All the early part of the year, till he found it necessary to go to Switzerland again, he stayed unwillingly in Eastbourne, from time to time running up to town, or having son or daughter to stay with him for a week, his wife being too busy to leave town, with the double preparations for the weddings on hand, so that he writes to her:] "I feel worse than the 'cowardly agnostic' I am said to be--for leaving you to face your botherations alone." [One can picture him still firm of tread, with grizzled head a little stooped from his square shoulders, pacing the sea wall with long strides, or renewing somewhat of his strength as it again began to fail, in the keener air of the downs, warmly defended against chill by a big cap--for he had been suffering from his ears--and a long rough coat. He writes (February 22):] "I have bought a cap with flaps to protect my ears. I look more 'doggy' than ever." [And on March 3:--] We have had a lovely day, quite an Italian sky and sea, with a good deal of Florentine east wind. I walked up to the Signal House, and was greatly amused by a young sheep-dog whose master could hardly get him away from circling round me and staring at me with a short dissatisfied bark every now and then. It is the undressed wool of my coat bothers all the dogs. They can't understand why a creature which smells so like a sheep should walk on its hind legs. I wish I could have relieved that dog's mind, but I did not see my way to an explanation. From this time on, the effects of several years' comparative rest became more perceptible. His slowly returning vigour was no longer sapped by the unceasing strain of multifarious occupations. And if his recurrent ill-health sometimes seems too strongly insisted on, it must be remembered that he had always worked at the extreme limit of his powers--the limit, as he used regretfully to say, imposed on his brain by his other organs--and that after his first breakdown he was never very far from a second. When this finally came in 1884, his forces were so far spent that he never expected to recover as he did. In the marriage this year of his youngest daughter, Huxley was doomed to experience the momentary little twinge which will sometimes come to the supporter of an unpopular principle when he first puts it into practice among his own belongings. Athenaeum Club, January 14, 1889. My dear Hooker, I have just left the x "Archives" here for you. I left them on my table by mischance when I came here on the x day. I have a piece of family news for you. My youngest daughter Ethel is going to marry John Collier. I have always been a great advocate for the triumph of common sense and justice in the "Deceased Wife's Sister" business--and only now discover, that I had a sneaking hope that all of my own daughters would escape that experiment!