44 HUXLEY 



wealthy friend wrote to him in the most honourable 

 and delicate terms, begging him, on public grounds, 

 to accept ,£400 a-year to enable him to continue his 

 work on the Board. He refused the offer as simply 

 and straightforwardly as it was made ; his means, 

 though not large, were sufficient for his present 

 needs." l Some, who had no personal knowledge of 

 him, thought that his desire to secure a seat on the 

 School Board indicated an intention to enter Parlia- 

 ment. But he had neither taste nor ambition for 

 politics. 



At a Royal Society dinner in 1892, Mr. Shaw 

 Lefevre expressed his regret that Huxley's abilities 

 had never been placed at the service of the House of 

 Commons. In his reply, reminiscences of youth and 

 of controversies in recent years found a place. He told 

 the company that, when he was a very young man, a 

 lawyer in good practice, believing that he saw in him 

 qualities that would ensure success at the bar, offered 

 to advance him an income for a certain number of 

 years until he could repay the amount from the fees 

 which he was sure to earn. He declined, because, as 

 he dryly said, 



so far as I understand myself, my faculties are so 

 entirely confined to the discovery of truth, that I have 

 no sort of power of obscuring it. 



ll - 353- 



