1893 LETTER TO THE SPECTATOR 



However, I am going to try, and hope at any rate to do no 

 harm to the man I want to help. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



He was eventually offered more congenial occupation 

 at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, but 

 preferred not to enter into the bonds of an unaccustomed 

 office. 



Meanwhile, through Sir John Donnelly, Huxley was 

 placed in communication with the Rev. Montague Powell, 

 who, at his request, called upon the docker ; and finding 

 him a man who had read and thought to an astonishing 

 extent upon scientific problems, and had a considerable 

 acquaintance with English literature, soon took more than 

 a vicarious interest in him. Mr. Powell, who kept Huxley 

 informed of his talks and correspondence with G. S., gives 

 a full account of the circumstances in a letter to the Spec- 

 tator of July 13, 1895, from which I quote the following 

 words : — 



The Professor's object in writing was to ask me how best 

 such a man could be helped, I being at his special request the 

 intermediary. So I suggested in the meanwhile a microscope 

 and a few scientific books. In the course of a few days I re- 

 ceived a splendid achromatic compound microscope and some 

 books, which I duly handed over to my friend, telling him it was 

 from an unknown hand. " Ah," he said, " I know who that must 

 be ; it can be no other than the greatest of living scientists ; it is 

 just like him to help a tyro." 



One small incident of this affair is perhaps worth pre- 

 serving as an example of Huxley's love of a bantering 

 repartee. In the midst of the correspondence Mr. Powell 

 seems suddenly to have been seized by an uneasy recollec- 

 tion that Huxley had lately received some honour or title, 

 so he next addressed him as " My dear Sir Thomas." The 

 latter, not to be outdone, promptly replied with " My dear 

 Lord Bishop of the Solent." 



About the same time comes a letter to Mr. Knowles, 

 based upon a paragraph from the gossiping column of some 

 newspaper which had come into Huxley's hands : — 



