1854 DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES 169 



I wish you knew my friend Prof. Forbes. He is the 

 best creature you can imagine, and helps me in all 

 manner of ways. A man of very great knowledge, he is 

 wholly free from pedantry and jealousy, the two besetting 

 sins of literary and scientific men. Up to his eyes in 

 work, he never grudges his time if it is to help a friend. 

 He is one of the few men I have ever met to whom I can 

 feel obliged, without losing a particle of independence or 

 self-respect. 



The following from a letter to Hooker, announcing 

 Forbes' death, is a striking testimony to his worth : 



I think I have never felt so crushed by anything 

 before. It is one of those losses which cannot be replaced 

 either to the private friend or to science. To me especially 

 it is a bitter loss. Without the aid and sympathy he has 

 always given me from first to last, I should never have 

 had the courage to persevere in the course I have followed. 

 And it was one of my greatest hopes that we should work 

 in harmony for long years at the aims so dear to us both. 



But it is otherwise, and we who remain have nothing 

 left but to bear the inevitable as we best may. 



And again a few days later : 



I have had no time to write to you again till now, but 

 I write to say how perfectly you express my own feeling 

 about our poor friend. One of the first things I thought 

 of was that medal business, 1 and I never rejoiced in 

 anything more than that I had not been deterred by any 

 moral cowardice from acting as I did. 



As it is I reckon that letter (which I will show you 

 some day) among my most precious possessions. 



Huxley's last tribute to his dead friend was the 

 organising a memorial fund, part of which went to 

 1 P. 160 2. 



