Fowey, September 26, 1884.

Many thanks for the kind offer in your letter, which has followed me here.  But I have not been on the track you might naturally have supposed I had followed.  I have been trying to combine hygiene with business, and betook myself, in the first place, to Dartmouth, afterwards to Totnes, and then came on here.  From this base of operations I could easily reach all my places of meeting.  To-morrow I have to go to Bodmin, but I shall return here, and if the weather is fine (raining cats and dogs at present), I may remain a day or two to take in stock of fresh air before commencing the London campaign.

I am very glad to hear that your health has improved so much.  You must feel quite proud to be such an interesting “case.”  If I set a good example myself I would venture to warn you against spending five shillings worth of strength on the ground of improvement to the extent of half-a-crown.

I am not quite clear as to the extent to which my children have colonised Woodtown at present.  But it seems to me that there must be three or four Huxleys (free or in combination, as the chemists say) about the premises.  Please give them the paternal benediction; and with very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier, believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

Fowey Hotel, Fowey, Cornwall, September 27, 1884.

My dear Foster,

I return your proof, with a few trifling suggestions here and there...

I fancy we may regard the award as practically settled, and a very good award it will be.

The address is beginning to loom in the distance.  I have half a mind to devote some part of it to a sketch of the recent novelties in histology touching the nucleus question and molecular physiology.

My wife sent me your letter.  By all means let us have a confabulation as soon as I get back and settle what is to be done with the “aged P.”

I am not sure that I shall be at home before the end of the week.  My lectures do not begin till next week, and the faithful Howes can start the practical work without me, so that if I find myself picking up any good in these parts, I shall probably linger here or hereabouts.  But a good deal will depend on the weather—­inside as well as outside.  I am convinced that the prophet Jeremiah (whose works I have been studying) must have been a flatulent dyspeptic—­there is so much agreement between his views and mine.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[But the net result of this holiday is summed up in a note, of October 5, to Sir M. Foster:—­]

I got better while I was in Cornwall and Wales, and, at present, I don’t think there is anything the matter with me except a profound disinclination to work.  I never before knew the proper sense of the term “vis inertiae.”

[And writing in the same strain to Sir J. Evans, he adds:]

But I have a notion that if I do not take a long spell of absolute rest before long I shall come to grief.  However, getting into harness again may prove a tonic—­it often does, e.g. in the case of cab-horses.