Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3Huxley, Thomas Henry
History
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
His days at Eastbourne, then, were full of occupation, if not the
occupation of former days. The day began as early; he never relaxed
from the rule of an eight o'clock breakfast. Then a pipe and an hour
and a half of letter-writing or working at an essay. Then a short
expedition around the garden, to inspect the creepers, tend the
saxifrages, or see how the more exposed shrubs could best be sheltered
from the shrivelling winds. The gravelled terrace immediately behind
the house was called the Quarterdeck; it was the place for a brisk
patrolling in uncertain weather or in a north wind. In the lower garden
was a parallel walk protected from the south by a high double hedge of
cypress and golden elder, designed for shelter from the summer sun and
southerly winds.
Then would follow another spell of work till near one o'clock; the
weather might tempt him out again before lunch; but afterwards he was
certain to be out for an hour or two from half-past two. However hard
it blew, and Eastbourne is seldom still, the tiled walk along the
sea-wall always offered the possibility of a constitutional. But the
high expanse of the Downs was his favourite walk. The air of Beachy
Head, 560 feet up, was an unfailing tonic. In the summer he used to
keep a look-out for the little flowers of the short, close turf of the
chalk which could remind him of his Alpine favourites, in particular
the curious phyteuma; and later on, in the folds of the hills where he
had marked them, the English Gentians.
After his walk, a cup of tea was followed by more reading or writing
till seven; after dinner another pipe, and then he would return to my
mother in the drawing-room, and settle down in his particular armchair,
with some tough volume of history or theology to read, every now and
again scoring a passage for future reference, or jotting a brief note
on the margin. At ten he would migrate to the study for a final smoke
before going to bed.
Such was his routine, broken by occasional visits to town on business,
for he was still Dean of the Royal College of Science and a trustee of
the British Museum. Old friends came occasionally to stay for a few
days, and tea-time would often bring one or two of the small circle of
friends whom he had made in Eastbourne. These also he occasionally
visited, but he scarcely ever dined out. The talking was too tiring.
The change to Eastbourne cut away a whole series of interests, but it
imported a new and very strong one into my father's life. His garden
was not only a convenient ambulatory, but, with its growing flowers and
trees, became a novel and intense pleasure, until he began] "to think
with Candide that 'Cultivons notre jardin' comprises the whole duty of
man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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