CHAPTEE VII 



1851-1853 



SEVERAL letters dating from 1851 to 1853 help to 

 fill up the outlines of Huxley's life during those 

 three years of struggle. There is a description of 

 the British Association meeting at Ipswich in 1851, 1 

 with the traditional touch of gaiety to enliven the 

 gravity of its proceedings, and the unconventional 

 jollity of the Eed Lion Club (a dining-club of members 

 of the Association), whose palmy days were those 

 under the inspiration of the genial and gifted Forbes. 

 This was the meeting at which Huxley first began 

 his alliance with Tyndall, with whom he travelled 

 down from town, although he does not mention his 

 name in this letter. With Hooker he had already 

 made acquaintance ; and from this time forwards the 

 three were closely bound together by personal regard 

 as well as by similarity of aims and interests. 



1 " Forbes advises me to go down to the meeting of the British 

 Association this year and make myself notorious somehow or other. 

 Thank Heaven, I have impudence enough to lecture the savans of 

 Europe if necessary. Can you imagine me holding forth ? " (June 

 6, 1851.) 



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