432 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEV chap, xxvn 



There is a rub for you. If you write to me in English again I 

 will send the letter back without paying the postage. 



In any case let me have a precise statement of your financial 

 position. I may have a chance of talking to some Croesus, and 

 the first question he is sure to ask me is — How am I to know 

 that this is a stable affair, and that I am not throwing my money 

 into the sea? . . . 



(Referring to an unpleasant step it seemed necessary to 

 take) . . . you must make up your mind to act decidedly and 

 take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world 

 by hesitation. . . . 



I hope you are physically better. Look sharply after your 

 diet, take exercise and defy the blue-devils, and you will weather 

 the storm. — Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



Tyndall, who had not attended the 1873 meeting of the 

 British Association, had heard that some local opposition 

 had been offered to his election as President for the Belfast 

 meeting in 1874, and had written : — 



I wish to heaven you had not persuaded me to accept that 

 Belfast duty. They do not want me. . . . But Spottiswoode 

 assures me that no individual offered the slightest support to 

 the two unscientific persons who showed opposition. 



The following was written in reply : — 



4 Marlborough Place, Sept. 25, 1873. 



My dear Tyndall — I am sure you are mistaken about the 



Belfast people. That blundering idiot of wanted to make 



himself important and get up a sort of " Home Rule " agitation 

 in the Association, but nobody backed him and he collapsed. I 

 am at your disposition for whatever you want me to do, as you 

 know, and I am sure Hooker is of the same mind. We shall not 

 be ashamed when we meet our enemies in the gate. 



The grace of God cannot entirely have deserted you since 

 you are aware of the temperature of that ferocious epistle. 

 Reeks,* whom I saw yesterday, was luxuriating in it, and said 

 (confound his impudence) that it was quite my style. I forgot 

 to tell him, by the bye, that I had resigned in your favour ever 

 since the famous letter to Carpenter. Well, so long as you are 

 better after it there is no great harm done. 



* The late Trenharn Reeks, Registrar of the School of Mines, and 

 Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology. 



