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phrase, or a group of words borrowed from one of our 

 own great writers always seemed to await his wish. 

 General Booth's scheme for elevating the masses by- 

 cymbals and dogma was ' ' corybantic Christianity ' ' ; 

 to explain what he thought was the Catholic attitude 

 to the doctrine of evolution, he said it would have 

 been called daimiabilis by Father Suarez, and that he 

 would have meant " not that it was to be damned, but 

 that it was an active principle capable of damning." 

 Huxley was like a builder who did not limit himself 

 while he was constructing a house to the ordinary 

 materials from the most convenient local quarry, but 

 who collected endlessly from all the quarries and brick- 

 fields of the world, and brought to his heaps curiously 

 wrought stones taken from a thousand old buildings. 

 The swift choice from such a varied material gave an 

 ease and appearance of natural growth to his work ; 

 it produced many surprising and delightful combina- 

 tions, and it never sacrificed convenience of expression 

 to exigencies of the materials for expression. On the 

 other hand, Huxley lacked the sedulous concern for 

 words themselves as things valuable and delightful ; 

 the delfl)^t of the craftsman in his tools ; the dainty 

 and respectful tribute paid to the words themselves ; 

 in fine, he took little pleasure in words themselves and 

 used them as counters rather than as coins. Careful 

 reflection and examination will make it plain that the 

 pleasure to be got from Huxley's style is not due in 

 any large measure to his choice and handling of words. 

 There is no evidence that he deliberately and fastidi- 

 ously preferred one word to another, that he took de- 

 light in the savour of individual words, in the placing 

 of plain words in a context to make them sparkle, in 

 the avoidance of some, in the deliberate preference of 



