322 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XVI 



to pieces before one is fifty. But the alternative, for 

 men constructed on the high pressure tubular boiler 

 principle, like ourselves, is to lie still and let the devil 

 have his own way. And I will be torn to pieces before 

 I am forty sooner than see that. 



I have been privately trading on my misfortunes in 

 order to get a little peace and quietness for a few months. 

 If I can help it, I don't mean to do any dining-out this 

 winter, and I have cut down Societies to the minimum of 

 the Geological, from which I cannot get away. 



But it won't do to keep this up too long. By and by 

 one must drift into the stream again, and then there is 

 nothing for it but to pull like mad unless we want to be 

 run down by every collier. 



I am going to do one sensible thing, however, viz. to 

 rush down to Llanberis with Busk between Christmas 

 Day and New Year's Day and get my lungs full of hill- 

 air for the coming session. 



I was at Down on Saturday and saw Darwin. He 

 seems fairly well, and his daughter was up and looks 

 better than I expected to see her. Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



Meanwhile, he took the opportunity to make the 

 child's birth a new link with his old friend. His 

 wife was desirous of having the boy christened ; but 

 though, with a feeling which in part corresponded to 

 Descartes' morale par provision, he afterwards was not 

 unwilling to regard the ceremony as providing a link 

 with the official spiritual organisation of its country 

 which a child could either ignore or continue on 

 reaching intellectual maturity, still at the time he 

 was vexed and uneasy at having to assist at a rite 

 which to him was void of meaning. The only way 

 of turning it into a reality, he exclaims, is by 



