I think I have now fulfilled my promise of supplying you with a little scientific scandal—­and if this long epistle has repaid your trouble in getting through it, I am content.

Believe me, I have not forgotten, nor ever shall forget, your kindness to me at a time when a little appreciation and encouragement were more grateful to me and of more service than they will perhaps ever be again.  I have done my best to justify you.

I send copies of all the papers I have published with one exception, of which I have none separate.  Of the Royal Society papers I send a double set.  Will you be kind enough to give one with my kind regards and remembrances to Dr. Nicholson?  I feel I ought to have written to him before leaving Sydney, but I trust he will excuse my not having done so.

I shall be very glad if you can find time to write.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

W. Macleay, Esq.

P.S.—­Muller has just made a most extraordinary discovery, no less than the generation of Molluscs from Holothuriae!!!  You will find a translation of his paper by me in the “Annals” for January 1852.

December 13, 1851.

[To his sister.]

May 20, 1851.

...Owen has been amazingly civil to me, and it was through his writing to the First Lord that I got my present appointment.  He is a queer fish, more odd in appearance than ever...and more bland in manner.  He is so frightfully polite that I never feel thoroughly at home with him.  He got me to furnish him with some notes for the second edition of the “Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry,” and I find that in it Darwin and I (comparisons are odious) figure as joint authorities on some microscopic matters!!

Professor Forbes, however, is my great ally, a first-rate man, thoroughly in earnest and disinterested, and ready to give his time and influence—­which is great—­to help any man who is working for the cause.  To him I am indebted for the supervision of papers that were published in my absence, for many introductions, and most valuable information and assistance, and all done in such a way as not to oppress one or give one any feeling of patronage, which you know (so much do I retain of my old self) would not suit me.  My notions are diametrically opposed to his in some matters, and he helps me to oppose him.  The other night, or rather nights, for it took three, I had a long paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it afterwards.  This is all as it should be.  I can reverence such a man and yet respect myself.