182 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VIII 



supply me with figures and descriptions of the British 

 Polyzoa and Hydrozoa, and I have confidence in my 

 friend, Mr. Dyster of Tenby (are you presumptuous 

 enough to say you know him ?) for the Annelids, if he 

 won't object to that mode of publishing his work. The 

 Mollusks, the Crustaceans, and the Fishes, the Echinoderms 

 and the Worms, will give plenty of occupation to the other 

 people, myself included, to say nothing of distribution 

 and of the recent geological changes, all of which come 

 within my programme. 



Did I not tell you it was a fine field, and could the 

 land o' cakes give me any scope like this ? 



April 9, 1855. 



MY DEAR DYSTER I didn't by any means mean to be 

 so sphinx-like in my letter, though you have turned out 

 an CEdipus of the first water. True it is that I mean to 

 " range myself," " live cleanly and leave off sack," within 

 the next few months that is to say, if nothing happen 

 to the good ship which is at present bearing my fiancee 

 homewards. ' 



So far as a restless mortal more or less aweary of 

 most things like myself can be made happy by any 

 other human being, I believe your good wishes are safe of 

 realisation ; at any rate, it will be my fault if they are 

 not, and I beg you never to imagine that I could confound 

 the piety of friendship with the "efflorescent" variety. 



I hope to marry in July, and make my way down to 

 Tenby shortly afterwards, and I am ready to lay you a 

 wager that your vaticinations touching the amount of work 

 that won't be done don't come true. 



So much for wives now for worms (I could not for 

 the life of me help the alliteration). I, as right reverend 

 father in worms and Bishop of Annelidas, do not think I 

 ought to interfere with my most promising son, when a 

 channel opens itself for the publication of his labours. 

 So do what you will apropos of J . If he does not do 



