164 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAI>. VIII 



pamphlet, he sent to his Tenby friend Dr. Dyster 

 (of whom hereafter), to whose criticism on one 

 passage he replied on October 10 : 



... I am rejoiced you liked my speechment. It was 

 written hastily and is, like its speaker, I fear, more 

 forcible than eloquent, but it can lay claim to the merit 

 of being sincere. 



My intention on p. 28 was by no means to express 

 any satisfaction at the worms being as badly off as 

 ourselves, but to show that pain being everywhere is 

 inevitable, and therefore like all other inevitable things 

 to be borne. The rest of it is the product of my scientific 

 Calvinism, which fell like a shell at your feet when we 

 were talking over the fire. 



I doubt, or at least I have no confidence in, the 

 doctrine of ultimate happiness, and I am more inclined 

 to look the opposite possibility fully in the face, and if 

 that also be inevitable, make up my mind to bear it also. 



You will tell me there are better consolations than 

 Stoicism ; that may be, but I do not possess them, and 

 I have found my " grin and bear it " philosophy stand 

 me in such good stead in my course through oceans of 

 disgust and chagrin, that I should be loth to give it up. 



The summer of 1854 was spent in company with 

 the Busks at Tenby, amid plenty of open-air work 

 and in great peace of mind, varied with a short visit 

 to Liverpool in order to talk business with his friend 



merit, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a 

 mistake, to be corrected by and by." (Collected Essays, iii. p. 

 62.) This essay contains the definition of science as " trained and 

 organised common sense," and the reference to a new "Peter 

 Bell" which suggested Miss May Kendall's spirited parody of 

 Wordsworth : 



Primroses by the river's brim 



Dicotyledons wwe to him, 



And they were nothing more. 



