4/6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxx 



pointed. But he found the work to be unexpectedly hard, and 

 ver3' soon he had the sense of panting to keep pace with the 

 demands of the lecturer. It was not merely that the texture of 

 scientific reasoning in the lectures was so closely knit, — although 

 that was a very palpable fact, — but the character of Huxley's 

 terminology was entirely strange to him. It met him on his 

 weakest side, for it presupposed a knowledge of Greek (being 

 little else than Greek compounds with English terminations) 

 and of Greek he had none. 



Huxley's usual lectures, he writes, are something awful to 

 listen to. One half of the class, which numbers about four hun- 

 dred, have given up in despair from sheer inability to follow 

 him. The strain on the attention of each lecture is so great as 

 to be equal to any ordinary day's work. I feel quite exhausted 

 after them. And then to master his language is something 

 dreadful. But, with all these drawbacks, I would not miss them, 

 even if they were ten times as difficult. They are something 

 glorious, sublime ! 



Again he writes : — 



Huxley is still very difficult to follow, and I have been four 

 times in his lectures completely stuck and utterly helpless. But 

 he has given us eight or nine beautiful lectures on the frog. . . . 

 If you only heard a few of the lectures you would be surprised 

 to find that there were so few missing links in the chain of life, 

 from the amceba to the genus homo. 



It was a large class, ultimately reaching 353 and break- 

 ing the record of the Edinburgh classes without having 

 recourse to the factitious assistance proposed in the letter 

 of May 16. 



His inaugural lecture was delivered under what ought 

 to have been rather trying circumstances. On the way 

 from London he stopped a night with his old friends, John 

 Bruce and his wife (one of the Fannings), at their home, 

 Barmoor Castle, near Beal. He had to leave at 6 next 

 morning, reaching Edinburgh at 10, and lecturing at 2. 

 " Nothing," he writes, " could be much worse, but I am 

 going through it with all the cheerfulness of a Christian 

 martyr." 



On May 3 he writes to his wife from the Braces' Edin- 

 burgh house, which they had lent him. 



