Hodeslea, May 12, 1891.

My dear Foster,

I was very glad to hear from you.  Pray don’t get attempting to do anything before you are set up again.

I am in a ridiculous state of weakness, and bless my stars that I have nothing to do.  I find it troublesome to do even that.

I wish ballooning had advanced so far as to take people to Maloja, for I do not think my wife ought to undertake such a journey, and yet I believe the high air would do us both more good than anything else....

The University of London scheme appears to be coming to grief, as I never doubted it would.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[So instead of going abroad, he stayed in Eastbourne till the end of August, receiving a short visit from his old friend Jowett, who, though sadly enfeebled by age, still persisted in travelling by himself, and a longer visit from his elder son and his family.  But from September 11 to the 26th he and his wife made a trip through the west country, starting from Salisbury, which had so delighted him the year before, and proceeding by way of the Wye valley, which they had not visited since their honeymoon, to Llangollen.  The first stage on the return journey was Chester, whence they made pious pilgrimage to the cradle of his name, Old Huxley Hall, some nine miles from Chester.  Incorporated with a modern farm-house, and forming the present kitchen, are some solid stone walls, part of the old manor-house, now no longer belonging to any one of the name.  From here they went to Coventry, where he had lived as a boy, and found the house which his father had occupied still standing.

A letter to an old pupil contains reflections upon the years of work to which he had devoted so much of his energies.]

To Professor T. Jeffery Parker, Otago.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 11, 1891.

My dear Parker,

It is a long time since your letter reached me, but I was so unwise as to put off answering it until the book arrived and I had read it.  The book did not reach me for a long time, and what with one thing and another I have but just finished it.  I assure you I am very proud of having my name connected with such a thorough piece of work, no less than touched by the kindness of the dedication.

Looking back from the aged point of view, the life which cost so much wear and tear in the living seems to have effected very little, and it is cheering to be reminded that one has been of some use.

Some years of continued ill-health, involving constant travelling about in search of better conditions than London affords, and long periods of prostration, have driven me quite out of touch with science.  And indeed except for a certain toughness of constitution I should have been driven out of touch with terrestrial things altogether.

It is almost indecent in a man at my time of life who has had two attacks of pleurisy, followed by a dilated heart, to be not only above ground but fairly vigorous again.  However, I am obliged to mind my P’s and Q’s; avoid everything like hard work, and live in good air.