[Sanguine as he had resolved to be about the recovery of his voice, his fear lest “1000 out of the 2000 won’t hear” was very near realisation.  The Sheldonian Theatre was thronged before he appeared on the platform, a striking presence in his D.C.L. robes, and looking very leonine with his silvery gray hair sweeping back in one long wave from his forehead, and the rugged squareness of his features tempered by the benignity of an old age which has seen much and overcome much.  He read the lecture from a printed copy, not venturing, as he would have liked, upon the severe task of speaking it from memory, considering its length and the importance of preserving the exact wording.  He began in a somewhat low tone, nursing his voice for the second half of the discourse.  From the more distant parts of the theatre came several cries of “speak up”; and after a time a rather disturbing migration of eager undergraduates began from the galleries to the body of the hall.  The latter part was indeed more audible than the first; still a number of the audience were disappointed in hearing imperfectly.  However, the lecture had a large sale; the first edition of 2000 was exhausted by the end of the month; and another 700 in the next ten days.

After leaving Oxford, and paying a pleasant visit to one of the Fannings (his wife’s nephew) at Tew, Huxley intended to visit another of the family, Mrs. Crowder, in Lincolnshire, but on reaching London found himself dead beat, and had to retire to Eastbourne, whence he writes to Sir M. Foster and to Mr. Romanes.]

Hodeslea, May 26, 1893.

My dear Foster,

Your letter has been following me about.  I had not got rid of my influenza at Oxford, so the exertion and the dinner parties together played the deuce with me.

We had got so far as the Great Northern Hotel on our way to some connections in Lincolnshire, when I had to give it up and retreat here to begin convalescing again.

I do not feel sure of coming to the Harvey affair after all.  But if I do, it will be alone, and I think I had better accept the hospitality of the college; which will by no means be so jolly as Shelford, but probably more prudent, considering the necessity of dining out.

The fact is, my dear friend, I am getting old.

I am very sorry to hear you have been doing your influenza also.  It’s a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

Nobody sees that the lecture is a very orthodox production on the text (if there is such a one), “Satan the Prince of this world.”

I think the remnant of influenza microbes must have held a meeting in my corpus after the lecture, and resolved to reconquer the territory.  But I mean to beat the brutes.

“I shall be interested,” [he writes to Mr. Romanes,] “in the article on the lecture.  The papers have been asinine.”  This was an article which Mr. Romanes had told him was about to appear in the “Oxford Magazine”.  And on the 30th he writes again.]