How’s a’ wi’ you?  Let me have a line.

We ought to have been in our house a month ago, but fitters, paperers, and polishers are like bugs or cockroaches, you may easily get ’em in, but getting ’em out is the deuce.  However, I hope to clear them out by the end of this week, and get in by the end of next week.

One is obliged to have names for houses here.  Mine will be “Hodeslea,” which is as near as I can go to “Hodesleia,” the poetical original shape of my very ugly name.

There was a noble scion of the house of Huxley of Huxley who, having burgled and done other wrong things (temp.  Henry IV.), asked for benefit of clergy.  I expect they gave it him, not in the way he wanted, but in the way they would like to “benefit” a later member of the family.

[Rough sketch of one priest hauling the rope taut over the gallows, while another holds a crucifix before the suspended criminal.]

Between this gentleman and my grandfather there is unfortunately a complete blank, but I have none the less faith in him as my ancestor.

My wife, I am sorry to say, is in town—­superintending packing up—­no stopping her.  I have been very uneasy about her at times, and shall be glad when we are quietly settled down.  With kindest regards to Mrs. Foster.

Ever yours,

T.H.  Huxley.

[His own principal task was in getting his library ready for the move.]

Most of my time [he writes on November 16] for the last fortnight has been spent in arranging books and tearing up papers till my back aches and my fingers are sore.

[However, he did not take all his books with him.  There was a quantity of biological works of all sorts which had accumulated in his library and which he was not likely to use again; these he offered as a parting gift to the Royal College of Science.  On December 8, the Registrar conveys to him the thanks of the Council for “the valuable library of biological works,” and further informs him that it was resolved:—­

That the library shall be kept in the room formerly occupied by the Dean, which shall be called “The Huxley Laboratory for Biological Research,” and be devoted to the prosecution of original researches in Biological Science, with which the name of Professor Huxley is inseparably associated.

Huxley replied as follows:—­]

Dear Registrar,

I beg you convey my hearty thanks to the Council for the great kindness of the minute and resolution which you have sent me.  My mind has never been greatly set on posthumous fame; but there is no way of keeping memory green which I should like so well as that which they have adopted towards me.

It has been my fate to receive a good deal more vilipending than (I hope) I deserve.  If my colleagues, with whom I have worked so long, put too high a value upon my services, perhaps the result may be not far off justice.

Yours very faithfully,