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TO T.H.  HUXLEY

9 St. Mark’s Crescent, Regent’s Park, N.W.  November 22, 1866.

Dear Huxley,—­I have been writing a little on a new branch of Anthropology, and as I have taken your name in vain on the title-page I send you a copy.  I fear you will be much shocked, but I can’t help it; and before finally deciding that we are all mad I hope you will come and see some very curious phenomena which we can show you, among friends only.  We meet every Friday evening, and hope you will come sometimes, as we wish for the fullest investigation, and shall be only too grateful to you or anyone else who will show us how and where we are deceived.

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T.H.  HUXLEY TO A.R.  WALLACE

[? November, 1886.]

Dear Wallace,—­I am neither shocked nor disposed to issue a Commission of Lunacy against you.  It may be all true, for anything I know to the contrary, but really I cannot get up any interest in the subject.  I never cared for gossip in my life, and disembodied gossip, such as these worthy ghosts supply their friends with, is not more interesting to me than any other.  As for investigating the matter, I have half-a-dozen investigations of infinitely greater interest to me to which any spare time I may have will be devoted.  I give it up for the same reason I abstain from chess—­it’s too amusing to be fair work, and too hard work to be amusing.—­Yours faithfully,

T.H.  HUXLEY.

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TO T.H.  HUXLEY

9 St. Mark’s Crescent, Regent’s Park, N.W.  December 1, 1866.

Dear Huxley,—­Thanks for your note.  Of course, I have no wish to press on you an inquiry for which you have neither time nor inclination.  As for the “gossip” you speak of, I care for it as little as you can do, but what I do feel an intense interest in is the exhibition of force where force has been declared impossible, and of intelligence from a source the very mention of which has been deemed an absurdity.

Faraday has declared (apropos of this subject) that he who can prove the existence or exertion of force, if but the lifting of a single ounce, by a power not yet recognised by science, will deserve and assuredly receive applause and gratitude. (I quote from memory the sense of his expressions in his Lecture on Education.)

I believe I can now show such a force, and I trust some of the physicists may be found to admit its importance and examine into it.—­Believe me yours very sincerely,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO MISS BUCKLEY

Holly House, Barking, E. December 25, 1870.