You see I was honoured and gloried by a trusteeship of the British Museum. [Replying on the 2nd to Sir John Evans’ congratulations, he says:—­“It is some months since Lord Salisbury made the proposal to me, and I was beginning to wonder what had happened—­whether Cantaur had put his foot down for example, and objected to bad company.”] These things, I suppose, normally come when one is worn-out.  When Lowe was Chancellor of the Exchequer I had a long talk with him about the affairs of the Natural History Museum, and I told him that he had better put Flower at the head of it and make me a trustee to back him.  Bobby no doubt thought the suggestion cheeky, but it is odd that the thing has come about now that I don’t care for it, and desire nothing better than to be out of every description of bother and responsibility.

Have not Lady Hooker and you yet learned that a large country house is of all places the most detestable in cold weather?  The neuralgia was a mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am rejoiced it has vanished.

Pronouns got mixed somehow.

With our kindest regards.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

More last words:—­What little faculty I have has been bestowed on the obituary of Darwin for Royal Society lately.  I have been trying to make it an account of his intellectual progress, and I hope it will have some interest.  Among other things I have been trying to set out the argument of the “Origin of Species,” and reading the book for the nth time for that purpose.  It is one of the hardest books to understand thoroughly that I know of, and I suppose that is the reason why even people like Romanes get so hopelessly wrong.

If you don’t mind, I should be glad if you would run your eye over the thing when I get as far as the proof stage—­Lord knows when that will be.

[A few days later he wrote again on the same subject, after reading the obituary of Asa Gray, the first American supporter of Darwin’s theory.]

March 23, 1888.

I suppose Dana has sent you his obituary of Asa Gray.

The most curious feature I note in it is that neither of them seems to have mastered the principles of Darwin’s theory.  See the bottom of page 19 and the top of page 20.  As I understand Darwin there is nothing “Anti-Darwinian” in either of the two doctrines mentioned.

Darwin has left the causes of variation and the question whether it is limited or directed by external conditions perfectly open.

The only serious work I have been attempting lately is Darwin’s obituary.  I do a little every day, but get on very slowly.  I have read the life and letters all through again, and the “Origin” for the sixth or seventh time, becoming confirmed in my opinion that it is one of the most difficult books to exhaust that ever was written.

I have a notion of writing out the argument of the “Origin” in systematic shape as a sort of primer of Darwinismus.  I have not much stuff left in me, and it would be as good a way of using what there is as I know of.  What do you think?