418 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XXI 



The one thing for men, who like you and I stand 

 pretty much alone, and have a good deal of fighting to do 

 in the external world, is to have light and warmth and 

 confidence within the four walls of home. May all these 

 good things await you ! 



Many thanks for your kind invitation to Jena. I am 

 sure my wife would be as much pleased as I to accept it, 

 but it is very difficult for her to leave her children. 



We will keep it before us as a pleasant possibility, but 

 I suspect you and Madame will be able to come to 

 England before we shall reach Germany. 



I wish I had rooms to offer you, but you have seen 

 that troop of children, and they leave no corner un- 

 occupied. 



Many thanks for the Bericht and the genealogical 

 tables. You seem, as usual, to have got through an 

 immense amount of work. 



I have been exceedingly occupied with a paper on the 

 " Classification of Birds," a sort of expansion of one of my 

 Hunterian Lectures this year. It has now gone to press, 

 and I hope soon to be able to send you a copy of it. 



Occupation of this and other kinds must be my excuse 

 for having allowed so much longer a time to slip by than 

 I imagined had done before writing to you. It is not for 

 want of sympathy, be sure, for my wife and I have often 

 talked of the new life opening out to you. 



This is written in my best hand. I am proud of it, as 

 I can read every word quite easily myself, which is more 

 than I can always say for my own MS. Ever yours 

 faithfuUy, T. H. HUXLEY. 



The same experience is attested and enforced in 

 the correspondence with Dr. Anton Dohrn, which 

 begins this year. Genial, enthusiastic, as pungent as 

 he was eager in conversation, the future founder of 

 the Marine Biological Station at Naples, on his first 



