238 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xiv 



He writes at greater length to Mr. Knowles: — 



3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, 

 March 10, 1889. 



My dear Knowles — There's a Divinity that shapes the ends 

 (of envelopes!) rough-hew them how we will. This time I 

 went and bought the strongest to be had, and sealed him up 

 with wax in the shop. I put no note inside, meaning to write 

 to you afterwards, and then I forgot to do so. 



I can't understand Peterborough nohow. However, so far as 

 the weakness of the flesh would permit me to abstain from smit- 

 ing him and his brother Amalekite, I have tried to turn the tide 

 of battle to matters of more importance. 



The pith of my article is the proposition that Christ was not 

 a Christian. I have not ventured to state my thesis exactly in 

 that form — fearing the Editor — but, in a mild and proper way, 

 I flatter myself I have demonstrated it. Really, when I come to 

 think of the claims made by orthodox Christianity on the one 

 hand, and of the total absence of foundation for them on the 

 other, I find it hard to abstain from using a phrase which 

 shocked me very much when Strauss first applied it to the Resur- 

 rection, " Welthistorischer Humbug ! " 



I don't think I have ever seen the portrait you speak of. I 

 remember the artist — a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I 

 forget — but I do not think I saw his finished work. Some of 

 these days I will ask to see it. 



I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here 

 the next day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to 

 come with me. If she does not knock up I shall be pleasantly 

 surprised. The young couple are flourishing in Paris. I like 

 what I have seen of him very much. 



What is the " Cloister scheme " ? * Recollect how far away 

 I am from the world, the flesh and the d . 



Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of 

 Eginhard and Emma? What good pictures you will have in 

 your monastery church ! — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 

 And again, a few days later: — 



* It referred to a plan for using the cloisters of Westminster Abbey 

 to receive the monuments of distinguished men, so as to avoid the 



necessity of enlarging the Abbejf itself. 



