I have
seldom suffered a greater disappointment than when, one evening, I fell
asleep just before this fairy half-hour, and lost it out of my life."
The account of the comradeship between Huxley and his wife reads like
a good old-time romance. He was attracted to her at first by
her "simplicity and directness united with an unusual degree of
cultivation," Huxley's son writes. On her he depended for advice in his
work, and for companionship at home and abroad when wandering in search
of health in Italy and Switzerland. When he had been separated from her
for some time, he wrote, "Nobody, children or anyone else, can be to me
what you are. Ulysses preferred his old woman to immortality, and
this absence has led me to see that he was as wise in that as in other
things." Again he writes, "Against all trouble (and I have had my share)
I weigh a wife-comrade 'trew and fest' in all emergencies."
The letters also give one a clear idea of the breadth of Huxley's
interests, particularly of his appreciation of the various forms of art.
Huxley believed strongly in the arts as a refining and helpful influence
in education. He keenly enjoyed good music. Professor Hewes writes of
him that one breaking in upon him in the afternoon at South Kensington
would not infrequently be met "with a snatch of some melody of Bach's
fugue.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31