LETTERS 



79 



On Friday I signalised my last dinner for the next three 

 weeks by going to meet the G.O.M. I sat next him, and he 

 was as lively as a bird. 



Very sorry to hear about your house. You will have to set 

 up a van with a brass knocker and anchor on our common. — 

 Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



By the beginning of September he had made up his 

 mind that he ought before long to retire from active life. 

 The first person to be told of his resolution was the head 

 of the Science and Art Department, with whom he had 

 worked so long at South Kensington. 



Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, 

 Sept. 3, 1884. 



My dear Donnelly — I was very glad to have news of you 

 yesterday. I gather you are thriving, notwithstanding the ap- 

 palling title of your place of refuge. I should have preferred 

 " blow the cold " to " Cold blow "• — but there is no accounting 

 for tastes. 



I have been going and going to write to you for a week 

 past to tell you of a notion that has been maturing in my mind 

 for some time, and that I ought to let you know of before any- 

 body else. I find myself distinctly aged — tired out body and 

 soul, and for the first time in my life fairly afraid of the work 

 that lies before me in the next nine months. Physically, I have 

 nothing much to complain of except weariness — and for purely 

 mental work, I think I am good for something yet. I am morally 

 and mentally sick of society and societies — committees, councils 

 — bother about details and general worry and waste of time. 



I feel as if more than another year of it would be the death 

 of me. Next May I shall be sixty, and have been thirty-one 

 mortal years in my present office in the School. Surely I may 

 sing my nunc dimittis with a good conscience. I am strongly 

 inclined to announce to the Royal Society in November that the 

 chair will be vacant that day twelvemonth — to resign my Govern- 

 ment posts at midsummer, and go away and spend the winter 

 in Italy — so that I may be out of reach of all the turmoil of 

 London. 



The only thing I don't like is the notion of leaving you with- 

 out such support as I can give in the School. No one knows 

 better than I do how completely it is your work and how gal- 

 lantly you have borne the trouble and responsibility connected 



