CHAPTER XVI 

 1890-91 



Three letters of the first half of the year may con- 

 veniently be placed here. The first is to Tyndall, who had 

 just been delivering an anti-Gladstonian speech at Belfast. 

 The opening reference must be to some newspaper para- 

 graph which I have not been able to trace, just as the 

 second is to a paragraph in 1876, not long after Tyndall's 

 marriage, which described Huxley as starting for America 

 with his titled bride. 



3 Jevixgton Gardens, Eastbourne, 

 Feb. 24, 1890. 



My dear Tyndall — Put down the three half-pints and the 

 two dozen to the partnership account. Ever since the " titled 

 bride " business I have given up the struggle against the popular 

 belief that you and I constitute a firm. 



It's very hard on me in the decline of life to have a lively 

 young partner who thinks nothing of rushing six or seven hun- 

 dred miles to perform a war-dance on the sainted G.O.M., and 

 takes the scalp of Historicus as a hors d'xuvre. 



All of which doubtless goes down to my account just as my 

 poor innocent articles confer a reputation for long-suffering 

 mildness on you. 



Well ! well ! there is no justice in this world ! With our best 

 love to you both — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



(The confusion in the popular mind continued steadily, 

 so that at last, when Tyndall died, Huxley received the 

 doubtful honour of a funeral sermon.) 



Dr. Pelseneer, to whom the next letter is addressed, is a 

 Belgian morphologist, and an authority upon the Mollusca. 

 He it was who afterwards completed Huxley's unfinished 

 memoir on Spirula for the Challenger report. 

 274 



