CHAPTER VIII 

 1886 



The controversy with Mr. Gladstone indicates the nature 

 of the subject that Huxley took up for the employment of 

 his newly obtained leisure. Chequered as this leisure was 

 all through the year by constant illness, which drove him 

 again and again to the warmth of Bournemouth or the brisk 

 airs of the Yorkshire moors in default of the sovereign medi- 

 cine of the Alps, he managed to write two more controversial 

 articles this year, besides a long account of the " Progress 

 of Science," for Mr. T. Humphry Ward's book on The 

 Reign of Queen Victoria, which was to celebrate the Jubilee 

 year 1887. Examinations — for the last time, however — the 

 meetings of the Eton Governing Body, the business of the 

 Science Schools, the Senate of the London University, the 

 Marine Biological Association, the Council of the Royal 

 Society, and a round dozen of subsidiary committees, all 

 claimed his attention. Even when driven out of town by 

 his bad health he would come up for a few days at a time 

 to attend necessary meetings. 



One of the few references of this period to biological 

 research is contained in a letter to Professor Pelseneer of 

 Ghent, a student of the Mollusca, who afterwards completed 

 for Huxley the long unfinished monograph on " Spirula " 

 for the Challenger Report. 



4 Marlborough Place, Jan. 8, r886. 

 Dear Sir — Accept my best thanks for the present of your 

 publications. As you may imagine I find that on the cretaceous 

 crustaceans very interesting. It was a rare chance to find the 

 branchiae preserved. 



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