From T. H. Huxley   24 April 1873

My dear Darwin

Your most kind and affectionate letter, with its wholly unexpected, I may say unimaginable, announcement fairly overwhelmed me when it arrived last night (along with a notification from my banker) and I have spent many sleepless hours in wondering what I have done to make my friends care so tenderly & thoughtfully for my welfare—¹ So I am rather shaky this morning and, likely enough, I shall say what I have to say poorly and inadequately. But you will understand my stammering

I accept the splendid gift you & my other friends offer, frankly and in the spirit of the givers—; and by my acceptance I pledge myself to make the best I can of this cranky frame of mine and get it in order for the best and highest kind of work of which I am capable

With such a letter as yours before me I should be the smallest of men, if I allowed even a shadow of the feeling of obligation to mingle with the great happiness so signal a demonstration of good-will has given me— And indeed not a shadow of that feeling exists; for I do not confound with that & you will not—a sort of impression, more or less morbid perhaps, that, for the first time in my life, I have been fairly beaten— I mean morally beaten— Through all sorts of troubles and difficulties—poverty, illness, bedevilments of all sorts—have I steered for these thirty years and never lost heart or failed to buffet the waves as stoutly as they buffetted me— And now that I am what people call a successful man—better off than I ever was in my life—and in spite of all my misadventures with no claims upon me but what I could have cleared off in a twelve month—I have for months been without energy & without hope and haunted by the constant presence of hypochondriacal apprehensions, which my reason told me were absurd, but which I could not get rid of—

No, I was breaking down; sliding into the meanest of difficulties; the would-be climber of height mired in a mere bog— I can use strong language on occasion as you know, and I have been giving myself the benefit of my own powers of criticism—

Well, I have poured out all this Jeremiad, that you may understand what your letter and great gift will do for me.— I may say, have done. For after all it is the nucleus of fact which gives hypochondria its hold— and it has abolished the nucleus of fact—

I shall go & take a long holiday in the summer now without feeling that I am potentially guilty of fraud— and when my familiar blue-devil dances about me (as I daresay he will for some time yet) I shall shy the cheque for £2100 at his head as Luther did the inkstand.²

Some of these days I will ask you to let me know the names of the seventeen who have so delicately shrouded themselves in anonymity— Use this letter with them as you may think fit— I should be glad that all should know my feelings in the matter— feelings fully shared by my wife,³ whose anxiety for me has I know been a heavy burden for many months past.

She is not used to see me beaten—

Have I said a word of appreciation for your own letter? I shall keep it for my children that their children may know what manner of man their father’s friend was & why he loved him

Ever yours | T. H. Huxley