nation.


After the return from America, the same innumerable occupations were
continued. It would be impossible in short space even to enumerate all
Huxley's various publications of the next ten years. His work, however,
changed gradually from scientific investigation to administrative
work, not the least important of which was the office of Inspector of
Fisheries. A second important office was the Presidency of the Royal
Society. Of the work of this society Sir Joseph Hooker writes: "The
duties of the office are manifold and heavy; they include attendance at
all the meetings of the Fellows, and of the councils, committees, and
sub-committees of the Society, and especially the supervision of the
printing and illustrating all papers on biological subjects that are
published in the Society's Transactions and Proceedings; the latter
often involving a protracted correspondence with the authors. To this
must be added a share in the supervision of the staff officers, of the
library and correspondence, and the details of house-keeping." All the
work connected with this and many other offices bespeaks a life too
hard-driven and accounts fully for the continued ill-health which
finally resulted in a complete break-down.

Huxley had always advocated that the age of sixty was the time for
"official death," and had looked forward to a peaceful "Indian summer."
With this object in mind and troubled by increasing ill-health, he began
in 1885 to give up his work. But to live even in comparative idleness,
after so many years of activity, was difficult. "I am sure," he says,
"that the habit of incessant work into which we all drift is as bad
in its way as dram-drinking. In time you cannot be comfortable without
stimulus." But continued bodily weakness told upon him to the extent