210 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XI 



you how rejoiced I am that everything has gone on well, 

 and that your wife is safe and well. Offer her my 

 warmest congratulations and good wishes. I have made 

 one matrimonial engagement for Noel already, otherwise 

 I would bespeak the hand of the young lady for him. 



It has been raining cats and dogs these two days, so 

 that we have been unable to return to our headquarters 

 at the Montanvert which we left on Wednesday for the 

 purpose of going up Mont Blanc. Tyndall (who has 

 become one of the most active and daring mountaineers 

 you ever saw so that we have christened him " cat " ; 

 and our guide said the other day, " II va plus fort qu'un 

 mouton. II faut lui mettre une sonnette ") had set his 

 heart on the performance of this feat (of course with 

 purely scientific objects), and had equally made up his 

 mind not to pay five-and-twenty pounds for the gratifica- 

 tion. So we had one guide and took two porters in 

 addition as far as the Grands Mulets. He is writing 

 to you, and will tell you himself what happened to 

 those who reached the top to wit, himself, Hirst, and 

 the guide. I found that three days in Switzerland had 

 not given me my Swiss legs, and consequently I remained 

 at the Grands Mulets, all alone in my glory, and for 

 some eight hours in a great state of anxiety, for the 

 three did not return for about that period after they 

 were due. 



I was there on a pinnacle like St. Simon Stylites, and 

 nearly as dirty as that worthy saint must have been, but 

 without any of his other claims to angelic assistance, so 

 that I really did not see, if they had fallen into a 

 crevasse, how I was to help either them or myself. 

 They came back at last, just as it was growing dusk, to 

 my inexpressible relief, and the next day we came down 

 here such a set of dirty, sunburnt, snow-blind wretches 

 as you never saw. 



We heartily wished you were with us. What we 

 shall do next I neither know nor care, as I have placed 



