VII 



DEAN STANLEY 87 



became warmly attached to the bright and pretty 

 children at Lincoln's Inn Fields, to whom they 

 extended a degree of affection and confidence which 

 was thoroughly understood and returned. The 

 Dean first instituted Children's Services on 

 Innocents' Day in Westminster Abbey, to which 

 the Flowers' children duly went. But he not only 

 gave them a service. He also provided tea for 

 those of his small relations and friends who came to 

 hear him, and after " Abbey," as a Westminster boy 

 would say, the cheerful little boys and girls used 

 to pass from the dim Abbey, at the close of the 

 short winter's day, into the bright warm Deanery 

 and enjoy the one meal which children really regard 

 as a social function devoid of responsibility, with all 

 their particular friends. The Dean and his wife 

 were godparents to two of the Flowers' children, 

 and the youngest, who was born after Lady 

 Augusta's lamented death, was christened by the 

 Dean, and named after her. 



Speaking of Dean Stanley (says Flower in his personal memoir 

 of Huxley contributed to the Proceedings of the Royal Society), I am 

 reminded of a meeting which took place at my house in Lincoln's 

 Inn Fields on November 26, 1878, just after his return from a 

 visit to the United States. He had a great wish to see Darwin, 

 who was one of the few remarkable men of the age with whom 

 he was not personally acquainted. They moved in totally different 

 circles, Darwin, owing to ill-health, having totally given up going 

 into general society. So we arranged that they should both come 

 to lunch. They were mutually pleased with one another, although 

 they had not many subjects in common to talk about. Darwin 

 said that he had a great respect for Stanley, regarding him as 



