[The same feeling finds expression in a letter to Professor (afterwards Sir William) Flower, who was also approached on the same subject, and similarly determined to remain in London.]

July 21, 1881.

My dear Flower,

I am by no means surprised, and except for the sake of the University, not sorry that you have renounced the Linacre.

Life is like walking along a crowded street—­there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement—­and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.

I assure you it is a great comfort to me to think that you will stay in London and help in keeping things straight in this world of crookedness.

I have thought a good deal about —­, but it would never do.  No one could value his excellent qualities of all kinds, and real genius in some directions, more than I do; but, in my judgment, nobody could be less fitted to do the work which ought to be done in Oxford—­I mean to give biological science a status in the eyes of the Dons, and to force them to acknowledge it as a part of general education.  Moreover, his knowledge, vast and minute as it is in some directions, is very imperfect in others, and the attempt to qualify himself for the post would take him away from the investigations, which are his delight and for which he is specially fitted...

I was very much interested in your account of the poor dear Dean’s illness.  I called on Thursday morning, meeting Jowett and Grove at the door, and we went in and heard such an account of his state that I had hopes he might pull through.  We shall not see his like again.

The last time I had a long talk with him was about the proposal to bury George Eliot in the Abbey, and a curious revelation of the extraordinary catholicity and undaunted courage of the man it was.  He would have done it had it been pressed upon him by a strong representation.

I see he is to be buried on Monday, and I suppose and hope I shall have the opportunity of attending.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[This letter refers to the death of his old friend Dean Stanley.  The Dean had long kept in touch with the leaders of scientific thought, and it is deeply interesting to know that on her death-bed, five years before, his wife said to him as one of her parting counsels, “Do not lose sight of the men of science, and do not let them lose sight of you.”  “And then,” writes Stanley to Tyndall, “she named yourself and Huxley.”

Strangely enough, the death of the Dean involved another invitation to Huxley to quit London for Oxford.  By the appointment of Dean Bradley to Westminster, the Mastership of University College was left vacant.  Huxley, who was so far connected with the college that he had examined there for a science Fellowship, was asked if he would accept it, but after careful consideration declined.  He writes to his son, who had heard rumours of the affair in Oxford:—­]