i877 "BOTTLED LIFE" 519 



change days with you, and so give yourself a week to recover. 

 And if you are seedy, then I am quite ready to give them another 

 lecture on the Hokypotamus or whatever else may turn up. 



But don't go and exert yourself in your present condition. 

 These severe colds have often nothing very tangible about them, 

 but are not to be trifled with when folks are past fifty. 



Let me have an answer to say that I may send a telegram to 

 Nicholson first thing to-morrow morning to say that I will lec- 

 ture vice you. My " bottled life," as Hutton calls it in the Spec- 

 tator * this week, is quite ready to go off. 



Now be a sane man and take my advice.— Ever yours very 

 faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



* The Spectator for Dec. 8, 1S77, began an article thus: — "Pro- 

 fessor Huxley delivered a very amusing address last Saturday at the 

 Society of Arts, on the very unpromising subject of technical educa- 

 tion ; but we believe that if Professor Huxley were to become the 

 President of the Social Science Association, or of the International 

 Statistical Congress, he would still be amusing, so much bottled life 

 does he infuse into the driest topic on which human beings ever con- 

 trived to prose," 



34 



