My work at Edinburgh got itself done very satisfactorily, and I cleared about 1000 pounds by the transaction, being one of the few examples known of a Southron coming north and pillaging the Scots.  However, I was not sorry when it was all over, as I had been hard at work since October and began to get tired.

The wife and babies from the south, and I from the north, met here a fortnight ago and we have been idling very pleasantly ever since.  The place is very pretty and our host kindness itself.  Miss Matthaei and five of the bairns are at Cartington—­a moorland farmhouse three miles off—­and in point of rosy cheeks and appetites might compete with any five children of their age and weight.  Jess and Mady are here with us and have been doing great execution at a ball at Newcastle.  I really don’t know myself when I look at these young women, and my hatred of possible sons-in-law is deadly.  All send their love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

Wish you joy of Bristol.

[The following letter to Darwin was written when the Polar Expedition under Sir George Nares was in preparation.  It illustrates the range of observation which his friends had learned to expect in him:—­]

Athenaeum Club, January 22, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

I write on behalf of the Polar Committee of the Royal Society to ask for any suggestions you may be inclined to offer us as instructions to the naturalists who are to accompany the new expedition.

The task of drawing up detailed instructions is divided among a lot of us; but you are as full of ideas as an egg is full of meat, and are shrewdly suspected of having, somewhere in your capacious cranium, a store of notions which would be of great value to the naturalists.

All I can say is, that if you have not already “collated facts” on this topic, it will be the first subject I ever suggested to you on which you had not.

Of course we do not expect you to put yourself to any great trouble—­nor ask for such a thing—­but if you will jot down any notes that occur to you we shall be thankful.

We must have everything in hand for printing by March 15.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The following letter dates from soon after the death of Charles Kingsley:—­]

Science Schools, South Kensington, October 22, 1875.

Dear Miss Kingsley,

I sincerely trust that you believe I have been abroad and prostrated by illness, and have thereby accounted for receiving no reply to your letter of a fortnight back.

The fact is that it has only just reached me, owing to the neglect of the people in Jermyn Street, who ought to have sent it on here.

I assure you I have not forgotten the brief interview to which you refer, and I have often regretted that the hurry and worry of life (which increases with the square of your distance from youth) never allowed me to take advantage of your kind father’s invitation to become better acquainted with him and his.  I found his card in Jermyn Street when I returned last year, with a pencilled request that I would call on him at Westminster.