The fact is, that I discovered that staying in London any longer meant for me a very short life, and by no means a merry one.  So I got my son-in-law to build me a cottage here, where my wife and I may go down-hill quietly together, and “make our sowls” as the Irish say, solaced by an occasional visit from children and grandchildren.

The deuce of it is, that however much the weary want to be at rest the wicked won’t cease from troubling.  Hence the occasional skirmishes and alarms which may lead my friends to misdoubt my absolute detachment from sublunary affairs.  Perhaps peace dwells only among the fork-tailed Petrels!

I trust Mrs. Skelton and you are flourishing, and that trouble will keep far from the hospitable doors of Braid through the New Year.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[No sooner had he settled down in his new country home, than a strange piece of good fortune, such as happens more often in a story-book than in real life, enabled him at one stroke to double his little estate, to keep off the unwelcome approach of the speculative builder, and to give himself scope for the newly-discovered delights of the garden.  The sale of the house in Marlborough Place covered the greater part of the cost of Hodeslea; but almost on the very day on which the sale was concluded, he became the possessor of another house at Worthing by the death of Mr. Anthony Rich, the well-known antiquarian.  An old man, almost alone in the world, his admiration for the great work done recently in natural science had long since led him to devise his property to Darwin and Huxley, to the one his private fortune, to the other his house and its contents, notably a very interesting library.

As a matter of feeling, Huxley was greatly disinclined to part with this house, Chapel Croft, as soon as it had come into his hands.  A year earlier, he might have made it his home; but now he had settled down at Eastbourne, and Chapel Croft, as it stood, was unlikely to find a tenant.  Accordingly he sold it early in July, and with the proceeds bought the piece of land adjoining his house.  Thus he writes to Sir J. Hooker:—­]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 17, 1891.

My dear Hooker,

My estate is somewhat of a white elephant.  There is about a couple of acres of ground well situated and half of it in the shape of a very pretty lawn and shrubbery, but unluckily, in building the house, dear old Rich thought of his own convenience and not mine (very wrong of him!), and I cannot conceive anybody but an old bachelor or old maid living in it.  I do not believe anybody would take it as it stands.  No doubt the site is valuable, and it would be well worth while to anybody with plenty of cash to spare to build on to the house and make it useful.  But I neither have the cash, nor do I want the bother.  However, Waller is going to look at the place for me and see what can be done.  It seems hardly decent to sell it at once; and moreover the value is likely to increase.  I suppose at present it is worth 2000 pounds, but that is only a guess.