You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service this summer.  At most table d’hotes in the Lakes I overheard people talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on account of their intimacy with “Professor Huxley"!!

[But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected quarter.  This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer, with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English representatives of that science who came to the hotel.

A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:—­]

In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in sunshine I felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years.  It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions.  Four thousand feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return.  Quite certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth.  I like the place, but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.

I should be very glad if we could be within reach of you and help to cheer you up, but I cannot say anything definite at present about our winter doings...

My wife sends her kindest regards.  She is much better than when we left, which is lucky for me, as I have no mind, and could not make it up if I had any.  The only vigour I have is in my legs, and that only when the sun shines.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[A curious incident on this journey deserves recording, as an instance of a futile “warning.”  On the night of October 6-7, Huxley woke in the night and seemed to hear an inward voice say, “Don’t go to Stuttgart and Nuremberg; go straight home.”  All he did was to make a note of the occurrence and carry out his original plan, whereupon nothing happened.

The following to his youngest daughter, who had gone back earlier from the Maloja, refers to her success in winning the prize for modelling at the Slade School of Art.]

Schweitzerhof, Neuhausen, October 7, 1888.

Dearest Babs,

I will sit to you like “Pater on a monument smiling at grief” for the medallion.  As to the photographs, I will try to get them done to order either at Stuttgart or Nuremberg, if we stay at either place long enough.  But I am inclined to think they had better be done at home, and then you could adjust the length of the caoutchouc visage to suit your artistic convenience.

We have been crowing and flapping our wings over the medal and trimmings.  The only thing I lament is that “your father’s influence” was not brought to bear; there is no telling what you might have got if it had been.  Thoughtless—­very!!