in the Huxley home there was more jest, jokes and LITTLE 

 banter than in any other place in London. The air was JOURNEYS 

 surcharged with mirth, and puns, often very bad ones, 

 were tossed back and forth with great recklessness. 

 Q At one time John Fiske was at the Huxleys and the 

 dual or multiple nature of man came up for discussion. 

 Huxley spoke of how very often men who were gentle 

 and charming in their homes were capable of great 

 crimes, and of how, on the other hand, a man might 

 pass in the world as a philanthropist, and yet in his 

 household be a veritable autocrat and tyrant. 

 Fiske then incidentally mentioned the case of Doctors 

 Parkman and Webster of Harvard men of intellect 

 and worth. These men brooded over a misunderstand- 

 ing that grew into a grudge and eventually hatched 

 murder. One worthy professor killed the other, cut up 

 the body and tried to burn it in a chemist's retort. 

 Only the great difficulty of reducing the human body 

 to ashes caused the murder to out, and brought about 

 the hanging of a scientist of note. 



"Yes, I have thought of the difficulty of disposing of a 

 dead body," said Huxley, solemnly, "and often when 

 on the point of committing murder this was the only 

 thing that made me hesitate! " 



"Oh, Pater, we are ashamed of you," said his three 

 lovely daughters in concert. Q Huxley's ability to joke 

 and his appreciation of the ludicrous marked him, in the 

 mind of Fiske, as the greatest thinker of his time. The 

 humorist knows values, and that is why he laughs. 

 Sensibility is the basic element of wit. 



75 



