I shall forget all about the subject, and then at the last moment they will send me a revise in a great hurry, and expect it back by return of post.

But if they get it, may I go to their Father!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[Later on, the pressure of work again forbade him to undertake further articles on “Harvey,” “Hunter,” and “Instinct.”]

I am sorry to say that my hands are full, and I have sworn by as many gods as Hume has left me, to undertake nothing more for a long while beyond what I am already pledged to do, a small book anent Harvey being one of these things.

[And on June 9:—­]

After nine days’ meditation (directed exclusively to the Harvey and Hunter question) I am not any “forrarder,” as the farmer said after his third bottle of Gladstone claret.  So perhaps I had better mention the fact.  I am very glad you have limed Flower for “Mammalia” and “Horse”—­nobody could be better.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., July 1, 1879.

My dear Baynes,

On Thursday last I sought for you at the Athenaeum in the middle of the day, and told them to let me know if you came in the evening when I was there again.  But I doubt not you were plunged in dissipation.

My demonstrator Parker showed me to-day a letter he had received from Black’s, asking him to do anything in the small Zoology way between H and L.

He is a modest man, and so didn’t ask what the H—­L he was to do, but he looked it.

Will you enlighten him or me, and I will convey the information on?

I had another daughter married yesterday.  She was a great pet and it is very hard lines on father and mother.  The only consolation is that she has married a right good fellow, John Collier the artist.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

July 19, 1879.

Many thanks for your and Mrs. Baynes’ congratulations.  I am very well content with my son-in-law, and have almost forgiven him for carrying off one of my pets, which shows a Christian spirit hardly to be expected of me.

South Kensington, July 2, 1880.

My dear Baynes,

I have been thinking over the matter of Instinct, and have come to the conclusion that I dare not undertake anything fresh.

There is an address at Birmingham in the autumn looming large, and ghosts of unfinished work flitter threateningly.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

CHAPTER 2.8.

1876.

[The year 1876 was again a busy one, almost as busy as any that went before.  As in 1875, his London work was cut in two by a course of lectures in Edinburgh, and sittings of the Royal Commission on Scottish Universities, and furthermore, by a trip to America in his summer vacation.