Thomas Henry Huxley an Ernst Haeckel, o. O., 17. Juli 1867
July 17, 1867
My dear Haeckel
My wife and I send you our most hearty congratulations and good wishes. Give your betrothed a good account of us, for we hope in the future to entertain as warm a friendship for her as for you. I was very glad to have the news, for it seemed to me very sad that a man of your warm || affections should be surrounded only by hopeless regrets. Such surroundings inflict a sort of partial paralysis upon one's whole nature, a result which is, to me, far more serious and regrettable than the mere suffering one undergoes.
The one thing needful for men, who like you and I stand pretty much alone, and have a good deal of fighting to do in the external world, is to have light and warmth and confidence within the four walls of home. || May all these good things await you!
Many thanks for your kind invitation to Jena. I am sure my wife would be as much pleased as I to accept it, but it is very difficult for her to leave her children.
We will keep it before us as a pleasant possibility, but I suspect you and Madame will be able to come to England before we shall reach Germany.
I wish I had rooms to offer you, but you have seen that troop of children, and they leave no corner unoccupied.
Many thanks for the Bericht and the genealogical Tables. You seem, as usual, to have || got through an immense amount of work.
I have been exceedingly occupied with a paper on the classification of Birds – a sort of expansion of one of my Hunterian Lectures this year. It has now gone to press, and I hope soon to be able to send you a copy of it.
Occupation of this and other kinds must be my excuse for having allowed so much longer a time to slip by, than I imagined had done, before writing to you. It is not for want of sympathy, be sure, for my wife and I have often talked of the new life opening out to you.
This is written in my best hand. I am proud of it, as I can read every word quite easily myself, which is more than I can always say for my own Manus Scripts!
Ever yours faithfully
T. H. Huxley