i86o FRIENDSHIP WITH HOOKER 23 1 



undertaking in any way I can. The more I contemplate its 

 issues the more important does it seem to me to be, and I assure 

 you that I look upon its success as the business of all of us. So 

 that if it were not a pleasure I should feel it a duty to " push 

 behind " as hard as I can. 



Have you seen this quarter's Westminster? The opening 

 article on " Neo-Christianity " is one of the most remarkable 

 essays in its way I have ever read. I suppose it must be New- 

 man's. The Review is terribly unequal, some of the other arti- 

 cles being absolutely ungrammatically written. What a pity it 

 is it cannot be thoroughly organised. 



My wife is a little better, but she is terribly shattered. By 

 the time you come back we shall, I hope, have reverted from our 

 present hospital condition to our normal arrangements, but in 

 any case we shall be glad to see you. — Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



The following is, I think, the first reference to his 

 fastidiousness in the literary expression and artistic com- 

 pleteness of his work. As he said in an after-dinner speech 

 at a meeting in aid of the Literary Fund, " Science and 

 literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing." 

 Anything that was to be published he subjected to repeated 

 revision. And thus, apologising to Hooker for his absence, 

 he writes (August 2, i860) — 



I was sorry to have to send an excuse by Tyndall the other 

 day, but I found I must finish the Pyrosoma paper, and all last 

 Tuesday was devoted to it, and I fear the next after will have 

 the like fate. 



It constantly becomes more and more difficult to me to finish 

 things satisfactorily. 



To Hooker also he writes a few days later: — 



I hope your ear is better; take care of yourself, there's a 

 good fellow. I can't do without you these twenty years. We 

 have a devil of a lot to do in the way of smiting the Amalekites. 



Between two men who seldom spoke of their feelings, 

 but let constant intercourse attest them, these words show 

 more than the practical side of their friendship, their com- 

 munity of aims and interests. Quick, strong-willed, and 

 determined as they both were, the fact that they could work 

 16 



