384 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XIX 



JERMYN STREET, May 1, 1865. 



MY DEAR DARWIN I send you by this post a booklet * 

 none of which is much worth your reading, while of nine- 

 tenths of it you may say as the man did who had been 

 trying to read Johnson's Dictionary, " that the words were 

 fine, but he couldn't make much of the story." 



But perhaps the young lady who has been kind enough 

 to act as taster of my books heretofore will read the 

 explanatory notice, and give me her ideas thereupon 

 (always recollecting that almost the whole of it was 

 written in the pre-Darwinian epoch). 



I do not hear very good accounts of you to my 

 sorrow though rumours have reached me that the opus 

 magnum 2 is completely developed though not yet born. 



I am grinding at the mill and getting a little tired. 

 My belongings nourishing as I hope you are. Ever yours 

 faithfully, T. H. HDXLEY. 



JERMYN STREET, May 29, 1865. 



MY DEAR DARWIN I meant to have written to you 

 yesterday to say how glad I shall be to read whatever 

 you like to send me. 



I have to lecture at the Royal Institution this week, 

 but after Friday, my time will be more at my own dis- 

 posal than usual ; and as always I shall be most particularly 

 glad to be of any use to you. 



Any glimmer of light on the question you speak of is 

 of the utmost importance, and I shall be immensely in- 

 terested in learning your views. And of course I need 

 not add I will do my best to upset them. That is the 

 nature of the beast. 



I had a letter from one of the ablest of the younger 



1 Probably "A Catalogue of the Collection of Fossils in the 

 Museum of Practical Geology," etc. 



2 The Variation of Animals and Plaids under Domestication, 

 published in 1868, one chapter of which is on Pangenesis. 



