WCP5711

[1]¹

Dear Wallace²

I must apologise for not replying to your letter before now but I have had a lot to do & my district is a wide one. I am afraid I have very little that is of any value to contribute but what little I remember I am writing down. I feel a certain share[?] of responsibility in doing so as one becomes enveloped [1 word illeg. crossed out] alive to the necessity of being absolutely accurate even in trivialities when they relate to such a man. I would impress you or the Editor³ at the outset that if the waste paper basket is the most suitable place for these remarks there must be no thought of giving offence to me, if they are duly consigned thereto.

I remember when I first met Dr Wallace⁴ it was with a feeling of fear that I should make some remark that was not strictly truthful even on such topics as the state of the weather. This feeling however soon went especially when the conversation turned on the types of visitors that came to see him and he gave a most amusing account of two young women [2 words deleted] who called on him for the purpose of getting him to read through a most ponderous treatise relating [2] to the Universe, I think it was. At all events the treatise proved amongst other things that Kepler's Laws⁵ were all wrong. Dr Wallace was very busy at the time and politely declined to undertake the task. I remember him well describing with his hands the size of this enormous manuscript & laughing heartily as he detailed how the writer of the manuscript whom he considered the elder of the two sisters persistently tried to persuade him that the theories were all absolutely proved in the work while the younger sister acted as a sort of echo organ[?] to her sister's remarks. The terrible climax came at last as Dr Wallace persisted in his refusal to read the manuscript when the two sisters burst into tears and the whole fabric of the Universe was washed away in a flood of tears — these I think I am right in saying were the words he used.

[3]⁶ I remember another occasion, one on which I was asked by Mrs Wallace⁷ to see Dr Wallace in my professional capacity as a medical man. He was lying on the sofa in his study by the fire wrapped up in rugs having just got over a bad shivering attack or 'rigor' His temperature was 104^o Fahr[enheit]. [3 words crossed out] All the other usual signs of acute fever were present but nothing to make me form a positive opinion as to the cause. It must have been 40 years since he was in the tropics but I think he felt that it was an attack of malarial fever. My treatment consisted in asking him what he was going to do for himself. "Well" he said " I am going to have a hot bath & then go to bed & tomorrow I shall get up and go into the garden as usual" and he was out in the garden next day when I went to see him. This was an instance, doubtless one of many, of the 'will to live' which carried him through a long life.

On another occasion he consulted me for an irritating eczematous condition that caused him a good deal of discomfort and I suggested a local application "but isn't the trouble generated from within" "Yes" I said "but I haven't the faintest notion what that trouble is and I am not going to alter your diet which you [4] have worked out for yourself & found satisfactory". Try this local application and I'll promise you it won[']t do you any harm". He was raher sceptical as to any beneficial result, but he tried it and called on me again later with a large mineral-water bottle for me to fill for him with the same stuff. This may interest you but it is hardly 'material' for the Editor.

While listening to him telling about the gaps in the Evolution of life viz. inorganic & organic, vegetable & animal and animal & man I asked him "Why postulate a beginning at all — we are satisfied with illimitability at one end, why not at the other" [.] "For the simple reason" he said "that the mind cannot comprehend any thing that has never had a beginning".

I had spent a long time that day in conversation that was profitable to me but I felt on going away that probably the time spent was not so profitable to him so ventured to [1 word illeg.] that I was afraid I had taken up a lot of his time "Not in the least" he replied "I always like a 'jaw' ". ⁸

What attracted me to him most I think was his remarkable simplicity of language whatever the topic of conversation was : and this [5]⁹ was not the simplicity of the great mind bringing itself down to the level of the ordinary individual but was his regular mode of expression as any readers of his works are [1 word illeg.] familiar with.

I have heard him state that he felt the want of that fluence of speech that characterised Huxley¹⁰ as he had to cast about for the expression that he wanted. This may have been the case when he was lecturing but I certainly never noticed it in conversation.

I am afraid I have said nothing that will be of any value to you but one thing is certain & that is that I have thoroughly enjoyed recalling to memory the Sunday afternoons at the "Old Orchard"¹¹ which is the only excuse I can offer for sending you so much ink & paper.

A great deal of what he used to talk about is already detailed in his life and I am afraid I cannot improve on his own account of the subjects dealt with!

I enclose a letter — the only one I have — which he wrote to me in acknowledgement of a congratulatory letter¹² I sent him on his 90th birthday & apart from its value to me personally I think it expresses the secret of his life that life is worth living if it is lived in the [6] right way. What a great thing it would be for popular education if the conversation of great men could be recorded by some such method as a gramaphone so that people could hear the voice & derive some measure of that benefit which those who really hear it do.

With kind regards to your sister¹³ & Mrs Wallace who I hope is better in health than when you last wrote to me about her.

Yours sincerely | H. E. Littledale¹⁴[signature]

P. S. Please excuse my writing on scraps of paper¹⁵ but I don[']t think I have said anything that is worth making a fresh copy of. I notice that all letters will be returned in due course to the senders. I mean his letter to me H.EL.