28 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, n 



years ago, "The office would be quite perfect, if they did not 

 want an annual report. I can't go in for a disquisition on river 

 basins after the manner of Buckland, and you have exhausted 

 the other topics. I polished off the Salmon Disease pretty fully 

 last year, so what the deuce am I to write about?" 



I saw Professor Huxley for the last time on the Christmas 

 day before his death. I spent some hours with him, with no 

 other companions than Mrs. Huxley and my daughter. I had 

 never seen him brighter or happier, and his rich, playful and 

 sympathetic talk vividly recalled the many brilliant hours which 

 I had passed in his company some twelve or thirteen years 

 before. 



One word more. No one could have known Professor Hux- 

 ley intimately without recognising that he delighted in combat. 

 He was never happier than when he was engaged in argument 

 or controversy, and he loved to select antagonists worthy of his 

 steel. The first public enquiry which we held together was 

 attended by a great nobleman, whom Professor Huxley did not 

 know by sight, but who rose at the commencement of our pro- 

 ceedings to offer some suggestions. Professor Huxley directed 

 him to sit down, and not interrupt the business. I told my col- 

 league in a whisper whom he was interrupting. And I was 

 amused, as we walked away to luncheon together, by his quaint 

 remark to me, " We have begun very well, we have sat upon a 

 duke." * 



If, however, a love of argument and controversy occasionally 

 led him into hot water, I do not think that his polemical tenden- 

 cies ever cost him a friend. His antagonists must have recog- 

 nised the fairness of his methods, and must have been susceptible 

 to the charm of the man. The high example which he set in 

 controversy, moreover, was equally visible in his ordinary life. 

 Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard 

 were — on the whole — the highest. He recognised that the fact 

 of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the most 

 upright of lives, and I am very much of the opinion of a little 



* Of this he wrote home on March 15, 1881 : " Somebody produced 

 the Punch yesterday and showed it to me, to the great satisfaction of 



the Duke of . who has attended our two meetings. I nearly had 



a shindy with him at starting, but sweetness and light (in my person) 

 carried the day." This Punch contained the cartoon of Huxley in 

 nautical costume riding on a salmon ; contrary to the custom of 

 Punch, it made an unfair hit in appending to his name the letters 

 £ 3. d. Never was any one who deserved the imputation less. 



