58 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, iv 



To his Eldest Daughter 



4 Marlborough Place, July 14, 1883. 



Dearest Jess— I am not sure either whether my accession to 

 the Presidency is a matter for congratulation. Honour and 

 glory are all very fine, but on the whole I prefer peace and 

 quietness, and three weeks ago I declared I would have nothing 

 to do with it. 



But there are a good many circumstances in the present 

 state of affairs which weighed heavily in the scale, and so I 

 made up my mind to try the experiment. 



If I don't suit the office or the office don't suit me, there is a 

 way out every 30th of November. 



There was more work connected with the Secretaryship — 

 but there is more trouble and responsibility and distraction in 

 the Presidency. 



I am amused with your account of your way of governing 

 your headstrong boy. I find the way of governing headstrong 

 men to be very similar, and I believe it is by practising the 

 method that I get the measure of success with which people 

 credit me. 



But they are often very fractious, and it is a bother for a 

 man who was meant for a student. 



Poor Spottiswoode's death was a great blow to me. Never 

 was a better man, and I hoped he would stop where he was for 

 the next ten years. . . . — Ever your loving father, 



T. H. Huxley. 



He finally decided that the question of standing again in 

 November must depend on whether this course was likely 

 to cause division in the ranks of the Society. He earnestly 

 desired to avoid anything like a contest for scientific hon- 

 ours ; * he was almost morbidly anxious that the temporary 

 choice of himself should not be interpreted as binding the 

 electors in any way. 



* As he wrote a little later : — " I have never competed in the way 

 of honour in my life, and I cannot allow myself to be even thought of 

 as in such a position now, where, with all respect to the honour and 

 glory, they do not appear to me to be in any way equivalent to the 

 burden. And I am not at all sure that I may not be able to serve the 

 right cause outside the Chair rather than in it." 



