[Enclosure]

Jermyn S^t.

June 12^th. 1865

My dear Hooker

I did not reply to your note last week⁷ as I was in hopes after all that you might have come upon our ploy, which was very successful always excepting your own and Mrs Hooker’s absence which was a great regret to all of us. I trust our not having you with us is no evidence that M^rs Hooker is any worse.

As you say, this Lyello-Lubbockian business is not a pleasing shindy. I have known all about it from the first from Lubbock & have given such advice as I thought would tend most towards a peaceful solution of the difficulty—⁸ Latterly Lyell has been to me & I have found it very difficult to deal honestly with both sides without betraying the confidence of either or making matters worse

The candle is a very small one & by no means worth the game— and I should have absolutely dissuaded Lubbock from taking any notice of the small plunder that had taken place, if it had not been for that unlucky note in which Lyell (innocently I do believe but very stupidly) expressly affirmed he had got nothing from Lubbock:⁹ & thereby (as it was obvious somebody had copied from somebody)—threw the onus upon Lubbocks shoulders— This rankled in Lubbocks mind & like all quiet and mild men who do get a grievance he became about twice as ‘wud’¹⁰ as Berserks like you & me. It was as much as I could do to get him to write to Lyell for an explanation before coming out with a preface to which what you have seen is milk & water.¹¹ I hoped that Lyell would see he was in a mess & would set the whole affair straight with half a dozen words of frank explanation as he might have done— Instead of that came a long windy affair looking at the whole business from an exclusively Lyellian point of view and really dictating to Lubbock what he should do to get Lyell out of the scrape— Of course the Lubbockian furnace got seven times hotter and it is a mercy nothing worse came of it than what you saw in Lubbocks preface¹²

I am very glad you backed up my advice to Lyell.¹³ I must say he has behaved fairly enough since I put my finger into the pie and has done all I asked him to do— Lubbock I hope, will also comply with my (or rather I should say our Tyndall & Busk¹⁴ being his advisers with me) advice to cancel his own note & then all trace of a shindy which one will be glad to forget will have been wiped out.¹⁵

I don’t mind fighting to the death in a good big row but when A and B are supplying themselves from C’s orchard I don’t think it is very much worthwhile to dispute whether B filled his pockets directly from the trees or indirectly helped himself to the contents of A’s basket— If B has so helped himself he certainly ought to say so like a man: but if I were A, I would not much care whether he did or not

Lyell has been horribly disgusted about it— but I am not sure the discipline may not have opened his eyes to new & useful aspects of nature

Give our kindest regards ⁠⟨⁠to⁠⟩⁠ Mrs Hooker and say how gri⁠⟨⁠eved⁠⟩⁠ we are to hear of her illness

Ever yours faithfully, | T H Huxley