i854 INVITED TO SUCCEED FORBES 131 



say you will be ready for the April number. I will write and 

 announce the fact to Chapman. 



What idiots we all are to toil and slave at this pace. I 

 almost repent me of tempting you — after all — so I promise to 

 hold on if you really think you will be overdoing it. 



With you I envy Francis his gastric energies. I feel I have 

 done for myself in that line, and am in for a life-long dyspeps. 

 I have not, now, nervous energy enough for stomach and brain 

 both, and if I work the latter, not even the fresh breezes of this 

 place will keep the former in order. That is a discovery I have 

 made here, and though highly instructive, it is not so pleasant 

 as some other physiological results that have turned up. 



Chapman, who died of cholera, was a distant relative of my 

 man. The poor fellow vanished in the middle of an unfinished 

 article, which has appeared in the last Westminster, as his for- 

 lorn vale ! to the world. After all, that is the way to die, better 

 a thousand times than drivelling off into eternity betwixt awake 

 and asleep in a fatuous old age. — Believe me, ever yours faith- 

 fully, T. H. Huxley. 



On Tyndall consenting, he wrote again on the 29th : — 



I rejoice in having got you to put your head under my yoke, 

 and feel ready to break into a hand gallop on the strength of it. 



I have written to Chapman to tell him you only make an 

 experiment on your cerebral substance, whose continuance de- 

 pends on tenacity thereof. 



I didn't suspect you of being seduced by the magnificence of 

 the emolument, you Cincinnatus of the laboratory. I only sug- 

 gested that as pay sweetens labour, a fortiori it will sweeten 

 what to you will be no labour. 



I'm not a miserable mortal now — quite the contrary. I never 

 am when I have too much to do, and my sage reflection was not 

 provoked by envy of the more idle. Only I do wish I could 

 sometimes ascertain the exact juste milieu of work which will 

 suit, not my head or will, these can't have too much ; but rriy 

 absurd stomach. 



The Edinburgh candidature, the adoption of his wider 

 scheme for the carrying out of the coast survey, and his 

 approaching marriage, are touched upon in the following 

 letters to Dr. Frederick Dyster * of Tenby, whose keen 



* It was to Dyster that Huxley owed his introduction in 1854 to 

 F. D. Maurice (whose work in educating the people he did his best to 



