1885 LETTERS FROM ROME 



99 



I have been screwing up the old machine which I inhabit, 

 first with quinine and now with a form of strychnia (which 

 Clark told me to take) for the last week, and I have improved 

 a good deal whether post hoc or propter hoc in the present un- 

 certainty of medical science I decline to give any opinion. 



The weather is very cold for Rome — ice an eighth of an inch 

 thick in the Ludovisi Garden the other morning, and every night 

 it freezes, but mostly fine sunshine in the day. (This is a re- 

 markable sentence in point of grammar, but never mind.) The 

 day before yesterday we came out on the Campagna, and it then 

 was as fresh and bracing a breeze as you could get in North- 

 •umberland. 



We are very comfortable and quiet here, and I hold on — till it 

 gets warmer. I am told that Florence is detestable at present. 

 As for London, our accounts make us shiver and cough. 



News about the dynamiting gentry just arrived. A little 

 more mischief and there will be an Irish massacre in some of 

 our great towns. If an Irish Parnellite member were to be 

 shot for every explosion I believe the thing would soon stop. 

 It would be quite just, as they are practically accessories. 



I think would do it if he were Prime Minister. Noth- 

 ing like a thorough Radical for arbitrary acts of power ! 



I must be getting better, as my disgust at science has ceased, 

 and I have begun to potter about Roman geology and prehistoric 

 work. You may be glad to learn that there is no evidence that 

 the prehistoric Romans had Roman noses. But as I cannot find 

 any particular prevalence of [them] among the modern — or 

 ancient except for Caesar — Romani, the fact is not so interesting 

 as it might appear, and I would not advise you to tell of it. 



Behold a Goak — feeble, but promising of better things. 



My wife unites with me with love to Mrs. Donnelly and 

 yourself. — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



The following letter refers to the fourth edition of the 

 Lessons in Elementary Physiology, in the preparation of which 

 Dr. Foster had been helping during the summer: — 



Hotel Victoria, Rome, Via dei due Macelli, 



Feb. I, 1885. 



My dear Foster — Anything more disgraceful than the way 



in which I have left your letter of more than a fortnight ago 



unanswered, I don't know. I thought the wife had written about 



the leave (and she thought I had, as she has told you) but I 



