126 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, viil 



to whom I can feel obliged, without losing a particle of inde- 

 pendence or self-respect. 



The following from a letter to Hooker, announcing 

 Forbes' death, is a striking testimony to his worth : — 



I think I have never felt so crushed by anything before. 

 It is one of those losses which cannot be replaced either to the 

 private friend or to science. To me especially it is a bitter loss. 

 Without the aid and sympathy he has always given me from 

 first to last, I should never have had the courage to persevere 

 in the course I have followed. And it was one of my greatest 

 hopes that we should work in harmony for long years at the 

 aims so dear to us both. 



But it is otherwise, and we who remain have nothing left 

 but to bear the inevitable as we best may. 



And again a few. days later : — 



I have had no time to write to you again till now, but I write 

 to say how perfectly you express my own feeling about our poor 

 friend. One of the first things I thought of was that medal 

 business,* and I never rejoiced in anything more than that I 

 had not been deterred by any moral cowardice from acting as 

 I did. 



As it is I reckon that letter (wKich I will show you some 

 day) among my most precious possessions. 



Huxley's last tribute to his dead friend was the organ- 

 ising a memorial fund, part of which went to getting a bust 

 of him made, part to establishing an Edward Forbes medal, 

 to be competed for by the students of his old school in 

 Jermyn Street. , 



As Huxley had been Forbes' successor at Jermyn Street, 

 so now he seemed to many marked out to succeed him at 

 Edinburgh. In November he writes to Hooker: — 



People have been at me about the Edinburgh chair. If I 

 could contrive to stop here, between you and I, I would prefer it 

 to half a dozen Edinburgh chairs, but there is a mortal difference 

 between £200 and fiooo a year. I have written to say that if 

 the Professors can make up their minds they wish me to stand, I 

 will — if not, I will not. For my own part, I believe my chances 



* P. 119. 



