242 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xvi 



into a good many points for myself. The results, when they do 

 come out, will, I foresee, astonish the natives. 



I am cold-proof, and all the better for the Welsh trip. To 

 say truth, I was just on the edge of breaking down when I went. 

 Did I ever send you a letter of mine on the teaching of Natural 

 History? It was published while you were away, and I forget 

 whether I sent it or not. However, a copy accompanies this 

 note. . . . 



Of course there will be room for your review and welcome. 

 I have put it down and reckon on it. — Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Huxley returned from the trip to Wales in time to be 

 with his wife for the New Year. The plot she had made 

 with Dr. Tyndall had been entirely successful. The threat- 

 ened breakdown was averted. Wales in winter was as good 

 as Switzerland. Of the ascent of Snowdon he writes on 

 December 28 : " Both Tyndall and I voted it under present 

 circumstances as good as most things Alpine." 



His wife, however, continued in very weak health. She 

 was prostrated by the loss of her little boy. So in the 

 middle of March he gladly accepted Mr. Darwin's invita- 

 tion for her and the three children to spend a fortnight 

 in the quiet of his house at Down, where he himself managed 

 to run down for a week end. " It appears to me," he 

 writes to his wife, " that you are subjecting poor Darwin to 

 a savage Tennysonian persecution. I shall see him look- 

 ing like a martyr and have to talk double science next 

 Sunday." 



In April another good friend. Dr. Bence Jones, lent the 

 invalid his house at Folkestone for three months. Unable 

 even to walk when she went there, her recovery was a slow 

 business. Huxley ran down every week ; his brother George 

 and his wife also were frequent visitors. Meanwhile he 

 resolved to move into a new house, in order that she might 

 not return to a place so full of sorrowful memories. On 

 May 30 he effected the move to a larger house not half a 

 mile away from Waverley Place — 26 Abbey Place (now 

 23 Abercorn Place). Here also Mrs. Heathorn lived for the 

 next year, my grandfather, over seventy as he was, being 



