Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 20

CHAPTER 2.7.

1875-1876.

[Huxley only delivered one address outside his regular work in 1875, on "Some Results of the 'Challenger' Expedition," given at the Royal Inst.i.tution on January 29. For all through the summer he was away from London, engaged upon the summer course of lectures on Natural History at Edinburgh. This was due to the fact that Professor (afterwards Sir) Wyville Thomson was still absent on the "Challenger" expedition, and Professor Victor Carus, who had acted as his subst.i.tute before, was no longer available. Under these circ.u.mstances the Treasury granted Huxley leave of absence from South Kensington. His course began on May 3, and ended on July 23, and he thought it a considerable feat to deal with the whole Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures. No doubt both he and his students worked at high pressure, especially when the latter came scantily prepared for the task, like the late Joseph Thomson, afterwards distinguished as an African traveller, who has left an account of his experience in this cla.s.s. Thomson's particular weak point was his Greek, and the terminology of the lectures seems to have been a thorn in his side. This account, which actually tells of the 1876 course, occurs on pages 36 and 37 of his "Life."

The experience of studying personally under Huxley was a privilege to which he had been looking forward with eager antic.i.p.ation; for he had already been fascinated with the charm of Huxley's writings, and had received from them no small amount of mental stimulus. Nor were his expectations disappointed. But he found the work to be unexpectedly hard, and very soon he had the sense of panting to keep pace with the demands of the lecturer. It was not merely that the texture of scientific reasoning in the lectures was so closely knit,--although that was a very palpable fact,--but the character of Huxley's terminology was entirely strange to him. It met him on his weakest side, for it presupposed a knowledge of Greek (being little else than Greek compounds with English terminations) and of Greek he had none.

Huxley's usual lectures, he writes, are something awful to listen to.

One half of the cla.s.s, which numbers about four hundred, have given up in despair from sheer inability to follow him. The strain on the attention of each lecture is so great as to be equal to any ordinary day's work. I feel quite exhausted after them. And then to master his language is something dreadful. But, with all these drawbacks, I would not miss them, even if they were ten times as difficult. They are something glorious, sublime!

Again he writes:--

Huxley is still very difficult to follow, and I have been four times in his lectures completely stuck and utterly helpless. But he has given us eight or nine beautiful lectures on the frog...If you only heard a few of the lectures you would be surprised to find that there were so few missing links in the chain of life, from the amoeba to the genus h.o.m.o.

It was a large cla.s.s, ultimately reaching 353 and breaking the record of the Edinburgh cla.s.ses without having recourse to the fact.i.tious a.s.sistance proposed in the letter of May 16.

His inaugural lecture was delivered under what ought to have been rather trying circ.u.mstances. On the way from London he stopped a night with his old friends, John Bruce and his wife (one of the Fannings), at their home, Barmoor Castle, near Beal. He had to leave at 6 next morning, reaching Edinburgh at 10, and lecturing at 2.] "Nothing," [he writes,] "could be much worse, but I am going through it with all the cheerfulness of a Christian martyr."

[On May 3 he writes to his wife from the Bruce's Edinburgh house, which they had lent him.]

I know that you will be dying to hear how my lecture went off to-day--so I sit down to send you a line, though you did hear from me to-day.

The theatre was crammed. I am told there were 600 auditors, and I could not have wished for more thorough attention. But I had to lecture in gown and Doctor's hood and the heat was awful. The Princ.i.p.al and the chief professors were present, and altogether it was a state affair. I was in great force, although I did get up at six this morning and travelled all the way from Barmoor. But I won't do that sort of thing again, it's tempting Providence.

May 5.

f.a.n.n.y and her sisters and the Governess flit to Barmoor to-day and I shall be alone in my glory. I shall be very comfortable and well cared for, so make your mind easy, and if I fall ill I am to send for Clark.

He expressly told me to do so as I left him!

I gave my second lecture yesterday to an audience filling the theatre.

