If there is any phrase in the lecture which you think likely to get you into trouble, out it shall come or be modified in form.

If the whole thing is too much for the Dons’ nerves—­I am no judge of their delicacy—­I am quite ready to give up the lecture.

In fact I do not know whether I shall be able to make myself heard three weeks hence, as the influenza has left its mark in hoarseness and pain in the throat after speaking.

So you see if the thing is altogether too wicked there is an easy way out of it.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

Hodeslea, April 28, 1893.

My dear Romanes,

My mind is made easy by such a handsome acquittal from you and the Lady
Abbess, your coadjutor in the Holy Office.

My wife, who is my inquisitor and confessor in ordinary, has gone over the lecture twice, without scenting a heresy, and if she and Mrs. Romanes fail—­a fico for a mere male don’s nose!

From the point of view of the complete argument, I agree with you about note 19.  But the dangers of open collision with orthodoxy on the one hand and Spencer on the other, increased with the square of the enlargement of the final pages, and I was most anxious for giving no handle to any one who might like to say I had used the lecture for purposes of attack.  Moreover, in spite of all reduction, the lecture is too long already.

But I think it not improbable that in spite of my meekness and peacefulness, neither the one side nor the other will let me alone.  And then you see, I shall have an opportunity of making things plain, under no restriction.  You will not be responsible for anything said in the second edition, nor can the Donniest of Dons grumble.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

The double negative is Shakspearian.  See Hamlet, act 2 scene 2.

[Unfortunately for the entire success of the lecture, he was suffering from the results of influenza, more especially a loss of voice.  He writes (April 18):—­]

After getting through the winter successfully I have had the ill-fortune to be seized with influenza.  I believe I must have got it from the microbes haunting some of the three hundred doctors at the Virchow dinner. [On the 16th March.]

I had next to no symptoms except debility, and though I am much better I cannot quite shake that off.  As usual with me it affects my voice.  I hope this will get right before this day month, but I expect I shall have to nurse it.  I do not want to interfere with any of your hospitable plans, and I think if you will ensure me quiet on the morning of the 18th (I understand the lecture is in the afternoon) it will suffice.  After the thing is over I am ready for anything from pitch and toss onwards.

[Two more letters dated before the 18th of May touch on the circumstances of the lecture.  One is to his son-in-law, John Collier; the other to his old friend Tyndall, the last he ever wrote him, and containing a cheery reference to the advance of old age.]