The usual note of high pressure recurs in the following letter, written to thank Darwin for his new work, “The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex.”]

Jermyn Street, February 20, 1871.

My dear Darwin,

Best thanks for your new book, a copy of which I find awaiting me this morning.  But I wish you would not bring your books out when I am so busy with all sorts of things.  You know I can’t show my face anywhere in society without having read them—­and I consider it too bad.

No doubt, too, it is full of suggestions just like that I have hit upon by chance at page 212 of volume 1, which connects the periodicity of vital phenomena with antecedent conditions.

Fancy lunacy, etc., coming out of the primary fact that one’s nth ancestor lived between tide-marks!  I declare it’s the grandest suggestion I have heard of for an age.

I have been working like a horse for the last fortnight, with the fag end of influenza hanging about me—­and I am improving under the process, which shows what a good tonic work is.

I shall try if I can’t pick out from “Sexual Selection” some practical hint for the improvement of gutter-babies, and bring in a resolution thereupon at the School Board.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[This year also saw the inception of a scheme for a series of science primers, under the joint editorship of Professors Huxley, Roscoe, and Balfour Stewart.  Huxley undertook the Introductory Primer, but it progressed slowly owing to pressure of other work, and was not actually finished till 1880.]

26 Abbey Place, June 29, 1871.

My dear Roscoe,

If you could see the minutes of the Proceedings of the Aid to Science Commission, the Contagious Diseases Commission and the School Board (to say nothing of a lecture to Schoolmasters every morning), you would forgive me for not having written to you before.

But now that I have had a little time to look at it, I hasten to say that your chemical primer appears to me to be admirable—­just what is wanted.

I enclose the sketch for my Primer primus.  You will see the bearing of it, rough as it is.  When it touches upon chemical matters, it would deal with them in a more rudimentary fashion than yours does, and only prepare the minds of the fledglings for you.

I send you a copy of the Report of the Education Committee, the resolutions based on which I am now slowly getting passed by our Board.  The adoption of (c) among the essential subjects has, I hope, secured the future of Elementary Science in London.  Cannot you get as much done in Manchester?

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[Sir Charles Lyell was now nearly 74 years old, and though he lived four years longer, age was beginning to tell even upon his vigorous powers.  A chance meeting with him elicited the following letter:—­]