I give up Peterborough.  His “Explanation” is neither straightforward, nor courteous, nor prudent.  Of which last fact, it may be, he will be convinced when he reads my acknowledgment of his favours, which is soft, not with the softness of the answer which turneth away wrath, but with that of the pillow which smothered Desdemona.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

I shall try to stand an hour or two of the Academy dinner, and hope it won’t knock me up.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 6, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

If I had not gone to the Academy dinner I might have kept my promise about sending you my paper to-day.  I indulged in no gastronomic indiscretions, and came away after H.R.H.’s speech, but I was dead beat all yesterday, nevertheless.

We are off to Eastbourne, and I will send the manuscript from there; there is very little to do.

Such a waste!  I shall have to omit a paragraph that was really a masterpiece.

For who should I come upon in one of the rooms but the Bishop!  As we shook hands, he asked whether that was before the fight or after; and I answered, “A little of both.”  Then we spoke our minds pretty plainly; and then we agreed to bury the hatchet. [As he says ("Collected Essays” 5 210), this chance meeting ended “a temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking and no less respect.”]

So yesterday I tore up the paragraph.  It was so appropriate I could not even save it up for somebody else!

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.

My dear Knowles,

I sent back my proof last evening.  I shall be in town Friday afternoon to Monday morning next, having a lot of things to do.  So you may as well let me see a revise of the whole.  Did you not say to me, “sitting by a sea-coal fire” (I say nothing about a “parcel gilt goblet"), that this screed was to be the “last word”?  I don’t mind how long it goes on so long as I have the last word.  But you must expect nothing from me for the next three or four months.  We shall be off abroad, not later than the 8th June, and among the everlasting hills, a fico for your controversies!  Wace’s paper shall be waste paper for me.  Oh!  This is a “goak” which Peterborough would not understand.

I think you are right about the wine and water business—­I had my doubts—­but it was too tempting.  All the teetotalers would have been on my side.

There is no more curious example of the influence of education than the respect with which this poor bit of conjuring is regarded.  Your genuine pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig.  I trust you have properly enjoyed the extracts from Newman.  That a man of his intellect should be brought down to the utterance of such drivel—­by Papistry, is one of the strongest of arguments against that damnable perverter of mankind, I know of.