138 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, viii 



I do a minimum of ten miles per diem without fatigue, and 

 as I eat, drink, and sleep well, there ought to be nothing the 

 matter with me. Why, under these circumstances, I should 

 never feel honestly cheerful, or know any other desire than that 

 of running away and hiding myself, I don't know. No explana- 

 tion is to be found even in Foster's Physiology ! The only thing 

 my demon can't stand is sharp walking, and I will give him a 

 dose of that remedy when once I get into trim. 



Indeed he was so much better even after a single day at 

 Ilkley, that he writes home : — 



It really seems to me that I am an impostor for running 

 away, and I can hardly believe that I felt so ill and miserable 

 four-and-twenty hours ago. 



And on the 28th he writes to Sir M. Foster : — 



I have been improving wonderfully in the last few days. 

 Yesterday I walked to Bolton Abbey, the Strid, etc., and back, 

 which is a matter of sixteen miles, without being particularly 

 tired, though the afternoon sun was as hot as midsummer. 



It is the old story — a case of candle-snuff — some infernal 

 compound that won't get burnt up without more oxygenation 

 than is to be had under ordinary conditions. . . . 



I want to be back and doing something, and yet have a 

 notion that I should be wiser if I stopped here a few weeks and 

 burnt up my rubbish effectually. A good deal will depend upon 

 whether I can get my wife to join me or not. She has had a 

 world of worry lately. 



As to his fortunate choice of an hotel, " I made up my 

 mind," he writes, " to come to this hotel merely because 

 Bradshaw said it was on the edge of the moor — but for 

 once acting on an advertisement turned out well." The 

 moor ran up six or seven hundred feet just outside the 

 garden, and the hotel itself was well outside and above the 

 town and the crowd of visitors. Here, with the exception 

 of a day or two in May and a fortnight at the beginning 

 of June, he stayed till July, living as far as possible an 

 outdoor life, and getting through a fair amount of cor- 

 respondence. 



It was not to be expected that he should long remain 



