48o LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxx 



How is it that Dohrn has been and gone? I have been 

 meditating a letter to him for an age. He wanted to see me, 

 and I did not know how to manage to bring about a meeting. 



Edinburgh is greatly exercised in its mind about the vivi- 

 section business, and " Vagus " " swells wisibly " whenever the 

 subject is mentioned. I think there is an inclination to regard 

 those who are ready to consent to legislation of any kind as 

 traitors, or, at any rate, trimmers. It sickens me to reflect on 

 the quantity of time and worry I shall have to give to that sub- 

 ject when I get back. 



I see that has been blowing the trumpet at the Medical 



Association. He has about as much tact as a flyblown bull. 



I have just had a long letter from Wyville Thomson. The 

 Challenger inclines to think that Bathybius is a mineral precipi- 

 tate ! in which case some enemy will probably say that it is a 

 product of my precipitation. So mind, I was the first to make 

 that " goak." Old Ehrenberg suggested something of the kind 

 to me, but I have not his letter here. I shall eat my leek hand- 

 somely, if any eating has to be done. They have found pseudo- 

 podia in Globigerina. 



With all good wishes from ours to yours — Ever yours faith- 

 fully, T. H. Huxley. 



Cragside, Morpeth, August 13, 1875. 



My dear Tyndall — I find that in the midst of my work in 

 Edinburgh I omitted to write to De Vrij, so I have just sent him 

 a letter expressing my pleasure in being able to co-operate in 

 any plan for doing honour to old Benedict,* for whom I have 

 a most especial respect. 



I am not sure that I won't write something about him to 

 stir up the Philistines. 



My work at Edinburgh got itself done very satisfactorily, 

 and I cleared about £1000 by the transaction, being one of the 

 few examples known of a Southern coming north and pillaging 

 the Scots. However, I was not sorry when it was all over, as 

 I had been hard at work since October and began to get tired. 



The wife and babies from the south, and I from the north, 

 met here a fortnight ago and we have been idling very pleasantly 

 ever since. The place is very pretty and our host kindness 

 itself. Miss Matthaei and five of the bairns are at Cartington — 

 a moorland farm-house three miles off — and in point of rosy 



* Spinoza, a memorial to whom was being raised in Holland. 



