I30 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, vm 



ends in the book line, among other things a Shakespeare for 

 yourself, dear Liz. — Believe me, ever your affec. brother, 



T. H. Huxley. 



In December the Edinburgh chair was practically offered 

 to him undivided ; but by that time the London authorities 

 thought they had better make it worth his while to stay at 

 Jermyn Street, and with negotiations begun for this end he 

 refused to stand for Edinburgh. In the following spring, 

 however, he was again approached from Edinburgh — not so 

 much to withdraw his refusal and again become a candidate, 

 as to let it be made known that he would accept the chair 

 if it were offered him. But his position in London was 

 now established ; and he preferred to live in London on a 

 bare sufficiency rather than to enjoy a larger income away 

 from the centre of things. 



Two letters to Tyndall, which refer to the division of 

 labour in the science reviews for the Westminster (see p. 

 92), indicate very clearly the high pressure at which Huxley 

 had already begun to work : — 



Tenby, South Wales, Oct. 22, 1854. 



My dear Tyndall — I was rejoiced to find you entertaining 

 my proposition at all. No one believes how hard you work more 

 than I, but I was not going to be such a bad diplomatist as to 

 put that at the head of my letter, and if I had thought that 

 what I want you to do involved any great accession thereto, I 

 think I could not have mustered up the face to ask you. But 

 really and truly, so long as it is confined to our own depart- 

 ment it is no great affair. You make me laugh at the long face 

 you pull about the duties, based on my phrase. The fact is, you 

 notice what you like, and what you do not you leave undone, 

 unless you get an editorial request to say something about a 

 particular book. The whole affair is entirely in your own hands 

 — at least it is in mine — as I went upon my principle of having 

 a row at starting. . . . 



Now here is an equitable proposition. Look at my work. I 

 have a couple of monographs, odds and ends of papers for jour- 

 nals, a manual and some three courses of lectures to provide 

 for this winter. " My necessities are as great as thine," as Sir 

 Philip Sidney didn't say, so be a brick, split the difference, and 



