170 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CUAP. vil 



was there — a child might throw the match which should 

 blow up the whole concern. 



I do not want to seem irreverent, still less depreciatory, 

 of noble men, but it strikes me that in the present case 

 the Nazarenes were the match and Paul the child. 



An ingrained habit of trying to explain the unknown 

 by the known leads me to find the key to Nazarenism in 

 Quakerism. It is impossible to read the early history of 

 the Friends without seeing that George Fox was a person 

 who exerted extraordinary influence over the men with 

 whom he came in contact ; and it is equally impossible 

 (at least for me) to discover in his copious remains an 

 original thought. 



Yet what with the corruption of the Stuarts, the 

 Phariseeism of the Puritans, and the Sadduceeism of the 

 Church, England was in such a state, that before his death 

 he had gathered about him a vast body of devoted 

 followers, whose patient endurance of persecution is a 

 marvel Moreover, the Quakers have exercised a pro- 

 digious influence on later English life. 



But I have scribbled a great deal too much already. 

 You will see what I mean. 



To Mr. W. Platt Ball 



Grand Hotel, Eastbottrne, 

 Oct. 27, 1890. 



Dear Sir — I have been through your book, which 

 has greatly interested me, at a hand-gallop ; and I have 

 by no means given it the attention it deserves. But the 

 day after to-morrow I shall be going into a new house 

 here, and it may be some time before I settle down to 

 work in it — so that I prefer to seem hasty, rather than 

 indifferent to your book and still more to your letter. 



As to the book, in the first place. The only criticism 

 I have to offer — in the ordinary depreciatory sense of the 



