404 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. 



Don't mistake ma One is a thinker and man of 

 letters, tlie other is only a literary man. Erasmus was 

 a man of letters, Gigadibs a literary man. A.B. is the in- 

 carnation of Gigadibs. I should call him Gigadibsius 

 Optimus Maximus. 



Another time, referring to Dean Stanley's his- 

 torical impressionability, as militating against his 

 sympathies with Colenso, he said : — 



Stanley could believe in anything of which he had 

 seen the supposed site, but was sceptical where he had 

 not seen. At a breakfast at Monckton Milnes's, just at 

 the time of the Colenso row, Milnes asked me my 

 views on the Pentateuch, and I gave them. Stanley 

 differed from me. The account of Creation in Genesis 

 he dismissed at once as unhistorical ; but the call of 

 Abraham, and the historical narrative of the Pentateuch, 

 he accepted. This was because he had seen Palestine — 

 but he wasn't present at the Creation. 



"When he and Stanley met, there was sure to 

 be a brisk interchange of repartee. One of these 

 occasions, a ballot day at the Athenseum, has been 

 recorded by the late Sir W. H. Flower : — 



A well-known popular preacher of the Scotch Presby- 

 terian Church, who had made himself famous by predic- 

 tions of the speedy coming of the end of the world, 

 was up for election. I was standing by Huxley when 

 the Dean, coming straight from the ballot boxes, turned 

 towards us. " Well," said Huxley, " have you been 

 voting for C. ? " " Yes, indeed I have," replied the Dean. 

 " Oh, I thought the priests were always opposed to the 

 prophets," said Huxley. " Ah ! " replied the Dean, with 

 that well-known twinkle in his eye, and the sweetest of 

 smiles, "but you see, I do not believe in his prophecies, 

 and some people say I am not much of a priest." 



