34 g LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xix 



To Mr. W. F. Collier 



Con-y-Gedal Hotel, Barmouth Water, 

 Aug. 31, 1892. 



Accept my wife's and my hearty thanks for your kind con- 

 gratulations. When I was a mere boy I took for motto of an 

 essay, "What is honour? Who hath it? He that died o' 

 Wednesday," and although I have my full share of ambition 

 and vanity, I doubt not, yet Falstaff's philosophical observa- 

 tion has dominated my mind and acted as a sort of perpetual 

 refrigerator to these passions. So I have gone my own way, 

 sought for none of these things and expected none — and it 

 would seem that the deepest schemer's policy could not have 

 answered better. We must have a new Beatitude, " Blessed is 

 the man who expecteth nothing," without its ordinary appendix. 



I tell Jack* I have worked hard for a dignity which will 

 enable me to put down his aristocratic swaggering. 



It took some time, however, to get used to the title, and 

 it was October before he wrote : — 



The feeling that "The Right Honble." on my letters is a 

 piece of chaff is wearing off, and I hope to get used to my ap- 

 pendix in time. 



The " very quaint " ceremony of kissing hands is de- 

 scribed at some length in a letter to Mrs. Huxley from 

 London on his way back from Osborne : — 



Great Western Hotel, Aug. 25, 1892, 6.40 p.m. 



I have just got back from Osborne, and I find there are a few 

 minutes to send you a letter — by the help of the extra halfpenny. 

 First-rate weather there and back, a special train, carriage with 

 postillions at the Osborne landing-place, and a grand procession 

 of officers of the new household and P.C.'s therein. Then wait- 

 ing about while the various " sticks " were delivered. 



Then we were shown into the presence chamber where the 

 Queen sat at a table. We knelt as if we were going to say our 

 prayers, holding a testament between two, while the Clerk of 

 the Council read an oath of which I heard not a word. We each 

 advanced to the Queen, knelt and kissed her hand, retired back- 

 wards, and got sworn over again (Lord knows what I promised 



* His son-in-law, Hon. John Collier. 



