THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 



almost square room, pillared and formal in itself, and 

 almost without furniture, save for a long temporary 

 table on one side, over which cups of tea are being 

 handed out to the guests, who cluster there to receive 

 it, and then scatter about the room to sip it at their 

 leisure. We had come to hear a lecture and had ex- 

 pected to be ushered into an auditorium ; but we had 

 quite forgotten that this is the hour when all England 

 takes its tea, the elite of the scientific world, seemingly, 

 quite as much as the devotees of another kind of soci- 

 ety. Indeed, had we come unawares into this room 

 we should never have suspected that we had about us 

 other than an ordinary group of cultured people gath- 

 ered at a conventional "tea," except, indeed, that sus- 

 picion might be aroused by the great preponderance 

 of men there being only three or four women present 

 and by the fact that here and there a guest appears 

 in unconventional dress a short coat or even a velvet 

 working- jacket. For the rest there is the same gather- 

 ing into clusters of three or four, the same inarticulate 

 clatter of many voices that mark the most common- 

 place of gatherings. 



But if one will withdraw to an inoffensive corner 

 and take a critical view of the assembly, he will pres- 

 ently discover that many of the faces are familiar to 

 him, although he supposed himself to be quite among 

 strangers. The tall figure, with the beautiful, kindly 

 face set in white hair and beard, has surely sat for the 

 familiar portrait of Alfred Russel Wallace. This short, 

 thick-set, robust, business-like figure is that of Sir 

 Norman Lockyer. Yonder frail-seeming scholar, with 

 white beard , is surely Professor Crookes . And this other 



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