NOTES 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



This autobiography was written in 1889, six years before Huxley's 

 death. It was published in L. Engel's " From Handel to Halle," Lon- 

 don, 1890 ; and in Huxley's u Methods and Results," London, 1893 

 (New York, 1902). It was intended to accompany his portrait in a series 

 of celebrated men. The first two paragraphs indicate the writer's dis- 

 taste at being obliged to write about himself. How Huxley felt about 

 this is well told in the following letter : 



MY DEAR MR. ENGEL, 



You are really the most pertinaciously persuasive of men. When you 

 first wrote to me, I said I would have nothing whatever to do with 

 anything you might please to say about me, that I had a profound objec- 

 tion to write about myself, and that I could not see what business the 

 public had with my private life. I think I even expressed to you my 

 complete sympathy with Dr. Johnson's desire to take Boswell's life when 

 he heard of the latter's occupation with his biography. 



Undeterred by all this, you put before me the alternative of issuing 

 something that may be all wrong, unless I furnish you with something 

 authoritative ; I do not say all right, because autobiographies are essen- 

 tially works of fiction, whatever biographies may be. So I yield, and 

 send you what follows, in the hope that those who find it to be mere 

 egotistical gossip will blame you and not me. 



I am 

 Yours faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY 



1 6 Bishop Butler: Joseph Butler (1692-1752), Bishop of Durham. 

 He was one of the leaders of the Church of England in the eighteenth 

 century, and author of important religious works. 



1 15 pre-Boswellian : before Boswell. James Boswell (1740-1795) 

 was the author of the celebrated " Life of Samuel Johnson," one of the 

 greatest of biographies. Lockhart's " Life of Scott " is another in the 

 same class. It is pertinent here to mention " The Life and Letters of 

 Thomas Henry Huxley," by his son, Leonard Huxley, which is considered 

 a model. 



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