inconsistent with these feelings, it is there by oversight, and is
sincerely regretted.

During the thirty odd years we have known one another, we have often
had stout battles without loss of mutual kindness. My chief object in
troubling you with this letter is to express the hope that, whatever
happens, this state of things may continue.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--I am still of opinion that it is better that my authorship should
not be officially recognised, but you are, of course, free to use the
information I have given you in any way you may think fit.

[To this the President returned a very frank and friendly reply; saying
he had never dreamed of any incompatibility existing between the two
offices, and urging that the Presidency ought not to constrain a man to
give up his ordinary duties as a citizen. He concludes:--

And now I have stated my case as it appears to myself; let me assure
you that nothing that has passed tends at all to diminish my friendship
towards you. My wife heard last night that the article was yours, and
told me so. I rather thought it must have been written by some hot
Gladstonian. It seems, however, that her informant was right. She
wishes me to tell you that she replied to her informant that she felt
quite sure that if you wrote it, it was because you thought it.

To which Huxley replied:--]