i 4 o LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



been attending Tyndall's lectures on light. We were 

 dancing the quadrille when she was good enough to 

 say that it was a great pleasure to her to meet me, 

 because there were one or two points with regard to 

 the polarisation of light which she did not fully under- 

 stand, and she was sure I should be able to explain 

 her difficulties before the end of the set. 



In connection with these lecture amenities I am 

 reminded of a story told by Huxley, who when de- 

 livering a lecture on the " Brain " at the Royal Institu- 

 tion thought that the mass of his audience were, so to 

 say, entirely at sea, but that one lady followed him 

 closely with appreciative glances. At any rate, thought 

 he, there is one among my audience who understands 

 me ; and from that time forward he directed his obser- 

 vations specially to this lady. At the conclusion of 

 the lecture the lady came up to him and begged leave 

 to ask him only one question : " I did not quite under- 

 stand," said she, " whether you said the cerebellum is 

 inside or outside the skull." 



One more amusing story comes into my mind. 

 Sir Robert Ball, as we all know, is a most taking popu- 

 lar lecturer on astronomical subjects, and on one 

 occasion, after delivering a lecture on " Sun-spots and 

 Solar Chemistry," he met a young lady who expressed 

 her regret that she had missed hearing him on the 

 previous evening. " Well, you see," he said, " I don't 

 know that it would have interested you particularly, 

 as it was all about sun-spots." " Why," she replied, 

 "it would have interested me extremely, for I have 

 been a martyr to freckles all my life." 



In 1869 I published the six lectures on Spectrum 

 Analysis delivered before the Society of Apothecaries. 

 This book met with a favourable reception. A new 

 edition was called for within a few months, and in the 



