MARRIAGE OF HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER 



231 



We have had a lovely day, quite an Italian sky and sea, with 

 a good deal of Florentine east wind. I walked up to the Signal 

 House, and was greatly amused by a young sheep-dog whose 

 master could hardly get him away from circling round me and 

 staring at me with a short dissatisfied bark every now and then. 

 It is the undressed wool of my coat bothers all the dogs. They 

 can't understand why a creature which smells so like a sheep 

 should walk on its hind legs. I wish I could have relieved that 

 dog's mind, but I did not see my way to an explanation. 



From this time on, the effects of several years' com- 

 parative rest became more perceptible. His slowly return- 

 ing vigour was no longer sapped by the unceasing strain 

 of multifarious occupations. And if his recurrent ill-health 

 sometimes seems too strongly insisted on, it must be re- 

 membered that he had always worked at the extreme limit 

 of his powers — the limit, as he used regretfully to say, 

 imposed on his brain by his other organs — and that after 

 his first breakdown he was never very far from a second. 

 When this finally came in 1884, his forces were so far spent 

 that he never expected to recover as he did. 



In the marriage this year of his youngest daughter, 

 Huxley was doomed to experience the momentary little 

 twinge which will sometimes come to the supporter of an 

 unpopular principle when he first puts it into practice among 

 his own belongings. 



Athenaeum Club, Jan. 14, 1889. 



My dear Hooker — I have left the x " Archives " here for 

 you. I left them on my table by mischance when I came here on 

 the x day. 



I have a piece of family news for you. My youngest daugh- 

 ter Ethel is going to marry John Collier. 



I have always been a great advocate for the triumph of 

 common sense and justice in the " Deceased Wife's Sister " 

 business — and only now discover, that I had a sneaking hope 

 that all of my own daughters would escape that experiment ! 



They are quite suited to one another and I would not wish 

 a better match for her. And whatever annoyances and social 

 pin-pricks may come in Ethel's way, I know nobody less likely 

 to care about them. 



We shall have to go to Norway, I believe, to get the business 

 done. 



