210 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VIII 



remarked. Going to his room, he snatched an hour 

 or two of rest, but was then called upon to finish his 

 address before going out. It seems that it had to be 

 ready for simultaneous publication in the New York 

 papers. Now the lecture was not written out; it 

 was to be given from notes only. So he had to 

 deliver it in extenso to the reporter, who took it down 

 in shorthand, promising to let him have a longhand 

 copy in good time the next morning. It did not 

 come till the last moment. Glancing at it on his 

 way to the lecture theatre, he discovered to his 

 horror that it was written upon "flimsy," from which 

 he would not be able to read it with any success. 

 He wisely gave up the attempt, and made up his 

 mind to deliver the lecture as best he could from 

 memory. The lecture as delivered was very nearly 

 the same as that which he had dictated the night 

 before, but with some curious discrepancies between 

 the two accounts, which, he used to say, occurring as 

 they did in versions both purporting to have been 

 taken down from his lips, might well lead the in- 

 genious critic of the future to pronounce them both 

 spurious, and to declare that the pretended original 

 was never delivered under the circumstances alleged. 1 

 There was an audience of some 2000, and I am 

 told that when he began to speak of the time that 

 would come when they too would experience the 

 dangers of over -population and poverty in their 

 midst, and would then understand what Europe had 

 1 Cp. the incident at Belfast, p. 134. 



