1852 DEATH OF HIS MOTHER 107 



However, when the hour struck, in I marched, and began to 

 deliver my discourse. For ten minutes I did not quite know 

 where I was, but by degrees I got used to it, and gradually 

 gained perfect command of myself and of my subject. I believe 

 I contrived to interest my audience, and upon the whole I think 

 I may say that this essay was successful. 



Thank Heaven I can say so, for though it is no great matter 

 succeeding, failing would have been a bitter annoyance to me. 

 It has put me comfortably at my ease with regard to all future 

 lecturings. After the Royal Institution there is no audience I 

 shall ever fear. 



May g. 



The foolish state of excitement into which I allowed myself 

 to get the other day completely did for me, and I have hardly 

 done anything since except sleep a great deal. It is a strange 

 thing that with all my will I cannot control my physical organi- 

 sation. 



To HIS Sister 



April 17, 1852. 



... I fear nothing will have prepared you to hear that one 

 so active in body and mind as our poor mother was has been 

 taken from us. But so it is. . . . 



It was very strange that before leaving London my mother, 

 possessed by a strange whim, as I thought, distributed to many 

 of us little things belonging to her. I laughed at her for what 

 I called her " testamentary disposition," little dreaming that the 

 words were prophetic. 



[The summons to those of the family in London reached 

 them late, and their arrival was made still later by inconvenient 

 trains and a midnight drive, so that all had long been over when 

 they came to Earning in Kent, where the elder Huxleys had 

 just settled near their son James.] 



Our mother had died at half-past four, falling gradually 

 into a more and more profound insensibility. She was thus 

 happily spared the pain of fruitlessly wishing us round her, in 

 her last moments ; and as the hand of Death was upon her, I 

 know not that it could have fallen more lightly. 



I offer you no consolation, my dearest sister, for I know of 

 none. There are things which each must bear as he best may 

 with the strength that has been allotted to him. Would that I 

 were near you to soften the blow by the sympathy which we 

 should have in common. . . . 



