2/2 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xviii 



I have read all you tell me about the south with much in- 

 terest and with the warmest sympathy, so far as the fate of the 

 south affects you. But I am in the condition of most thoughtful 

 Englishmen. My heart goes with the south, and my head with 

 the north. 



I have no love for the Yankees, and I delight in the energy 

 and self-sacrifice of your people ; but for all that, I cannot doubt 

 that whether you beat the Yankees or not, you are struggling 

 to uphold a system which must, sooner or later, break down. 



I have not the smallest sentimental sympathy with the negro ; 

 don't believe in him at all, in short. But it is clear to me that 

 slavery means, for the white man, bad political economy; bad 

 social morality; bad internal political organisation, and a bad 

 influence upon free labour and freedom all over the world. For 

 the sake of the white man, therefore, for your children and 

 grandchildren, directly, and for mine, indirectly, I wish to see 

 this system ended.* Would that the south had had the wisdom 

 to initiate that end without this miserable war ! 



All this must jar upon you sadly, and I grieve that it does 

 so ; but I could not pretend to be other than I am, even to please 

 you. Let us agree to differ upon this point. If I were in your 

 place I doubt not I should feel as you do ; and, when I think of 

 you, I put myself in your place and feel with you as your brother 

 Tom. The learned gentleman who has public opinions for which 

 he is responsible is another " party " who walks about in T's 

 clothes when he is not thinking of his sister. 



If this were not my birthday I should not feel justified in 

 taking a morning's holiday to write this long letter to you. The 

 ghosts of undone pieces of work are dancing about me, and I 

 must come to an end. 



Give my love to your husband. I am glad to hear he wears 

 so well. And don't forget to give your children kindly thoughts 

 of their uncle. Dr. Wright gives a great account of my name- 

 sake, and says he is the handsomest youngster in the Southern 

 States. That comes of his being named after me, you know 

 how renowned for personal beauty I always was. 



I asked Dr. Wright if you had taken to spectacles, and he 

 seemed to think not. I had a pain about my eyes a few months 



* Cf. Reader, February 27 onwards, where these general arguments 

 against slavery appear in a controversy arising from his ninth Hun- 

 terian Lecture, in which, while admitting negro inferiority, he refutes 

 those who justify slavery on the ground that physiologically the 

 negro is very low in the scale. 



