Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3 — John Shaqi
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
We shall be here another week, and then move slowly back to London. I
am loth to leave this place, which is very beautiful with splendid air
and charming walks in all directions--two or three thousand feet up if
you like.
Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 16, 1887.
My dear Donnelly,
We left Arolla for this place ten days ago, but my wife fell ill, and
we had to stay a day at St. Maurice. She has been more or less out of
sorts ever since until to-day. However, I hope now she is all right
again.
This is a very charming place at the east end of the Lake of
Geneva--1500 feet above the lake--and you can walk 3000 feet higher up
if you like.
What they call a "funicular railway" hauls you up a gradient of 1 in 1
3/4 from the station on the shore in ten minutes. At first the
sensation on looking down is queer, but you soon think nothing of it.
The air is very fine, the weather lovely, the feeding unexceptionable,
and the only drawback consists in the "javelins," as old Francis Head
used to call them--stinks of such wonderful crusted flavour that they
must have been many years in bottle. But this is a speciality of all
furrin parts that I have ever visited.
I am very well and extremely lazy so far as my head goes--legs I am
willing to use to any extent up hill or down dale. They wanted me to go
and speechify at Keighley in the middle of October, but I could not get
permission from the authorities. Moreover, I really mean to keep quiet
and abstain even from good words (few or many) next session. My wife
joins with me in love to Mrs. Donnelly and yourself.
She thought she had written, but doubts whether in the multitude of her
letters she did not forget.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[From Glion also he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
I have been doing some very good work on the Gentians in the interests
of the business of being idle.
[The same subject recurs in the next letter:--]
Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 21, 1887.
My dear Hooker,
I saw in the "Times" yesterday the announcement of Mr. Symond's death.
I suppose the deliverance from so painful a malady as heart-disease is
hardly to be lamented in one sense; but these increasing gaps in one's
intimate circle are very saddening, and we feel for Lady Hooker and
you. My wife has been greatly depressed in hearing of Mrs. Carpenter's
fatal disorder. One cannot go away for a few weeks without finding some
one gone on one's return.
I got no good at the Maderaner Thal, so we migrated to our old quarters
at Arolla, and there I picked up in no time, and in a fortnight could
walk as well as ever. So if there are any adhesions they are pretty
well stretched by this time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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