1864 THE X CLUB 369 



that was quite uncertain. The pressure of Huxley's 

 own work may be inferred from his letters at this 

 time (especially to Darwin, July 2, 1863, and January 

 16, 1864). Not only society, but societies had to 

 be almost entirely given up. Moreover, the distance 

 from one another at which some of these friends lived 

 added another difficulty, so that Huxley writes to 

 Hooker in his " remote province " of Kew : " I wonder 

 if we are ever to meet again in this world." Accord- 

 ingly in January 1864, Hooker gladly embraced a 

 proposal of Huxley's to organise some kind of regular 

 meeting, a proposal which bore fruit in the establish- 

 ment of the x Club. On November 3, 1864, the first 

 meeting was held at St. George's Hotel, Albemarle 

 Street, where they resolved to dine regularly " except 

 when Benham cannot have us, in which case dine at 

 the Athenaeum." In the latter eighties, however, the 

 Athenaeum became the regular place of meeting, and 

 it was here that the " coming of age " of the club was 

 celebrated in 1885. 



Eight members met at the first meeting; the 

 second meeting brought their numbers up to nine by 

 the addition of W. Spottiswoode, but the proposal to 

 elect a tenth member was never carried out. On the 

 principle of lucus a non lucendo, this lent an additional 

 appropriateness to the symbol x, the origin of which 

 Huxley thus describes in his reminiscences of Tyndall 

 in the Nineteenth Century for January 1894 : 



At starting, our minds were terribly exercised over the 

 name and constitution of our society. As opinions on this 

 VOL. I 2 B 



