THE MAN 59 



was persona grata to the Episcopal bench — as well as 

 on Froude and Huxley. But, tardily following the 

 sister and other universities, Oxford reversed the de- 

 cision in 1885. Eight years later, Huxley revisited 

 the " home of lost causes " to deliver the Romanes 

 Lecture on Evolution and Ethics. The occasion may 

 rank as historic. 



The Sheldonian Theatre was thronged before he 

 appeared upon the platform, a striking presence 111 his 

 D.C.L. robes, and looking very leonine with his long 

 silvery gray hair sweeping back in one long wave 

 from his forehead, and the rugged squareness of his 

 features tempered by the benignity of an old age 

 which has seen much and overcome much. He read 

 the lecture from a printed copy, not venturing, as he 

 would have liked, upon the severe task of speaking it 

 from memory, considering its length ^and the impor- 

 tance of preserving the exact wording. 1 



In August, 1894, the temptation offered by the 

 meeting of the British Association at Oxford to re- 

 new a visit was too strong to be resisted, if only for the 

 contrast of feelings which the occasion would awaken. 

 Huxley might aptly have applied to himself the ancient 

 words with which he ended his lecture On the Coming 

 of Age of the Origin of Species : " The stone which 

 the builders rejected the same is become the head of 

 the corner." Lord Salisbury was president, and in 

 his address, while admitting that Darwin had, " as a 



l II. 35 6 - 



