386 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. 



he had to be specially careful of his health, and, 

 under Sir Andrew Clark's regime, took riding exer- 

 cise for an hour each day before starting for South 

 Kensington, that he records the fact of doing any 

 work before breakfast, and that was letter-writing. 



Much of the day during the session, and still more 

 when his lectures were over, would thus be spent in 

 original research, or in the examination and descrip- 

 tion of fossils in his official duty as Paleontologist 

 to the Survey. As often as not, there would be a 

 sitting of some Royal Commission to attend ; com- 

 mittees of some learned society ; meetings or dinners 

 in the evening ; if not, there would be an article to 

 write or proofs to correct. Indeed, the greater part 

 of the work by which the world knows him best 

 was done after dinner, and after a long day's work 

 in the lecture-room and laboratory. 



He possessed a wonderful faculty for tearing out 

 the heart of a book, reading it through at a gallop, 

 but knowing what it said on all the points that 

 interested him. Of verbal memory he had very 

 little; in spite of all his reading I do not believe 

 he knew half a dozen consecutive lines of poetry by 

 heart. What he did know was the substance of 

 what an author had written ; how it fitted into 

 his own scheme of knowledge ; and where to find 

 any point again when he wished to cite it. 



In his biological studies his immense knowledge 

 was firmly fixed in his mind by practical investiga- 

 tion ; as is said above, he would take at second hand 



