into the laboratory every morning, question each of us in turn and make 

 the appropriate comments on our results since the preceding day. To 

 me, he soon became positively insulting, said all the sneering, deroga- 

 tory things he could think of, browbeating me for every mistake in 

 German that I made (he knew EngHsh well, but would not permit any 

 of his students to speak it to him). I shall never forget the wigging 

 he gave me for saying that a certain structure which was visible in one 

 stage of development, but not in the succeeding one, had disappeared 

 {verschwiinden). The expression was a perfectly proper one and the 

 cursing "with bell, book and candle" which he gave me on account of 

 my unscientific conceptions was merely seizing an excuse to make him- 

 self disagreeable. 



I was not hurt by Gegenbaur's treatment of me; I did not care 

 enough about him, personally, for that, but I was deeply angered and 

 much bewildered. All the great teachers with whom I had studied, 

 McCosh and Guyot, Huxley and Balfour, had been most kind and 

 helpful and Gegenbaur's behaviour was altogether unintelligible. I soon 

 drew into my shell and said just as Uttle to him as I could, asked him 

 no questions and answered his in the briefest possible form. This state 

 of siege kept up for nearly two months, until near the end of Novem- 

 ber, when a sudden change for the better came and memory has re- 

 tained a vivid picture of the day. That was a phenomenonally early 

 and cold winter and, late one afternoon, the Pacha, Gadow and I 

 were standing around the laboratory stove, vainly endeavouring to 

 absorb a little heat. 



After some desultory conversation, the great man remarked, with 

 a laugh, that we really thought the Glacial Period must be coming 

 back. Though brusque and sometimes rough, he was really a genial 

 soul and we soon became warm friends and remained so to the end 

 of his life. However, he never condescended to explain his early rude- 

 ness or its sudden metamorphosis into kindness. When I was coming 

 home and went to bid him farewell, he showed real sorrow at parting; 

 his voice broke and his eyes filled with tears and he had difficulty in 

 controlling his emotion. This unexpected show of affection moved and 

 gratified me profoundly. 



What manner of man was Gegenbaur ? Indubitably a genuinely great 

 man, yet one little known or appreciated by the public, for he did no 

 popular writing or lecturing. For some years, he was a professor at 

 Jena, where he formed a close intimacy with Haeckel. As I told in a 

 previous chapter, Huxley had said to me that "Gegenbaur was head 



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