1S83 LETTERS TO SIR M. FOSTER 65 



Highcropt House, Milford, Godalming, 

 Aug. 27, 1883. 



My dear Foster — I do not see anything to add or alter to 

 what you have said about Balfour, except to get rid of that 

 terrible word " urinogenital," which he invented, and I believe 

 I once adopted, out of mere sympathy I suppose. 



Darwin is on my mind, and I will see what can be done here 

 by and by. Up to the present I have been filing away at the 

 Rede Lecture. I believe that getting things into shape takes me 

 more and more trouble as I get older — whether it is a loss of 

 faculty or an increase of fastidiousness I can't say — but at any 

 rate it costs me more time and trouble to get things finished-r- 

 and when they are done I should prefer burning to publishing 

 them. 



Haven't you any suggestions to offer for Anniversary ad- 

 dress? I think the Secretaries ought to draw it up, like a 

 Queen's speech. 



Mind we have a talk some day about University of London. 

 I suppose you want an English Sorbonne. I have thought of it 

 at times, but the Philistines are strong. 



Weather jolly, but altogether too hot for anything but lying 

 on the grass " under the tegmination of the patulous fage," as 

 the poet observes. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



The remaining letters of this year are for the most part 

 on Royal Society business, some of which, touching the 

 anniversary dinner, may be quoted : — 



4 Marlborough Place, A t pz>. 10, 1883. 



My dear Foster — ... I have been trying to get some 

 political and other swells to come to the dinner. Lord Mayor 

 is coming — thought I would ask him on account of City and 

 Guilds business — Lord Chancellor, probably, Courtney, M.P., 

 promised, and I made the greatest blunder I ever made in all 

 my life by thoughtlessly writing to ask Chamberlain (!!!) 

 utterly forgetting the row with Tyndall.* 



By the mercy of Providence he can't come this year, though 

 I must ask him next (if I am not kicked out for my sins before 

 that), as he is anxious to come. Science ought to be in league 

 with the Radicals. . . . Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



* Concerning the Lighthouses. 

 4r 



