1854 LETTER TO TYNDALL 175 



(see p. 124), indicate very clearly the high pressure at 

 which Huxley had already begun to work : 



TENBY, SOUTH WALES, 

 Oct. 22, 1854. 



MY DEAR TYNDALL I was rejoiced to find you enter- 

 taining my proposition at all. No one believes how hard 

 you work more than I, but I was not going to be such a 

 bad diplomatist as to put that at the head of my letter, 

 and if I had thought that what I want you to do in- 

 volved any great accession thereto, I think I could not 

 have mustered up the face to ask you. But really and 

 truly, so long as it is confined to our own department it 

 is no great affair. You make me laugh at the long face 

 you pull about the duties, based on my phrase. The 

 fact is, you notice what you like, and what you do not 

 you leave undone, unless you get an editorial request to 

 say something about a particular book. The whole affair 

 is entirely in your own hands at least it is in mine as 

 I went upon my principle of having a row at start- 

 ing. . . . 



Now here is an equitable proposition. Look at my 

 work. I have a couple of monographs, odds and ends of 

 papers for journals, a manual and some three courses of 

 lectures to provide for this winter. " My necessities are 

 as great as thine," as Sir Philip Sidney didn't say, so be 

 a brick, split the difference, and say you will be ready 

 for the April number. I will write and announce the 

 fact to Chapman. 



What idiots we all are to toil and slave at this pace. 

 I almost repent me of tempting you after all so I 

 promise to hold on if you really think you will be over- 

 doing it. 



With you I envy Francis his gastric energies. I feel 

 I have done for myself in that line, and am in for a life- 

 long dyspeps. I have not, now, nervous energy enough 

 for stomach and brain both, and if I work the latter, not 



