312 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xvii 



We are all flourishing, and send our best love to Jack and 

 you. Tell Joyce the wallflowers have grown quite high in her 

 garden. — Ever your loving Pater. 



Politics are not often touched upon in the letters of this 

 period, but an extract from a letter of October 25, 1891, is 

 of interest as giving his reason for supporting a Unionist 

 Government, many of whose tendencies he was far from 

 sympathising with — 



The extract from the Guardian is wonderful. The Glad- 

 stonian tee-to-tum cannot have many more revolutions to make. 

 The only thing left for him now, is to turn Agnostic, declare 

 Homer to be an old bloke of a ballad-monger, and agitate for 

 the prohibition of the study of Greek in all universities. . . . 



It is just because I do not want to see our children involved 

 in civil war that I postpone all political considerations to keep- 

 ing up a Unionist Government. 



I may be quite wrong; but right or wrong, it is no question 

 of party. " Rads delight not me nor Tories neither," as Hamlet 

 does not say. 



The following letter to Sir M. Foster shows how little 

 Huxley was now able to do in the way of public business 

 without being knocked up : — 



Hodeslea, Oct. 20, i8gi. 



My dear Foster — If I had known the nature of the proceed- 

 ings at the College of Physicians yesterday, I should have 

 braved the tedium of listening to a lecture I could not hear in 

 order to see you decorated. Clark had made a point of my going 

 to the dinner,* and, worse luck, I had to " say a few words " 

 after it, with the result that I am entirely washed out to-day, and 

 only able to send you the feeblest of congratulations. — Ever 

 yours, T. H. Huxley. 



The same thing appears in the following to Sir W. H. 

 Flower, which is also interesting for his opinion on the 

 question of promotion by seniority : — 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, Oct. 23, 1891. 

 My dear Flower — My " next worst thing " was promoting a 

 weak man to a place of responsibility in lieu of a strong one, on 

 the mere ground of seniority. 



* i.e. at the College of Physicians. 



