I send herewith a spare copy of “Nineteenth” with my paper about Tyndall.  It is not exactly what I could wish, as I was hurried over it, and knocked up into the bargain, but I have tried to give a fair view of him.  Tell me what you think of it.

I have been having a day or two on the sick list.  Nothing discernible the matter, only flopped, as I did in the spring.  However, I am picking up again.  The fact is, I have never any blood pressure to spare, and a small thing humbugs the pump.

However, I have some kicks left in me, vide the preface to the fourth volume of Essays; ditto Number 5 when that appears in February.

Now, my dear old friend, take care of yourself in the coming year ’94.  I’ll stand by you as long as the fates will let me, and you must be equally “Johnnie.”  With our love to Lady Hooker and yourself.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H.  Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.13.

1894.

[The completion early in 1894 of the ninth volume of “Collected Essays” was followed by a review of them in “Nature” (February 1), from the pen of Professor Ray Lankester, emphasising the way in which the writer’s personality appears throughout the writing:—­

There is probably no lover of apt discourse, of keen criticism, or of scientific doctrine who will not welcome the issue of Professor Huxley’s “Essays” in the present convenient shape.  For my own part, I know of no writing which by its mere form, even apart from the supreme interest of the matters with which it mostly deals, gives me so much pleasure as that of the author of these essays.  In his case, more than that of his contemporaries, it is strictly true that the style is the man.  Some authors we may admire for the consummate skill with which they transfer to the reader their thought without allowing him, even for a moment, to be conscious of their personality.  In Professor Huxley’s work, on the other hand, we never miss his fascinating presence; now he is gravely shaking his head, now compressing the lips with emphasis, and from time to time, with a quiet twinkle of the eye, making unexpected apologies or protesting that he is of a modest and peace-loving nature.  At the same time, one becomes accustomed to a rare and delightful phenomenon.  Everything which has entered the author’s brain by eye or ear, whether of recondite philosophy, biological fact, or political programme, comes out again to us—­clarified, sifted, arranged, and vivified by its passage through the logical machine of his strong individuality.

Of the artist in him it continues:—­

He deals with form not only as a mechanical engineer in partibus (Huxley’s own description of himself), but also as an artist, a born lover of forms, a character which others recognise in him though he does not himself set it down in his analysis.

The essay on “Animal Automatism” suggested a reminiscence of Professor Lankester’s as to the way in which it was delivered, and this in turn led to Huxley’s own account of the incident in the letter given in volume 2.