392 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP 



recorded his impressions of these evenings, at which 

 he was often present : — 



There used to be Sunday evening dinners and parties 

 in Marlborough Place, to which people from many other 

 worlds than those of abstract science were bidden ; where 

 talk was to be heard of a kind rare in any world. It 

 was scientific at times, but subdued to the necessities of 

 the occasion ; speculative, yet kept within such bounds 

 that bishop or archbishop might have listened without 

 offence ; political even, and stdl not commonplace ; literary 

 without pretence, and when artistic, free from affectation. 



There and elsewhere Mr. Huxley easily took the lead 

 if he cared to, or if challenged- Nobody was more ready 

 in a greater variety of topics, and if they were scientific 

 it was almost always another who introduced them. 

 Unlike some of his comrades of the Eoyal Society, he 

 was of opinion that man does not live by science alone, 

 and nothing came amiss to him. All his life long he has 

 been in the front of the battle that has raged between 

 science and — not religion, but theology in its more dog- 

 matic form. Even in private the alarm of war is some- 

 times heard, and Mr. Huxley is not a whit less formidable 

 as a disputant across the table than with pen in hand. 

 Yet an angry man must be very angry indeed before he 

 could be angry with this adversary. He disarmed his 

 enemies with an amiable grace that made defeat endurable 

 if not entirely delightful 



As for his method of handling scientific subjects in 

 conversation : — 



He has the same quality, the same luminous style of 

 exposition, with which his printed books have made all 

 readers in America and England familiar. Yet it has 

 more than that. You cannot listen to him without 

 thinking more of the speaker than of his science, 



