310 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xvi 



influence to that I already meant to exert per annum in 

 its favour. 



I shall be most glad henceforth, as ever, to help your 

 great undertaking in any way I can. The more I con- 

 template its issues the more important does it seem to me 

 to be, and I assure you that I look upon its success as the 

 business of all of us. So that if it were not a pleasure, I 

 should feel it a duty to " push behind " as hard as I can. 



Have you seen this quarter's Westminster ? The 

 opening article on " Neo-Christianity " is one of the most 

 remarkable essays in its way I have ever read. I suppose 

 it must be Newman's. The Review is terribly unequal, 

 some of the other articles being absolutely ungrammati- 

 cally written. What a pity it is it cannot be thoroughly 

 organised. 



My wife is a little better, but she is terribly shattered. 

 By the time you come back we shall, I hope, have reverted 

 from our present hospital condition to our normal arrange- 

 ments, but in any case we shall be glad to see you. 

 Ever yours faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



The following is, I think, the first reference to his 

 fastidiousness in the literary expression and artistic 

 completeness of his work. As he said in an after- 

 dinner speech at a meeting in aid of the Literary 

 Fund, " Science and literature are not two things, but 

 two sides of one thing." Anything that was to be 

 published he subjected to repeated revision. And 

 thus, apologising to Hooker for his absence, he writes 

 (August 2, I860) 



I was sorry to have to send an excuse by Tyndall the 

 other day, but I found I must finish the Pyrosoma 

 paper, and all last Tuesday was devoted to it, and I fear 

 the next after will have the like fate. 



