390 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. 



taught me the game, somewhere about 1869 or J 870, 

 I do not think he ever found time for it again. 



His principal exercise was walking during the 

 holidays. In his earlier days especially, when over- 

 wrought by the stress of his life in London, he used 

 to go off with a friend for a week's walking tour in 

 Wales or the Lakes, in Brittany or the Eifel country, 

 or in summer for a longer trip to Switzerland. In 

 in this way he " burnt up the waste products," as he 

 would say, of his town life, and came back fresh for 

 a new spell of unintermittent work. 



But, on the whole, the amount of exercise he took 

 was insufficient for his bodily needs. Even the 

 riding prescribed for him when he first broke down, 

 became irksome, and was not continued very long, 

 although his bodily machine was such as could 

 only be kept in perfect working order by more 

 exercise than he would give. His physique was not 

 adapted to burn up the waste without special stimulus. 

 I remember once, as he and I were walking up Beachy 

 Head, we passed a man with a splendid big chest. 

 " Ah," said my father regretfully, " if I had only had 

 a chest like that, what a lot of work I could have 

 done." 



When, in 1872, he built his new house in Marl- 

 borough Place, my father bargained for two points; 

 one, that each member of the family should have a 

 corner of his or her own, where, as he used to say, it 

 would be possible to " consume their own smoke " ; 

 the other, that the common living-rooms should be of 



