A Last visit from Aldous

By Julian Huxley

In August 1963, not long after we got back to England, we met Aldous at Heathrow Airport. We knew at once that there was something terribly wrong with him; he was ashy-complexioned, very thin, and his voice had but half its usual volume. Yes, he said, he was very tired, having just been in Stockholm at a great meeting of intellectuals, trying to discover means to bring peace to the world. He had in fact sat up all night drafting some sort of plan, as nothing definite had been devised by the Committee, and in addition he had caught a cold. He would soon recover he assured us, and just wanted to spend a quiet month in England, as he generally did each year.

We brought him to Pond Street and settled him down, but soon saw that the promised improvement was failing to occur. In fact Juliette got so worried that she arranged a consultation with the best specialists at Bart’s Hospital and took him there, rather against his will. The fact was that he knew perfectly well what was the matter with him—he was dying of cancer—but did not want us to know; indeed, we never had the slightest suspicion of the terrible reality. He merely told us on returning from Bart’s that the doctors had advised a quiet spell, and that his voice would soon be normal. We were only too anxious to believe him.

We also thought that he might be suffering psychologically from the loss of all his possessions the previous year, in the fire that destroyed the hill-side of Hollywood where he lived. A spark from a faulty wire had set one house ablaze, and the wind fanning it soon spread the fire all over the area. The fire-brigade arrived after the TV vans, and anyway could do nothing in that tinder-dry landscape. Aldous and Laura had thought their house safe, and drove next door to a friend’s home—to rescue a kitten! Then Aldous noticed that the wind had changed; they rushed back, to find the flames licking their roof: they had some twenty minutes to rescue what they most wanted. Aldous at once collected the manuscript of Island, his last novel, on which he had been working for years; he also took a few suits, while Laura was wandering round the pretty house, admiring the effect of the flames on the yet untouched interior. They both seemed to have been paralysed as by a fateful spell—unable to think of the essentials which they still could have saved: Aldous’s notes and manuscripts, files of letters from so many interesting people, and especially the precious Journal which Maria had kept for many years. This was an invaluable document, written in Maria’s perceptive and enchanting style, covering most of their lives together. Its loss destroyed at one blow all the hopes Aldous may have had of writing his autobiography—and incidentally also made the labour of his future biographer, Sybille Bedford, infinitely harder.   

In less than an hour, all their tangible past had vanished.

The scope of their loss made itself apparent slowly and gradually. At first, Laura wrote, it seemed almost amusing to replace such simple everyday articles as tooth-brushes and spare shoes—but the irreplaceable records of a life-time are not so easily dismissed. Aldous never complained, but ruefully compared himself with a man who, having lost his past, had also lost his present and the basis for a planned future.

We felt it possible that the shock of this catastrophe had affected his health. We were entirely wrong: Aldous, with his usual philosophical fortitude, had faced and conquered it. What he could not conquer, in spite of his incredible courage, was the seed of cancer which he carried in his throat. He had decided, for all our sakes, not to tell us.

We took him to stay at Dartington, where the Elmhirsts gave us a wonderful time. The gardens were at their best and so were the sights of Dartmoor. I shall always remember his delight in its vast panorama, as he took deep breaths of its windy freedom. At night, the Music Festival in the Great Hall filled us all with joyful peace. There was a delightful incident after one of the concerts, when Nell Gotkowsky, the gifted young violinist, had been playing Beethoven with inspired perfection. We went to the artists’ room afterwards and Dorothy Elmhirst introduced us all to each other. In the confusion of so many new people, Nell Gotkowsky missed their names, but someone told her just as we were leaving that the tall pale man was Aldous Huxley. She rushed out after him and breathlessly poured out her—and her mother’s—admiration for him. Aldous, stooping above the fresh young creature who had just enchanted us with her playing, listened with a smile of pleasure, moved under this apparent remoteness, as she gave him her heart’s praise. It was an unforgettable moment.

