90 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, vi 



read her thoughts as to whether he were right or wrong in 

 the course he was pursuing. He appeals to her faith that 

 he is choosing the nobler path in pursuing knowledge, than 

 in turning aside to the temptation of throwing it up for the 

 sake of their speedier union. Still she was right in claim- 

 ing a share in his work; but for her his life would have 

 been wasted. 



The clouds gathered very thickly about him when in 

 April 1852 his mother died, while his father was hopelessly 

 ill. " Belief and happiness," he writes, " seem to be beyond 

 the reach of thinking men in these days, but courage and 

 silence are left." Again the clouds lifted, for in October he 

 received Miss Heathorn's " noble and self-sacrificing letter, 

 which has given me more comfort than anything for a long 

 while," the keynote of which was that a man should pursue 

 those things for which he is most fitted, let them be what 

 they will. He now felt free to tell the vicissitudes of 

 thought and will he had passed through this twelvemonth, 

 and how the idea of giving up all had affected him. 

 " The spectre of a wasted life has passed before me — a 

 vision of that servant who hid his talent in a napkin and 

 buried it." 



Early in 1853 he writes how much he was cheered by his 

 sister's advice and encouragement to persist in the struggle ; 

 but the darkest moment was still to come. His hopes from 

 his candidature crumbled away one after the other ; his leave 

 from the Admiralty was coming to an end, and there was 

 small hope of renewing it ; the grant from Government re- 

 mained as unattainable as ever ; the long struggle had taught 

 him the full extent of his powers only, it seemed, to end by 

 denying him all opportunity for their use. 



And so the card house I have been so laboriously building up 

 these two years with all manner of hard struggling will be 

 tumbled down again, and my small light will be ignominiously 

 snuffed out like that of better men. ... I can submit if the fates 

 are too strong. The world is no better than an arena of gladi- 

 ators, and I, a stray savage, have been turned into it to fight my 

 way with my rude club among the steel-clad fighters. Well, I 

 have won my way into the front rank, and ought to be thankful 



