Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3Huxley, Thomas Henry
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Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
[As for being no longer in touch with the world of science, he says the
same thing in a note to Sir M. Foster, forwarding an inquiry after a
scientific teacher (August 1).]
Please read the enclosed, and if you know of anybody suitable please
send his name to Mr. Thomas.
I have told him that I am out of the way of knowing, and that you are
physiologically omniscient, so don't belie the character!
[This year a number of Huxley's essays were translated into French.
"Nature" for July 23, 1891 (volume 44 page 272),--notes the publication
of "Les Sciences Naturelles et l'Education," with a short preface by
himself, dwelling upon the astonishing advance which had been made in
the recognition of science as an instrument of education, but warning
the younger generation that the battle is only half won, and bidding
them beware of relaxing their efforts before the place of science is
entirely assured. In the issue for December 31 ("Nature" 46 397), is a
notice of "La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature," a re-issue of a
translation of more than twenty years before, together with three
ethnological essays, newly translated by M. H. de Varigny, to whom the
following letters are addressed.]
To H. De Varigny.
May 17, 1891.
I am writing to my publishers to send you "Lay Sermons", "Critiques",
"Science and Culture", and "American Addresses", pray accept them in
expression of my thanks for the pains you are taking about the
translation. "Man's Place in Nature" has been out of print for years,
so I cannot supply it.
I am quite conscious that the condensed and idiomatic English into
which I always try to put my thoughts must present many difficulties to
a translator. But a friend of mine who is a much better French scholar
than I am, and who looked over two or three of the essays, told me he
thought you had been remarkably successful.
The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue,
and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays
half-a-dozen times before I can get them into the proper shape; and I
believe I become more fastidious as I grow older.
November 25, 1891.
I am very glad you have found your task pleasant, for I am afraid it
must have cost you a good deal of trouble to put my ideas into the
excellent French dress with which you have provided them. It fits so
well that I feel almost as if I might be a candidate for a seat among
the immortal forty!
As to the new volume, you shall have the refusal of it if you care to
have it. But I have my doubts about its acceptability to a French
public which I imagine knows little about Bibliolatry and the ways of
Protestant clericalism, and cares less.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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