xxin THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 387 



it was always my privilege to be with him, and to assist in 

 the work in which he was engaged. In dissecting, as in 

 everything else, he was a very rapid worker, going straight to 

 the point he wished to ascertain with a firm and steady hand, 

 never diverted into side issues, nor wasting any time in un- 

 necessary polishing up for the sake of appearances, the very 

 opposite, in fact, to what is commonly known as " finikin." 

 His great facility for bold and dashing sketching came in 

 most usefully in this work, the notes he made being largely 

 helped out by illustrations. He might have been a great 

 artist, some of his anatomical sketches reminding me much 

 of Sir Charles Bell's, but he never had time to cultivate his 

 faculties in this direction, and, I believe, never attempted any 

 finished work. His power of drawing on the black-board 

 during the lectures was of great assistance to him and to his 

 audience, and his outdoor sketches, made during some of his 

 travels, as in Egypt, though slight were full of artistic feeling. 

 His genius was also conspicuously shown by the clever 

 drawings, often full of playful fancy, which covered the paper 

 that happened to be lying before him when sitting at a council 

 or committee meeting. On such occasions his hand was rarely 

 idle. 



It is very singular that although, as admitted by all who 

 heard him, he was one of the clearest and most eloquent of 

 scientific lecturers of his time, he always disliked lecturing ; 

 and the nervousness from which he suffered in his early days 

 was never entirely overcome, however little apparent it might 

 be to his audience. After his first public lecture at the Eoyal 

 Institution he received an anonymous letter, telling him that 

 he had better not try anything of the kind again, as whatever 

 he was fit for, it was certainly not giving lectures ! Instead 

 of being discouraged, he characteristically set to work to mend 

 whatever faults he had of style and manner, with what success 

 is well known. Nevertheless, he often told me of the awful 

 feeling of alarm which always came over him on entering the 

 door of the lecture-room of the Koyal Institution, or even the 

 College of Surgeons, where the subject was most familiar and 

 the audience entirely sympathetic. He had a feeling that he 

 must break down before the lecture was over, and it was only 



