442 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxvni 



and as vigorous as ever I was in my life. But a late dinner 

 wakes up my demoniac colon and gives me a fit of blue devils 

 with physical precision. 



Don't believe that I am at all the places in which the news- 

 papers put me. For example, I was not at the Lord Mayor's 

 dinner last night. As for Lord Derby's statue, I wanted to get 

 a lesson in the art of statue unveiling. I help to pay Dizzie's 

 salary, so I don't see why I should not get a wrinkle from that 

 artful dodger. 



I plead guilty to having accepted the Birmingham invita- 

 tion.* I thought they deserved to be encouraged for having 

 asked a man of science to do the job instead of some noble swell; 

 and, moreover, Satan whispered that it would be a good oppor- 

 tunity for a little ventilation of wickedness. I cannot say, how- 

 ever, that I can work myself up into much enthusiasm for the 

 dry old Unitarian who did not go very deep into anything. But 

 I think I may make him a good peg whereon to hang a discourse 

 on the tendencies of modern thought. 



I was not at the Cambridge pow-wow — not out of prudence, 

 but because I was not asked. I suppose that decent respect 

 towards a secretary of the Royal Society was not strong enough 

 to outweigh University objections to the incumbent of that 

 office. It is well for me that I expect nothing from Oxford 

 or Cambridge, having burned my ships so far as they were con- 

 cerned long ago. 



I sent your note on to Knowles as soon as it arrived, but I 

 have heard nothing from him. I wrote to him again to-night 

 to say that he had better let me see it in proof if he is going to 

 print it. I am right glad you find anything worth reading again 

 in my old papers. I stand by the view I took of the origin of 

 species now as much as ever. 



Shall I not see the address? It is tantalising to hear of your 

 progress, and not to know what is in it. 



I am thinking of taking Development for the subject of my 

 evening lecture,f the concrete facts made out in the last thirty 

 years without reference to Evolution. If people see that it is 

 Evolution, that is Nature's fault, and not mine. 



We are all flourishing, and send our love. — Ever yours faith- 

 fully, T. H. Huxley. 



* To deliver the address at the opening of the Mason College. It 

 was on Joseph Priestley. 



\ i.e. At the British Association, he actually took "Animals as 

 Automata." 



