60 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chai\ iv 



Now, will you turn all this over in your mind? Perhaps you 

 might talk it over with Stokes. 



Of course I am very sensible of the honour of being P.R.S., 

 but I should be much more sensible of the dishonour of being 

 in that place by a fluke, or in any other way, than by the free 

 choice of the Council and Society. 



In fact I am inclined to think that I am morbidly sensitive 

 on the last point ; and so, instead of acting on my own impulse, 

 as I have been tempted to do, I submit myself to your worship's 

 wisdom. 



I am not sure that I should not have been wiser if I had 

 stuck to my original intention of holding office only till St. 

 Andrew's Day. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Secretary of State, Home Department, 

 Oct. 3, 1883. 



My dear Foster — There was an Irish bricklayer who once 

 bet a hodman he would not carry him up to the top of an ex- 

 ceeding high ladder in his hod. The hodman did it, but Paddy 

 said, " I had great hopes, now, ye'd let me fall just about six 

 rounds from the top." 



I told the story before when I was up for the School Board, 

 but it is so applicable to the present case that I can't help coming 

 out with it again. 



If you, dear good hodman, would have but let me fall ! 



However, as the thing is to be, it is very pleasant to find 

 Evans and Williamson and you so hearty in the process of ele- 

 vation, and in spite of blue-devils I will do my best to " do my 

 duty in the state of life I'm called to." 



But I believe you never had the advantage of learning the 

 Church Catechism. 



If there is any good in what is done you certainly deserve 

 the credit of it, for nothing but your letter stopped me from 

 kicking over the traces at once. Do you see how Evolution is 

 getting made into a bolus and oiled outside for the ecclesiastical 

 swallow?* — Ever thine, Thomas, P.R.S. 



The same feeling appears in his anxiety as President to 

 avoid the slightest appearance of committing the Society to 



* This refers to papers read before the Church Congress that year 

 by Messrs. W. H. Flower and Legros Clarke. 



