326 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES 1893 



To Professor Huxley. 



St. Aldate's, Oxford : April 19, 1893. 



My dear Mr. Huxley, — Very many thanks for 

 your kind inquiries about my health. I am certainly 

 much better, although still far from well. My eyes 

 continue in exactly the same state, so I am afraid 

 there is no hope of recovery in that direction. How- 

 ever, if they get no worse I shall still be able .... 

 to ' toddle along.' 



I am very sorry to hear that you have caught 

 influenza microbes from the doctors, but trust from 

 what you say that they will have left you before the 

 date of your lecture. But of course we will remember 

 not to lionise you unduly while you are our guest. 



As regards the audience, you may expect the 

 Sheldonian Theatre to be as full as it can be, and 

 that means close upon two thousand. 



You ask whether I can tell you ' what such audi- 

 ences are used to,' in the way of time. But as there 

 has only been one such before, there is nothing much 

 to go by in the way of precedent. On that occasion, 

 however, the lecture extended to an hour and a half, 

 and there were no signs of impatience — in fact, quite 

 the contrary. I feel quite sure that an hour and a 

 half will not be too long. 



I do not quite understand whether the discourse 

 has already been set up in type. The scheme for 

 publishing these lectures is that prior to delivery a 

 thousand copies are printed by the Clarendon Press 

 for sale at Is. per copy ; half the profits of this sale 

 go to the lecturer, the other half being retained by the 



