244 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xvi 



You know all these things as well as I do, and I know as well 

 as you do that such thoughts do not cure heartache or assuage 

 grief. Such maladies, when men are as old as you and I are, are 

 apt to hang about one a long time, but I find that if they are 

 faced and accepted as part of our fair share of life, a great 

 deal of good is to be got out of them. You will find that too, 

 but in the meanwhile don't go and break yourself down with 

 over wear and tear. The heaviest pull comes after the excite- 

 ment of a catastrophe of this kind is over. 



Believe in my affectionate sympathy with you, and that I 

 am, my dear old fellow, yours ever. 



T. H. Huxley. 



And again on the i8th :- 



Many thanks for your two letters. It would be sad to hear 

 of life dragging itself out so painfully and slowly, if it were not 

 for what you tell me of the calmness and wisdom with which 

 the poor sufferer uses such strength as is left him. 



One can express neither wish nor hope in such a case. With 

 such a man what is will be well. All I have to repeat is, don't 

 knock yourself up. I wish to God I could help you in some way 

 or other beyond repeating the parrot cry. If I can, of course 

 you will let me know. 



In June 1861 a jotting in his notebook records that he 

 is at work on the chick's skull, part of the embryological 

 work which he took up vigorously at this time, and at once 

 the continuation of his researches on the Vertebrate Skull, 

 embodied in his Croonian lecture of 1858, and the beginning 

 of a long series of investigations into the structure of birds. 

 There is a reference to this in a very interesting letter deal- 

 ing chiefly with what he conceived to be the cardinal point 

 of the Darwinian theory : — 



26 Abbey Place, Sept. 4, 1861. 



My dear Hooker — Yesterday being the first day I went to 

 the Athenffium after reading your note, I had a look at, and a 

 good laugh over, the Quarterly article. Who can be the writer? 



I have been so busy studying chicken development, a difficult 

 subject to which I had long ago made up my mind to devote my 

 first spare time, that I have written you no word about your 

 article in the Gardener's Chronicle. I quite agree with the 

 general tendency of your argument, though it seems to me that 



