected, and I fear that they have left behind much 

 better men than I. I shall not feel certain about the 

 matter until I receive some official announcement. I 

 almost wish that until then I had heard nothing about 

 it. Notwithstanding all my cucumbery appearance, I 

 will confess to you that I could not sit down and read 

 to-day after the news. I wandered hither and thither 

 restlessly half over London. . . . Whether I have it or 

 not, I can say one thing, that I have left my case to stand 

 on its own strength ; I have not asked for a single vote, 

 and there are not on my certificate half the names that 

 there might be. If it be mine, it is by no intrigue. 



Again, on May 4 : 



I am twenty-six to-day . . . and it reminds me that 

 I have left you now a whole year. It is perfectly 

 frightful to think how the time is slipping by, and yet 

 seems to bring us no nearer. 



What have I done with my twenty-sixth year ? Six 



