376 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XVIII 



Hirst and Spencer and my own recurrent illnesses, the x 

 is not satisfactory. But I don't see that much will come 

 from putting new patches in. The x really has no raison 

 d'etre beyond the personal attachment of its original 

 members. Frankland told me of the names that had been 

 mentioned, and none could be more personally welcome 

 to me . . . but somehow or other they seem out of place 

 in the x. 



However, I am not going to stand out against the 

 general wish, and I shall agree to anything that is 

 desired. 



Again 



The club has never had any purpose except the purely 

 personal object of bringing together a few friends who 

 did not want to drift apart. It has happened that these 

 cronies had developed into bigwigs of various kinds, 

 and therefore the club has incidentally I might say 

 accidentally had a good deal of influence in the scientific 

 world. But if I had to propose to a man to join, and he 

 were to say, well, what is your object ? I should have 

 to reply like the needy knife-grinder, " Object, God bless 

 you, sir, we've none to show." 



As he wrote elsewhere (Nineteenth Century, Jan. 

 1894; see p. 369 above) 



Later on, there were attempts to add other members, 

 which at last became wearisome, and had to be arrested 

 by the agreement that no proposition of that kind should 

 be entertained, unless the name of the new member 

 suggested contained all the consonants absent from the 

 names of the old ones. In the lack of Slavonic friends 

 this decision put an end to the possibility of increase. 



After the death, in February 1892, of Hirst, a 

 most devoted supporter of the club, who "would, I 



