Anything I can do to help in raising a memorial to Carlyle shall be most willingly done.  Few men can have dissented more strongly from his way of looking at things than I; but I should not yield to the most devoted of his followers in gratitude for the bracing wholesome influence of his writings when, as a very young man, I was essaying without rudder or compass to strike out a course for myself.

[Mention has already been made of his ill-health at the end of the year, which was perhaps a premonition of the breakdown of 1883.  An indication of the same kind may be found in the following letter to Mrs. Tyndall, who had forwarded a document which Dr. Tyndall had meant to send himself with an explanatory note.]

4 Marlborough Place, March 25, 1881.

My dear Mrs. Tyndall,

But where is his last note to me?  That is the question on which I have been anxiously hoping for light since I received yours and the enclosure, which contains such a very sensible proposition that I should like to know how it came into existence, abiogenetically or otherwise.

As I am by way of forgetting everything myself just now, it is a comfort to me to believe that Tyndall has forgotten he forgot to send the letter of which he forgot the inclosure.  The force of disremembering could no further go.

In affectionate bewilderment, ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[His general view of his health, however, was much more optimistic, as appears from a letter to Mrs. May (wife of the friend of his boyhood) about her son, whose strength had been sapped by typhoid fever, and who had gone out to the Cape to recruit.]

4 Marlborough Place, June 10, 1881.

My dear Mrs. May,

I promised your daughter the other day that I would send you the Bishop of Natal’s letter to me.  Unfortunately I had mislaid it, and it only turned up just now when I was making one of my periodical clearances in the chaos of papers that accumulates on my table.

You will be pleased to see how fully the good Bishop appreciates Stuart’s excellent qualities, and as to the physical part of the business, though it is sad enough that a young man should be impeded in this way, I think you should be hopeful.  Delicate young people often turn out strong old people—­I was a thread paper of a boy myself, and now I am an extremely tough old personage...

With our united kind regards to Mr. May and yourself,

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[Perhaps if he had been able each year to carry out the wish expressed in the following letter, which covered an introduction to Dr. Tyndall at his house on the Bel Alp, the breakdown of 1883 might have been averted.]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., July 5 [1881?].

My dear Skelton,

It is a great deal more than I would say for everybody, but I am sure Tyndall will be very much obliged to me for making you known to him; and if you, insignificant male creature, how very much more for the opportunity of knowing Mrs. Skelton!