DEFENCE OF AGNOSTICISM 



235 



had chosen the dampest site in winter and the stuffiest in sum- 

 mer, and where, moreover, the sewage has to be pumped up into 

 the main drain. 



He finally decided upon a site on the high ground near 

 Beachy Head, a little way back from the sea front, at the 

 corner of the Staveley and Buxton Roads, with a guarantee 

 from the Duke of Devonshire's agent that no house should 

 be built at the contiguous end of the adjoining plot of land 

 in the Buxton Road, a plot which he himself afterwards 

 bought. The principal rooms were planned for the back of 

 the house, looking S.W. over open gardens to the long line 

 of downs which culminate in Beachy Head, but with due 

 provision against southerly gales and excess of sunshine. 



On May 29 the builder's contract was accepted, and for 

 the rest of the year the progress of the house, which was 

 designed by his son-in-law, F. W. Waller, afforded a con- 

 stant interest. 



Meantime, with the improvement in his general health, 

 the old appetite for work returned with increased and un- 

 wonted zest. For the first time in his life he declares that 

 he enjoyed the process of writing. As he wrote somewhat 

 later to his newly married daughter from Eastbourne, where 

 he had gone again very weary the day after her wedding : 

 " Luckily the bishops and clergy won't let me alone, so I 

 have been able to keep myself pretty well amused in reply- 

 ing." The work which came to him so easily and pleasur- 

 ably was the defence of his attitude of agnosticism against 

 the onslaught made upon it at the previous Church Con- 

 gress by Dr. Wace, the Principal of King's College, London, 

 and followed up by articles in the Nineteenth Century from 

 the pen of Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mr. Laing, the effect 

 of which upon him he describes to Mr. Knowles on De- 

 cember 30, 1888 : — 



I have been stirred up to the boiling pitch by Wace, Laing, 

 and Harrison in re Agnosticism, and I really can't keep the lid 

 down any longer. Are you minded to admit a goring article 

 into the February Nineteenth? 



As for his health, he adds : — 



