48 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. I 



the most difficult, if not the most important, part of our 

 work is done, I begin to look forward with some anxiety 

 to the time when I shall be relieved of duties which so 

 seriously interfere with what I regard as my proper 

 occupation. 



No one can say what the future has in store for him, 

 but at present I know cf no inducement, not even the 

 offer of a seat in the House of Commons, which would 

 lead me, even temporarily and partially, to forsake that 

 work again. I am, dear sir, yours very faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



I give here a letter to me from Sir Mountstuart 

 Grant Duff, who also at one period was anxious to 

 induce him to enter Parliament : 



LEXDEN PAKK, COLCHESTER, 

 4<A November 1898. 



DEAR MR. HUXLEY I have met men who seemed to 

 me to possess powers of mind even greater than those of 

 your father his friend Henry Smith for example ; but I 

 never met any one who gave me the impression so much 

 as he did, that he would have gone to the front in any 

 pursuit in which he had seen fit to engage. Henry Smith 

 had, in addition to his astonishing mathematical genius, 

 and his great talents as a scholar, a rare faculty of 

 persuasiveness. Your father used to speak with much 

 admiration and some amusement of the way in which he 

 managed to get people to take his view by appearing to 

 take theirs ; but he never could have been a power in 

 a popular assembly, nor have carried with him by the 

 force of his eloquence, great masses of men. I do not 

 think that your father, if he had entered the House of 

 Commons and thrown himself entirely into political life, 

 would have been much behind Gladstone as a debater, or 

 Bright as an orator. Whether he had the stamina which 

 are required not only to reach but to retain a foremost 



