120 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VI 



when circumstances had altered and hope sunk lower. 

 It was all too easy to suspect that she did not under- 

 stand his aims, his thirst for action, nor the fact that 

 he was no longer free to do as he liked, whether to 

 stay in the navy, to go into practice, or follow his 

 own pursuits and pleasure. Yet it made him despair 

 to be so hedged in by circumstances. With all his 

 efforts, he seemed as though he had done nothing 

 but earn the reputation of being a very promising 

 young man. How much easier to continue the 

 struggle if he could but have seen her face to face, 

 and read her thoughts as to whether he were right 

 or wrong in the course he was pursuing. He appeals 

 to her faith that he is choosing the nobler path in 

 pursuing knowledge, than in turning aside to the 

 temptation of throwing it up for the sake of their 

 speedier union. Still she was right in claiming a 

 share in his work ; but for her his life would have 

 been wasted. 



The clouds gathered very thickly about him when 

 in April 1852 his mother died, while his father was 

 hopelessly ill. "Belief and happiness," he writes, 

 "seem to be beyond the reach of thinking men in 

 these days, but courage and silence are left." Again 

 the clouds lifted, for in October he received Miss 

 Heathorn's "noble and self-sacrificing letter, which 

 has given me more comfort than anything for a long 

 while," the keynote of which was that a man should 

 pursue those things for which he is most fitted, let 

 them be what they will. He now felt free to tell 



