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LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 



fessors took the fees and disbursed the working expenses of the 

 laboratories, he, doing this at a loss, would refund the fees of 

 students whose position, from friendship or special circum- 

 stances, was exceptional. 



As for his lectures and addresses to the public, they 

 used to be thronged by crowds of attentive listeners. 



Huxley's public addresses (writes Professor Osborn), al- 

 ways gave me the impression of being largely impromptu ; but 

 he once told me : " I always think out carefully every word I am 

 going to say. There is no greater danger than the so-called 

 inspiration of the moment, which leads you to say something 

 which is not exactly true, or which you would regret after- 

 wards." 



Mr. G. W. Smalley has also left a striking description 

 of him as a lecturer in the seventies and early eighties. 



I used always to admire the simple and business-like way in 

 which Huxley made his entry on great occasions. He hated any- 

 thing like display, and would have none of it. At the Royal 

 Institution, more than almost anywhere else, the lecturer, on 

 whom the concentric circles of spectators in their steep amphi- 

 theatre look down, focuses the gaze. Huxley never seemed 

 aware that anybody was looking at him. From self-conscious- 

 ness he was, here as elsewhere, singularly free, as from self- 

 assertion. He walked in through the door on the left, as if he 

 were entering his own laboratory. In these days he bore 

 scarcely a mark of age. He was in the full vigour of manhood 

 and looked the man he was. Faultlessly dressed the rule in 

 the Royal Institution is evening costume with a firm step and 

 easy bearing, he took his place apparently without a thought 

 of the people who were cheering him. To him it was an anni- 

 versary. He looked, and he probably was, the master. Sur- 

 rounded as he was by the celebrities of science and the orna- 

 ments of London drawing-rooms, there was none who had quite 

 the same kind of intellectual ascendancy which belonged to him. 

 The square forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the 

 mouth, the deep flashing dark eyes, the impression of something 

 more than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of 

 solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising 

 from the serene consciousness of his strength all this belonged 

 to Huxley and to him alone. The first glance magnetised his 

 audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed to command, 