We also took him to stay at Lawford Hall, with Phyllis Nichols. This fine house is at the edge of Constable country, and it was a happy week-end which revived many memories of Philip and of Robert, now alas both dead. It was typical of Aldous that when he heard that Phyllis’s son was suffering from sleeplessness and depression, he endeavoured to relieve the young man by gentle massage and help in meditation, spending himself in giving of his hoarded treasure in this most difficult of all arts—the art of living.

Our last visit was to Saltwood Castle, with Kenneth Clark. This medieval fortress had been made into a wondrous place, the main living quarters being in the modernized keep, from which narrow Gothic windows open on a wide courtyard surrounded by a battlemented wall at the further end of the courtyard, K. had established his library in a large tower, with a smaller room attached, where he does most of his writing. The library was a place of silence—striking in its harmony and beauty, its scholarly atmosphere and the essence of so much that Aldous loved. It made a deep impression on him—as did the house itself, with all its modern and ancient treasures, and the feeling of continuity with its historical past. It was a great privilege to share this wonderful interlude with our remarkable hosts, and I shall always remember Aldous, tall and so pale, wandering round the rooms and grounds, and stooping to smell the scented roses.

Yet all the time, he was carrying this heavy burden of doom. He never by any hint or murmur allowed us to guess his fate. He had made up his mind that it would be simpler just to ignore it—to fight this last battle without distressing us, to let things come as they would. The last we saw of him was at the airport—he said goodbye, and opened his brief-case to take out some papers …

                Soon afterwards the following letter arrived:

                          California. 29 September, 1963

                          1963年9月29日，加利福尼亚

Dearest Julian and Juliette,

You must be back from Africa, I imagine, by now—but meanwhile Africa has come to us, with a vengeance, in a frightful heat wave with temperatures day after day of 105, and 80 degrees at night. In my own case, meteorology has been compounded by a spell of ill-health, due to the after-effects of a long course of radiation which I had to take this spring. I hadn’t told you of this trouble before, since it hadn’t seriously interfered with my activities and there seemed to be no point in spreading unnecessary apprehensions. It started in 1960 with a malignant tumour on the tongue, the first surgeon I went to wanted to cut out half the tongue and leave me more or less speechless. I went with him to my old friend, Dr. Max Cutler… Cutler recommended treatment with radium needles and so did the Professors of Radiology and Surgery at the U. of Cal. Medical Centre at San Francisco, whom I consulted. I took the treatment in the early summer of 1960 and it was remarkably successful. The tumour on the tongue was knocked out and has shown no signs of returning. However, as generally happens in these cases, the lymph-glands of the neck became involved. I had one taken out in 1962, and this spring another mass appeared. This was subjected to twenty-five exposures of radio-active cobalt, an extremely exhausting treatment from which I was just recovering when at last I was able make the trip to Stockholm and London. Since my return there has been a flare-up of secondary inflammation, to which tissues weakened by radiation are peculiarly liable, often after considerable intervals. Result: I have had to cancel my lecture tour … Another handicap is my persistent hoarseness, due to the nerve that supplies the right-hand vocal cord having been knocked out, either by an infiltration of the malignancy, or by the radiation. I hope this hoarseness may be only temporary, but rather fear I may carry it to the grave.

What the future holds, one doesn’t know. In general these malignancies in the neck and head don’t do much metastasizing. Meanwhile I am trying to build up resistance with the combination of a treatment which has proved rather successful at the University of Montreal and the U. of Manila—the only institutions where it has been tried out over a period of years—and which has been elaborated upon by Professor Guidetti, of the University of Turin, who has read papers on his work at the last two International Cancer Congresses, at Buenos Aires and Moscow. I saw Guidetti while in Turin and was impressed by some of his case-histories, and with Cutler’s approval we are carrying out his treatment here. When this damned inflammation dies down, which it may be expected to do in a few weeks, I hope to get back to regular work. For the present I am functioning at only a fraction of normal capacity.

                            Much love to you both from both of us.

                                    Ever your affectionate

                                    Aldous

This letter was the first intimation we had of Aldous’s real trouble, and we were deeply shocked. We were even more so when Laura wrote the further terrible truth that Aldous really had terminal cancer and that there was no hope of his recovery …

He died on 23 November 1963—and a light went out of our lives.

                                           --From Memories II

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