94 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, vi 



of London just now, but I am not sure that the wholesomest 

 thing for me would not be at all costs to get back to some en- 

 grossing work. If my poor girl were well, I could perhaps make 

 something of the dolce far niente, but at present one's mind runs 

 to her when it is not busy in something else. 



I expect we shall be here a week or ten days more — at any 

 rate, this address is safe — afterwards to Florence. 



What am I to do in the Riviera? Here and at Florence 

 there is always some distraction. You see the problem is 

 complex. 



My wife, who is very lively, thanks you for your letter 

 (which I have answered) and joins with me in love to Mrs. 

 Foster and yourself. — Ever yours, T. H. H. 



Writing on the same day to Sir J. Evans, he proposed 

 a considerable alteration in the duties of the Assistant 

 Secretary of the Royal Society. 



You know that I served a seven years' apprenticeship as 

 Secretary, and that experience gave me very solid grounds for 

 the conviction that, with the present arrangements, a great deal 

 of the time of the Secretaries is wasted over the almost me- 

 chanical drudgery of proof-reading. 



He suggests new arrangements, and proceeds : — 



At the same time it would be very important to adopt some 

 arrangements by which the Transactions papers can be printed 

 independently of one another. 



Why should not the papers be paged independently and be 

 numbered for each year ? Thus—" Huxley. Idleness and In- 

 capacity in Italy. Phil. Trans. 1885. VI." 



People grumble at the delay in publication, and are quite 

 right in doing so, though it is impossible under the present sys- 

 tem to be more expeditious, and it is not every senior secretary 

 who would slave at the work as Stokes does. 



But it is carrying coals to Newcastle to talk of such business 

 arrangements as these to you. 



The only thing I am strong about, is the folly of going on 

 cutting blocks with our Secretarial razors any longer. 



I am afraid I cannot give a very good account of myself. 



The truth of the answer to Mallock's question " Is life worth 

 living?"— that depends on the liver— is being strongly enforced 

 upon me in the hepatic sense of liver, and I must confess myself 

 fit for very little. A week hence we shall migrate to Florence 



