282 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xviii 



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 per- 

 sonal object of bringing together a few friends who did not 

 want to drift apart. It has happened that these cronies had 

 developed into big-wigs 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 {loc. cit.) : — 



Later on, there were attempts to add other members, which 

 at last became wearisome, and had to be arrested by the agree- 

 ment 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 possi- 

 bility of increase. 



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

 devoted supporter of the club, who " would, I believe, repre- 

 sent it in his sole person rather than pass the day over," 

 only one more meeting took place, in the-following month. 

 With five of the six survivors domiciled far from town, 

 meeting after meeting fell through, until the treasurer wrote, 

 " My idea is that it is best to let it die out unobserved, and 

 say nothing about its decease to anyone." 



Thus it came to pass that the March meeting of the 

 club in 1893 remained its last. No ceremony ushered it 

 out of existence. Its end exemplified a saying of Sir J. 

 Hooker's, " At our ages clubs are an anachronism." It had 

 met 240 times, yet, curious to say, although the average 

 attendance up to 1883 was seven out of nine, the full 

 strength of the club only met on twenty-seven occasions. 



