i864 THE X CLUB 28l 



those for which the poet ''' so willingly paid the ferryman, 

 silent but not unregarded, took the vacated places." The 

 peculiar constitution of the club scarcely seemed to admit 

 of new members ; not, at all events, without altering the 

 unique relation of friendship joined to common experience 

 of struggle and success which had lasted so long. After 

 the death of Spottiswoode and Busk, and the ill-health of 

 other members, the election of new members was indeed 

 mooted, but the proposal was ultimately negatived. Hux- 

 ley's opinion on this point appears from letters to Sir E. 

 Frankland in 1886 and to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1888. 



As for the filling up the vacancies in the x, I am disposed to 

 take Tyndall's view of the matter. Our little club had no very 

 definite object beyond preventing a few men who were united by 

 strong personal sympathies from drifting apart by the pressure 

 of busy lives. 



Nobody could have foreseen or expected twenty odd years 

 ago when we first met, that we were destined to play the parts 

 we have since played, and it is in the nature of things impossible 

 that any of the new members proposed (much as we may like 

 and respect them all), can carry on the work which has so 

 strangely fallen to us. 



An axe with a new head and a new handle may be the same 

 axe in one sense, but it is not the familiar friend with which one 

 has cut one's way through wood and brier. 



And in the other letter — ■ 



What with the lame dog condition of Tyndall and Hirst and 

 Spencer and my own recurrent illnesses, the x is not satisfactory. 

 But I don't see that much will come from putting new patches 

 in. The x really has no raison d'etre beyond the personal attach- 

 ment of its original members. Frankland told me of the names 

 that had been mentioned, and none could be more personally 

 welcome to me . . . but somehow or other they seem out of 

 place in the x. 



* Nimm dann Fuhrmann, 

 Nimm die Miethe 

 Die Ich gerne dreifach biete ; 

 Zwei, die eben ilberfuhren 

 Waren geistige Naturen. 



