My wife joins with me in kindest regards to Mrs. Evans and yourself. If Mrs. Evans had only come up to the Maloja, she would have had real winter and no cold. Ever yours very faithfully, T.H. Huxley. 10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 15, 1888. My dear Hooker, You would have it that the Royal Society broke the law in giving you the Copley, and they certainly violated custom in giving it to me the year following. Whoever heard of two biologers getting it one after another? It is very pleasant to have our niches in the Pantheon close together. It is getting on for forty years since we were first "acquent," and considering with what a very considerable dose of tenacity, vivacity, and that glorious firmness (which the beasts who don't like us call obstinacy) we are both endowed, the fact that we have never had the shadow of a shade of a quarrel is more to our credit than being ex-Presidents and Copley medallists. But we have had a masonic bond in both being well salted in early life. I have always felt I owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of things gained in the old "Rattlesnake". I am getting on pretty well here, though the weather has been mostly bad. All being well I shall attend the meeting of the Society on the 30th, but not the dinner. I am very sorry to miss the latter, but I dare not face the fatigue and the chances of a third dose of pleurisy. My wife sends kindest regards and thanks for your congratulations. Ever yours very faithfully, T.H. Huxley. 10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 17, 1888. My dear Flower, ...Many thanks for taking my troublesomeness in good part. My friend will be greatly consoled to know that you have the poor man "in your eye." Schoolmaster, naturalist, and coal merchant used to be the three refuges for the incompetent. Schoolmaster is rapidly being eliminated, so I suppose the pressure on Natural History and coals will increase. I am glad you have got the Civil Service Commissioners to listen to common sense. I had an awful battle with them (through the Department) over Newton, who is now in your paleontological department. If I recollect rightly, they examined him inter alia on the working of the Poor Laws! The Royal Society has dealt very kindly with me. They patted me on the back when I started thirty-seven years ago, and it was a great encouragement. They give me their best, now that my race is run, and it is a great consolation. At the far end of life all one's work looks so uncommonly small, that the good opinion of one's contemporaries acquires a new value. We have a summer's day, and I am writing before an open window! Yesterday it blew great guns. Ever yours very faithfully, T.H. Huxley.