i8g3 THE ROMANES LECTURE 379 



edition of 2000 was exhausted by the end of the month ; 

 and another 700 in the next ten days. 



After leaving Oxford, and paying a pleasant visit to one 

 of the Fannings (his wife's nephew) at Tew, Huxley in- 

 tended to visit another of the family, Mrs. Crowder, in Lin- 

 colnshire, but on reaching London found himself dead beat 

 and had to retire to Eastbourne, whence he writes to Sir M. 

 Foster and to Mr. Romanes. 



Hodeslea, May 26, 1893. 



My dear Foster — Your letter has been following me about. 

 I had not got rid of my influenza at Oxford, so the exertion and 

 the dinner parties together played the deuce with me. 



We had got so far as the Great Northern Hotel on our way 

 to some connections in Lincolnshire, when I had to give it up 

 and retreat here to begin convalescing again. 



I do not feel sure of coming to the Harvey affair after all. 

 But if I do, it will be alone, and I think I had better accept the 

 hospitality of the college; which will by no means be so jolly as 

 Shelford, but probably more prudent, considering the necessity 

 of dining out. 



The fact is, my dear friend, I am getting old. 



I am very sorry to hear you have been doing your influenza 

 also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going 

 flop. — Ever yours, T. H. Huxley. 



Nobody sees that the lecture is a very orthodox production 

 on the text (if there is such a one), " Satan the Prince of this 

 world." 



I think the remnant of influenza microbes must have held a 

 meeting in my corpus after the lecture, and resolved to recon- 

 quer the territory. But I mean to beat the brutes. 



" I shall be interested," he writes to Mr. Romanes, " in 

 the article on the lecture. The papers have been asinine." 

 This was an article which Mr. Romanes had told him was 

 about to appear in the Oxford Magazine. And on the 30th 

 he writes again : — 



Many thanks for the Oxford Magazine. The writer of the 

 article is about the only critic I have met with yet who under- 

 stands my drift. My wife says it is a " sensible " article, but her 

 classification is a very simple one — sensible articles are those 