The reason of this is that everybody who likes--comes for the first week and then only those who have tickets are admitted. How many will become regular students I don't know yet, but there is promise of a big cla.s.s. The Lord send three extra--to make up for...[(a sudden claim upon his purse before he left home.)

And he writes of this custom to Professor Baynes on June 12:--]

My cla.s.s is over 350 and I find some good working material among them.

Parsons mustered strong in the first week, but I fear they came to curse and didn't remain to pay.

[He was still Lord Rector of Aberdeen University, and on May 10 writes how he attended a business meeting there:--]

I have had my run to Aberdeen and back--got up at 5, started from Edinburgh at 6.25, attended the meeting of the Court at 1. Then drove out with Webster to Edgehill in a great storm of rain and was received with their usual kindness. I did not get back till near 8 o'clock last night and, thanks to "The Virginians" and a good deal of Virginia, I pa.s.sed the time pleasantly enough...There are 270 tickets gone up to this date, so I suppose I may expect a cla.s.s of 300 men. 300 x 4 = 1200. Hooray.

To his eldest daughter:--]

Edinburgh, May 16, 1875.

My dearest Jess,

Your mother's letter received this morning reminds me that I have not written to "Cordelia" (I suppose she means Goneril) by a message from that young person--so here is reparation.

I have 330 students, and my cla.s.s is the biggest in the University--but I am quite cast down and discontented because it is not 351,--being one more than the Botany Cla.s.s last year--which was never so big before or since.

I am thinking of paying 21 street boys to come and take the extra tickets so that I may crow over all my colleagues.

f.a.n.n.y Bruce is going to town next week to her grandmother's and I want you girls to make friends with her. It seems to me that she is very nice--but that is only a fallible man's judgment, and Heaven forbid that I should attempt to forestall Miss Cudberry's decision on such a question. Anyhow she has plenty of energy and, among other things, works very hard at German.

M-- says that the Roottle-Tootles have a bigger drawing-room than ours. I should be sorry to believe these young beginners guilty of so much presumption, and perhaps you will tell them to have it made smaller before I visit them.

A Scotch gentleman has just been telling me that May is the worst month in the year, here; so pleasant! but the air is soft and warm to-day, and I look out over the foliage to the castle and don't care.

Love to all, and specially M--. Mind you don't tell her that I dine out to-day and to-morrow--positively for the first and last times.

Ever your loving father,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, the cla.s.s grew without such advent.i.tious aid, and he writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer on June 15:--]

...I have a cla.s.s of 353, and instruct them in dry facts--particularly warning them to keep free of the infidel speculations which are current under the name of evolution.

I expect an "examiner's call" from a Presbytery before the course is over, but I am afraid that the pay is not enough to induce me to forsake my "larger sphere of influence" in London.

[In the same letter he speaks of a flying visit to town which he was about to make on the following Thursday, returning on the Sat.u.r.day for lack of a good Sunday train:--]

May hap I may chance to see you at the club--but I shall be torn to pieces with things to do during my two days' stay.

If Moses had not existed I should have had three days in town, which is a curious concatenation of circ.u.mstances.

[As for health during this period, it maintained, on the whole, a satisfactory level, thanks to the regime of which he writes to Professor Baynes:--]

I am very sorry to hear that you have been so seriously ill. You will have to take to my way of living--a mutton chop a day and no grog, but much baccy. Don't begin to pick up your threads too fast.

No wonder you are uneasy if you have crabs on your conscience. [I.e.

an article for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica."] Thank Heaven they are not on mine!

I am glad to hear you are getting better, and I sincerely trust that you may find all the good you seek in the baths.

As to coming back a "new man," who knows what that might be? Let us rather hope for the old man in a state of complete repair--A1 copper bottomed.

Excuse my nautical language.

[The following letters also touch on his Edinburgh lectures:--]

Cragside, Morpeth, August 11, 1875.

My dear Foster,

We are staying here with Sir W. Armstrong--the whole brood--Miss Matthaei and the majority of the chickens being camped at a farm-house belonging to our host about three miles off. It is wetter than it need be, otherwise we are very jolly.