I44 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, viii 



losing side. But I am used to that, and shall do what I think 

 right nevertheless. 



The same letter contains his reply to a suggestion that 

 he should join a society whose object was to prevent a rail- 

 way from being run right through the Lake district. 



I am not much inclined to join the " Lake District Defence 

 Society." I value natural beauty as much as most people — indeed 

 I value it so much, and think so highly of its influence that I 

 would make beautiful scenery accessible to all the world, if I 

 could. If any engineering or mining work is projected, which 

 will really destroy the beauty of the Lakes, I will certainly 

 oppose it, but I am not disposed, as Goschen said, to " give a 

 blank cheque " to a Defence Society, the force of which is pretty 

 certain to be wielded by the most irrational fanatics among its 

 members. 



Only the other day I walked the whole length of Bassen- 

 thwaite from Keswick and back, and I cannot say that the little 

 line of rails which runs along the lake, now coming into view 

 and now disappearing, interfered with my keen enjoyment of 

 the beauty of the lake any more than the macadamised road did. 

 And if it had not been for that railway I should not have been 

 able to make Keswick my headquarters, and I should have lost 

 my day's delight. 



People's sense of beauty should be more robust. I have had 

 apocalyptic visions looking down Oxford Street at a sunset 

 before now. — Ever, dear lad, your loving father, 



T. H. Huxley. 



After this he took his wife to Harrogate, " just like 

 Clapham Common on a great scale," where she was ordered 

 to drink the waters. For himself, it was as good as Ilkley, 

 seeing that he needed " nothing but fresh air and exercise, 

 and just as much work that interests me as will keep my 

 mind from getting ' blue mouldy.' " The work in this case 

 was the chapter in the Life of Charles Darwin, which he 

 had promised Mr. F. Darwin to finish before going abroad. 



On July 10, he writes to Sir M. Foster on the rejection 

 of the Home Rule Bill : — 



The smashing of the G.O.M. appears to be pretty complete, 

 though he has unfortunately enough left to give him the means 

 of playing an ugly game of obstruction in the next Parliament. 



