1 6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap. I 



The result was all that could be hoped. On January 7 

 Darwin writes : — " Hurrah ! hurrah ! read the enclosed. 

 Was it not extraordinarily kind of Mr. Gladstone to write 

 himself at the present time ? . . . I have written to Wallace. 

 He owes much to you. Had it not been for your advice 

 and assistance, I should never have had courage to go on." 



The rest of the letter to Darwin of Dec. 28 is charac- 

 teristic of his own view of life. He was no pessimist any 

 more than he was a professed optimist. If the vast amount 

 of inevitable suffering precluded the one view, the gratuitous 

 pleasures, so to speak, of life, preclude the other. Life 

 properly lived is worth living, and would be even if a 

 malevolent fate had decreed that one should suffer, say, the 

 pangs of toothache two hours out of every twenty-four. So 

 he writes : — 



We have had all the chicks (and the husbands of such as 

 are therewith provided) round the Christmas table once more, 

 and a pleasant sight they were, though I say it that shouldn't. 

 Only the grand-daughter left out, the young woman not having 

 reached the age when change and society are valuable. 



I don't know what you think about anniversaries. I like 

 them, being always minded to drink my cup of life to the bottom, 

 and take my chance of the sweets and bitters. Infinite benevo- 

 lence need not have invented pain and sorrow at all — infinite 

 malevolence would very easily have deprived us of the large 

 measure of content and happiness that falls to our lot. After 

 all, Butler's Analogy is unassailable, and there is nothing in 

 theological dogmas more contradictory to our moral sense, than 

 is to be found in the facts of Nature. From which, however, 

 the Bishop's conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn't follow. 



The following is to his Edinburgh friend Dr. Skelton, 

 whose appreciation of his frequent companionship had found 

 outspoken expression in the pages of The Crookit Meg. 



4 Marlborough Place, N.W., A T ov. 14, 1880. 



My dear Skelton — When the Crooked Meg reached me I 

 made up my mind that it would be a shame to send the empty 

 acknowledgment which I give (or don't give) for most books 

 that reach me. 



But I am over head and ears in work — time utterly wasted 



