300 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XV 



a great improvement, and have pages cut, like the 

 Yankees do ; I will heap blessings on your head." 



And again, December 18 : 



I have read Nos. IV. and V. They are simply perfect. 

 They ought to be largely advertised ; but it is very good 

 in me to say so, for I threw down No. IV. with this 

 reflection, " What is the good of my writing a thundering 

 big book, when everything is in this green little book so 

 despicable for its size ? " In the name of all that is good 

 and bad I may as well shut up shop altogether. 



These lectures met with an annoying amount of 

 success. They were not cast into permanent form, 

 for he grudged the time necessary to prepare them 

 for the press. However, he gave a Mr. Hardwicke 

 permission to print them from a shorthand report 

 for the use of the audience. But no sooner were 

 they printed, than they had a large sale. Writing 

 to Sir J. D. Hooker early in the following month, 

 he says : 



I fully meant to have sent you all the successive 

 lectures as they came out, and I forward a set with all 

 manner of apologies for my delinquency. I am such a 

 'umble-minded party that I never imagined the lectures 

 as delivered would be worth bringing out at all, and I 

 knew I had no time to work them out. Now, I lament 

 I did not publish them myself and turn an honest penny 

 by them as I suspect Hardwicke is doing. He is advertis- 

 ing them everywhere, confound him. 



I wish when you have read them you would tell me 

 whether you think it would be worth while for me to 

 re-edit, enlarge, and illustrate them by and by. 



