458 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 



true artist may soar. I call it a " Piggurne, or a Harmony in 

 Orange and White." 



Preserve it, my dear child, as evidence of the paternal 

 genius, when those light and fugitive productions which are 

 buried in the philosophical transactions and elsewhere are for- 

 gotten. 



My best wishes to Fred and you, and may you succeed better 

 than I do in keeping warm. Ever your loving father, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



Later on, however, the younger children who kept up 

 the home at Marlborough Place after the elder ones had 

 married or gone out into the world, enjoyed more oppor- 

 tunities of his ever-mellowing companionship. Strongly as 

 he upheld the conventions when these represented some 

 valid results of social experience, he was always ready to set 

 aside his mere likes and dislikes on good cause shown ; to 

 follow reason as against the mere prejudice of custom, even 

 his own. 



Severe he might be on occasion, but never harsh. His 

 idea in bringing up his children was to accustom them as 

 early as possible to a certain amount of independence, at the 

 same time trying to make them regard him as their best 

 friend. 



This aspect of his character is specially touched upon 

 by Mr. Leslie Stephen, in a letter written to my mother in 

 July 1895 : 



No one, I think, could have more cordially admired Huxley's 

 intellectual vigour and unflinching honesty than I. It pleases 

 me to remember that I lately said something of this to him, and 

 that he received what I said most heartily and kindly. But 

 what now dwells most in my mind is the memory of old kind- 

 ness, and of the days when I used to see him with you and his 

 children. I may safely say that I never came from your house 

 without thinking how good he is ; what a tender and affectionate 

 nature the man has ! It did me good simply to see him. The 

 recollection is sweet to me now, and I rejoice to think how 

 infinitely better you know what I must have been dull indeed 

 not more or less to perceive. 



As he wrote to his son on his twenty-first birthday : 



