iS73 LETTERS TO DOIIRN 



431 



and I hope it may be my last as well as my first acquaintance 

 with English law, which is a luxury of the most expensive 

 character. 



If Dr. Kleinenberg is with you, please to tell him, with my 

 compliments and thanks for the copy of his Memoir, that I went 

 over his Hydra paper pretty carefully in the summer, and satis- 

 fied myself as to the correctness of his statements about the 

 structure of the ectoderm and about the longitudinal fibres. 

 About the Endoderm I am not so clear, and I often found indi- 

 cations of delicate circular fibres in close apposition with the 

 longitudinal ones. However, I had not time to work all this 

 out, and perhaps might as well say nothing about it. 



Pray make my very kind remembrances to Mr. Grant. I 

 trust that his dramas may have a brilliant reception. 



The Happy Family flourishes. But we shall look to your 

 coming to see us. The house is big enough now to give you a 

 bedroom, and you know you will have no lack of a welcome. 



I have said nothing about my wife (who has been in a state 

 not only of superhuman, but of superfeminine, activity for the 

 last three months) meaning to leave her the last page to speak 

 for herself. 



\Mth best compliments to the " ladies downstairs," ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



4 Marlborough Place, Oct. 17, 1873. 



My dear Dohrn — Your letter reached me nearly a week 

 ago, and I have been turning over its contents in my mind as 

 well as I could, but have been able to come to no clear conclu- 

 sion until now. I have been incessantly occupied with other 

 things. 



I will do for you, and gladly, anything I would do for my- 

 self, but I could not apply on my own behalf to any of those rich 

 countrymen of mine, unless they were personally well known to 

 me, and I had the opportunity of feeling my way with them. 

 But if you are disposed to apply to any of the people you men- 

 tion, I shall be only too glad to back your application with all the 

 force I am master of. You may make use of my name to any 

 extent as guarantor of the scientific value and importance of 

 your undertaking and refer anyone to whom you may apply to 

 me. It may be, in fact, that this is all you want, but as you 

 have taken to the caprice of writing in my tongue instead of in 

 that vernacular, idiomatic and characteristically Dohrnian Ger- 

 man, in which I deUght, I am not so sure about your meaning. 



