4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 27, 1877.

My dear Morley,

You shall have both the articles—­if it is only that I may enjoy the innocent pleasure of Knowles’ face when I let him know what has become of them. [The rival editor.  Cp. above.]

Stormy ocean, forsooth!  I back the storm and rain through which I came home to-night against anything London-super-mare has to show.

I will send the manuscript to Virtue as soon as it is in a reasonable state.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 8, 1878.

My dear Morley,

Many thanks for the cheque.  In my humble judgment it is quite as much as the commodity is worth.

It was a great pleasure to us all to have you with us on New Year’s Day.  My wife claims it as her day, and I am not supposed to know anything about the guests except Spencer and Tyndall.  None but the very elect are invited to the sacred feast—­so you see where you stand among the predestined who cannot fall away from the state of grace.

I have not seen Spencer in such good form and good humour combined for an age.

I am working away at Harvey, and will send the manuscript to Virtue’s as soon as I am sufficiently forward.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, December 9, 1877.

My dear Tyndall,

I am so sorry to have been out when Mrs. Tyndall called to-day.  By what we heard at the x on Thursday, I imagined you were practically all right again, or I should have been able to look after you to-day.

But what I bother you with this note for is to beg you not to lecture at the London Institution to-morrow, but to let me change days with you, and so give yourself a week to recover.  And if you are seedy, then I am quite ready to give them another lecture on the Hokypotamus or whatever else may turn up.

But don’t go and exert yourself in your present condition.  These severe colds have often nothing very tangible about them, but are not to be trifled with when folks are past fifty.

Let me have an answer to say that I may send a telegram to Nicholson first thing to-morrow morning to say that I will lecture vice you.  My “bottled life,” as Hutton calls it in the “Spectator” this week, is quite ready to go off. [The “Spectator” for December 8, 1877, began an article thus:—­“Professor Huxley delivered a very amusing address last Saturday at the Society of Arts, on the very unpromising subject of technical education; but we believe that if Professor Huxley were to become the President of the Social Science Association, or of the International Statistical Congress, he would still be amusing, so much bottled life does he infuse into the driest topic on which human beings ever contrived to prose.”]

Now be a sane man and take my advice.

Ever yours faithfully,