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 were lucky in getting in for nothing worse than heavy rolling,
either out or in. Teneriffe is well worth seeing. The Canadas is
something quite by itself, a bit of Egypt 6000 feet up with a bare
volcanic cone, or rather long barrow sticking up 6000 feet in the
middle of it.
Otherwise, Madeira is vastly superior. I rode across from Funchal to
Sao Vicente, up to Paul da Serra, then along the coast to Santa Anna,
and back from Santa Anna to Funchal. I have seen nothing comparable
except in Mauritius, nor anything anywhere like the road by the cliffs
from Sao Vicente to Santa Anna. Lucky for me that my ancient nautical
habit of sticking on to a horse came back. A good deal of the road is
like a bad staircase, with no particular banisters, and a well of 1000
feet with the sea at the bottom. Your heart would rejoice over the
great heaths. I saw one, the bole of which split into nearly equal
trunks; and one of these was just a metre in circumference, and had a
head as big as a moderate-sized ash. Gorse in full flower, up to 12 or
15 feet high. On the whole a singular absence of flowering herbs except
Cinerarias and, especially in Teneriffe, Echium. I did not chance to
see a Euphorbia in Madeira, though I believe there are some. In
Teneriffe they are everywhere in queer shapes, and there was a thing
that mimicked the commonest Euphorbia but had no milk, which I will ask
you about when I see you. The Euphorbias were all in flower, but this
thing had none. But you will have had enough of my scrawl.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 3.7.
1890-1891.
[Three letters of the first half of the year may conveniently be placed
here. The first is to Tyndall, who had just been delivering an
anti-Gladstonian speech at Belfast. The opening reference must be to
some newspaper paragraph which I have not been able to trace, just as
the second is to a paragraph in 1876, not long after Tyndall's
marriage, which described Huxley as starting for America with his
titled bride.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 24, 1890.
My dear Tyndall,
Put down the three half-pints and the two dozen to the partnership
account. Ever since the "titled bride" business I have given up the
struggle against the popular belief that you and I constitute a firm.
It's very hard on me in the decline of life to have a lively young
partner who thinks nothing of rushing six or seven hundred miles to
perform a war-dance on the sainted G.O.M., and takes the scalp of
Historicus as an hors d'oeuvre.
All of which doubtless goes down to my account just as my poor innocent
articles confer a reputation for long-suffering mildness on you.
Well! well! there is no justice in this world! With our best love to
you both.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[(The confusion in the popular mind continued steadily, so that at
last, when Tyndall died, Huxley received the doubtful honour of a
funeral sermon.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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