Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1Huxley, Thomas Henry
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Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
We have had a great deal of anxiety, and my wife has been pretty nearly
worn out with nursing day and night; but by great good fortune "the
happy family" has escaped all permanent injury, and you might hear as
much laughter in the house as at Swanage.
Will you be so kind as to thank Professor Gegenbaur for a paper on the
development of the vertebral column of Lepidosteum I have just received
from him? He has been writing about the process of ossification and the
"deck-knochen" question, but I cannot make out exactly where. Could you
let me know?
I am anxious for the "Arthropoden Werk," but I expect to gasp when it
comes.
Turn to page 380 of the new edition of our friend Kolliker's "Handbuch,"
and you will find that though a view which I took off the "organon
adamantinae" some twelve or fourteen years ago, and which Kolliker has
up to this time repudiated, turns out, and is now admitted by him, to be
perfectly correct, yet "that I was not acquainted with the facts that
would justify the conclusion." Really, if I had time I could be angry.
Pray remember me most kindly to Haeckel, to all whose enemies I wish
confusion, and believe me, ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.--I have read a hundred pages or so of Fanny Lewald's first Bd., and
am delighted with her insight into child-life.
[Tyndall was resigning his lectureship at the School of Mines:--]
Jermyn Street, June 10, 1868.
My dear Tyndall,
All I can say is, I am heartily sorry.
If you feel that your lectures here interfere with your original work, I
should not be a true friend either to science or yourself if I said a
word against your leaving us.
But for all that I am and shall remain very sorry.
Ever yours very sincerely,
T.H. Huxley.
If you recommend --, of course I shall be very glad to support him in
any way I can. But at present I am rather disposed to d--n anyone who
occupies your place.
[The following extract is from a letter to Haeckel (November 13, 1868),
with reference to the proposed translation of his "Morphologie" by the
Ray Society:--]
We shall at once look out for a good translator of the text, as the job
will be a long and a tough one. My wife (who sends her best wishes and
congratulations on your fatherhood) will do the bits of Goethe's poetry,
and I will look after the prose citations.
Next as to the text itself. The council were a little alarmed at the
bulk of the book, and it is of the utmost importance that it would be
condensed to the uttermost.
Furthermore, English propriety had taken fright at rumours touching the
aggressive heterodoxy of some passages. (We do not much mind heterodoxy
here, if it does not openly proclaim itself as such.)
And on both these points I had not only to give very distinct
assurances, such as I thought your letters had entitled me to give; but
in a certain sense to become myself responsible for your behaving
yourself like a good boy!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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