354 LI^E OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxiv 



be carried out before his lectures on electricity at the end 

 of the month. So he writes on April 6 : — 



Royal Institution, 6 April. 



My dear Huxley — I was rendered drunk by the excess of 

 prospective pleasure when you mentioned the Eifel yesterday, 

 and took no account of my lectures. They begin on the 28th, 

 and I have studiously to this hour excluded them from my 

 thought. I have made arrangements to see various experiments 

 involving the practical application of electricity before the lec- 

 tures begin ; I find myself, in short, cut ofif from the expedition. 

 My regret on this score is commensurable with the pleasures I 

 promised myself. Confound the lectures ! 



And yours * on Friday is creating a pretty hubbub already. 

 I am torn to pieces by women in search of tickets. Anything 

 that touches progenitorship interests them. You will have a 

 crammed house I doubt not. — Yours ever, 



John Tyndall. 



Huxley replied : — 



Geological Survey of England and Wales, 

 April 6, 1870. 

 My dear Tyndall — 

 DAMN 



the 

 L 

 e 

 c 

 t 

 u 

 r 

 e 

 s. T. H. H. 



That's a practical application of electricity for you. 



In June he writes to his wife, who had taken a sick 

 child to the seaside : — 



I hear a curious rumour (which is not for circulation), that 

 Froude and I have been proposed for D.C.L.'s at Commemora- 

 tion, and that the proposition has been bitterly and strongly 

 opposed by Pusey.f They say there has been a regular row in 



* On the Pedigree of the Horse, April 8, 1870, which was never 

 brought out in book form. 



f Huxley ultimately received his D.CL. in 1885. 



