The difficulties of obtaining a decent position in England in anything like a reasonable time seem to me greater than ever they were.  To attempt to live by any scientific pursuit is a farce.  Nothing but what is absolutely practical will go down in England.  A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread.  He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare.  A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage.  Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story—­wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood.  I am not at all sure if...it would be the most prudent thing to stick by the Service:  there at any rate is certainty in health and in sickness.

[Nevertheless he was mightily encouraged in the work of bringing out his “Rattlesnake” papers by a notable success in a quarter where he scarcely dared to hope for it.  The Royal Society had for some time set itself to become a body of working men of science; to exclude for the future all mere dilettanti, and to admit a limited number of men whose work was such as to deserve recognition.  Thanks to the initiative of Forbes, he now found this recognition accorded to him on the strength of his “Medusa” paper.  He writes in February:—­]

The F.R.S. that you tell me you dream of being appended to my name is nearer than one might think, to my no small surprise...I had no idea that it was at all within my reach, until I found out the other day, talking with Mr. Bell, that my having a paper in the “Transactions” was one of the best of qualifications.

My friend Forbes, to whom I am so much indebted, has taken the matter in hand for me, and I am told I am sure of getting it this year or the next.  I do not at all expect it this year, as there are a great many candidates, far better men than I...I shall think myself lucky if I get it next year.  Don’t say anything about the matter till I tell you...As the old proverb says, there is many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.

[There were thirty-eight candidates; of these the Council would select fifteen, and submit their names for election at a general meeting of the Society.  He was not yet twenty-six years of age, and certainly the youngest and least known of the competitors.  Others probably had been up before—­possibly many times before; nevertheless, on this, his first candidature, he was placed among the selected.  The formal election did not took place till June 5, but on a chance visit to Forbes he heard the great news.  The F.R.S. was a formal attestation of the value of the work he had already done; it was a token of success in the present, an augury of greater success in the future.  No wonder the news was exciting.]