i873 LETTER TO HIS WIFE 427 



the sweetest little fellow imaginable ; and either he has developed 

 immensely in the course of the last year, or I have never been 

 so mvich thrown together with him alone, and have not had the 

 opportunity of making him out. 



You are a fatherly old bachelor, and will not think me a 

 particularly great donkey for prattling on in this way about my 

 swan, who probably to unprejudiced eyes has a power of goose 

 about him. 



I suppose you know that in company with yourself and 

 Hooker, the paternal gander (T. H. H.) has been honoured by 

 the King of Sweden and made into a Polar Goose by the order 

 of the North Star. Hooker has explained to the Swedish Am- 

 bassador that English officials are prohibited by order in Council 

 from accepting foreign orders, and I believe keeps the cross 

 and ribbon on these conditions. If it were an ordinary decora- 

 tion I should decline with thanks, but I am told it is a purely 

 scientific and literary affair like the Prussian " pour le merite " ; 

 so when I get back I shall follow Hooker's line. 



I met Laugel on board the Luzerne steamboat the other day, 

 and he told me that you were at the Belalp — gallivanting as 

 usual, and likely to remain there for some time. So I send this 

 on the chance of finding you. With best love from us all, ever 

 yours, T. H. Huxley. 



I am as well as I ever was in my life — regularly set up — 

 in token whereof I have shaved off my beard. 



In another letter to his wife, dated August 8, from Baden, 

 there is a very interesting passage about himself and his 

 aims. He has just been speaking about his son's doings 

 at school : — 



I have been having a great deal of talk with myself about 

 my future career too, and I have often thought over what you 

 say in the letter you wrote to the Puy. I don't quite under- 

 stand what meant about the disputed reputation, unless 



it is a reputation for getting into disputes. But to say truth I 

 am not greatly concerned about any reputation except that of 

 being entirely honest and straightforward, and that reputation 

 I think and hope I have. 



For the rest . . . the part I have to play is not to found a 

 new school of thought or to reconcile the antagonisms of the 

 old schools. We are in the midst of a gigantic movement 

 greater than that which preceded and produced the Reformation, 



