All this must jar upon you sadly, and I grieve that it does so; but I could not pretend to be other than I am, even to please you.  Let us agree to differ upon this point.  If I were in your place I doubt not I should feel as you do; and, when I think of you, I put myself in your place and feel with you as your brother Tom.  The learned gentleman who has public opinions for which he is responsible is another “party” who walks about in T’s clothes when he is not thinking of his sister.

If this were not my birthday I should not feel justified in taking a morning’s holiday to write this long letter to you.  The ghosts of undone pieces of work are dancing about me, and I must come to an end.

Give my love to your husband.  I am glad to hear he wears so well.  And don’t forget to give your children kindly thoughts of their uncle.  Dr. Wright gives a great account of my namesake, and says he is the handsomest youngster in the Southern States.  That comes of his being named after me, you know how renowned for personal beauty I always was.

I asked Dr. Wright if you had taken to spectacles, and he seemed to think not.  I had a pain about my eyes a few months ago, but I found spectacles made this rather worse and left them off again.  However, I do catch myself holding a newspaper further off than I used to do.

Now don’t let six months go by without writing again.  If our little venture succeeds this time, we shall send again. [I.e. a package of various presents to the family.] Ever, my dearest Lizzie, your affectionate brother,

T.H.  Huxley.

[He writes to his wife, who had taken the children to Margate:—­]

September 22.

I am now busy over a paper for the Zoological Society; after that there is one for the Ethnological which was read last session though not written...Don’t blaspheme about going into the bye-ways.  They are both in the direct road of the book, only over the hills instead of going over the beaten path.

October 6.

I heard from Darwin last night jubilating over an article of mine which is published in the last number of the “Natural History Review,” and which he is immensely pleased with...My lectures tire me, from want of practice, I suppose.  I shall soon get into swing.

[The article in question was the “Criticisms of the ‘Origin of Species’” of which he writes to Darwin:—­]

Jermyn Street, October 5, 1864.

My dear Darwin,

I am very glad to see your handwriting (in ink) again, and none the less on account of the pretty words into which it was shaped.

It is a great pleasure to me that you like the article, for it was written very hurriedly, and I did not feel sure when I had done that I had always rightly represented your views.

Hang the two scalps up in your wigwam!

Flourens I could have believed anything of, but how a man of Kolliker’s real intelligence and ability could have so misunderstood the question is more than I can comprehend.