Perhaps I shall revive when my foot is on my native heath in the shady groves of the Evangelist. [St. John’s Wood.]

My wife is out photograph hunting—­nothing diminishes her activity—­otherwise she would join in love and good wishes to Mrs. Foster and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The two worst and most depressing periods of this vain pilgrimage in pursuit of health were the stay at Rome and at Florence.  At the latter town he was inexpressibly ill and weak; but his daily life was brightened by the sympathy and active kindness of Sir Spencer Walpole, who would take him out for short walks, talking as little as possible, and shield him from the well-meant but tactless attentions of visitors who would try to] “rouse him and do him good” [by long talks on scientific questions.

His physical condition, indeed, was little improved.]

As for my unsatisfactory carcass [he writes on March 6, to Sir J. Donnelly], there seems nothing the matter with it now except that the brute objects to work.  I eat well, drink well, sleep well, and have no earthly ache, pain or discomfort.  I can walk for a couple of hours or more without fatigue.  But half an hour’s talking wearies me inexpressibly, and “saying a few words,” would finish me for the day.  For all that, I do not mean to confess myself finally beaten till I have had another try.

[That is to say, he was still bent upon delivering his regular course of lectures at South Kensington as soon as he returned, in spite of the remonstrances of his wife and his friends.

In the same letter he contrasts Florence with Siena and its] “fresh, elastic air,” [its] “lovely country that reminds one of a magnified version of the Surrey weald.” [The Florentine climate was trying. (A week later he writes to Sir J. Evans—­] “I begin to look forward with great satisfaction to the equability of English weather—­to that dear little island where doors and windows shut close—­where fires warm without suffocating—­where the chief business of the population in the streets is something else than expectoration—­and where I shall never see fowl with salad again.  You perceive I am getting better by this prolonged growl...But half an hour’s talking knocks me up, and I am such an effete creature that I think of writing myself p.R.S.  With a small p.”) “And then there is the awful burden of those miles of ‘treasures of art.’” [He had been to the Uffizii;] “and there is the Pitti staring me in the face like drear fate.  Why can’t I have the moral courage to come back and say I haven’t seen it?  I should be the most distinguished of men.”

[There is another reference to Gordon:—­]

What an awful muddle you are all in in the bright little, tight little island.  I hate the sight of the English papers.  The only good thing that has met my eye lately is a proposal to raise a memorial to Gordon.  I want to join in whatever is done, and unless it will be time enough when I return, I shall be glad if you will put me down for 5 pounds to whatever is the right scheme.