Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[In reply to this Sir J. Hooker was inclined to make the biographer alone responsible for the confusion noted in the obituary of Asa Gray.  He writes:—­

March 27, 1888.

Dear Huxley,

Dana’s Gray arrived yesterday, and I turned to pages 19 and 20.  I see nothing Anti-Darwinian in the passages, and I do not gather from them that Gray did.

I did not follow Gray into his later comments on Darwinism, and I never read his “Darwiniana.”  My recollection of his attitude after acceptance of the doctrine, and during the first few years of his active promulgation of it, is that he understood it clearly, but sought to harmonise it with his prepossessions, without disturbing its physical principles in any way.

He certainly showed far more knowledge and appreciation of the contents of the “Origin” than any of the reviewers and than any of the commentators, yourself excepted.

Latterly he got deeper and deeper into theological and metaphysical wanderings, and finally formulated his ideas in an illogical fashion.

...Be all this as it may, Dana seems to be in a muddle on page 20, and quite a self-sought one.

Ever yours,

J.D.  Hooker.

The following is a letter of thanks to Mrs. Humphry Ward for her novel
“Robert Elsmere.”]

Bournemouth, March 15, 1888.

My dear Mrs. Ward,

My wife thanked you for your book which you were so kind as to send us.  But that was grace before meat, which lacks the “physical basis” of after-thanksgiving—­and I am going to supplement it, after my most excellent repast.

I am not going to praise the charming style, because that was in the blood and you deserve no sort of credit for it.  Besides, I should be stepping beyond my last.  But as an observer of the human ant-hill—­quite impartial by this time—­I think your picture of one of the deeper aspects of our troubled time admirable.

You are very hard on the philosophers.  I do not know whether Langham or the Squire is the more unpleasant—­but I have a great deal of sympathy with the latter, so I hope he is not the worst.

If I may say so, I think the picture of Catherine is the gem of the book.  She reminds me of her namesake of Siena—­and would as little have failed in any duty, however gruesome.  You remember Sodoma’s picture.

Once more, many thanks for a great pleasure.

My wife sends her love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[Meanwhile, he had been making no progress towards health; indeed, was going slowly downhill.  He makes fun of his condition when writing to condole with Mr. Spencer on falling ill again after the unwonted spell of activity already mentioned; but a few weeks later discovered the cause of his weakness and depression in an affection of the heart.  This was not immediately dangerous, though he looked a complete wreck.  His letters from April onwards show how he was forced to give up almost every form of occupation, and even to postpone his visit to Switzerland, until he had been patched up enough to bear the journey.]