service on the School Board and no less
than eight Royal Commissions, and it is easy to see that the longest
working days he could contrive were always filled and over-filled.

When very tired he would occasionally dash off for a week or two's
walking with a friend in Wales, or some corner of France; two summer
holidays in Switzerland with John Tyndall resulted in a joint paper on
the "Structure of Glacier Ice"; later, the family holidays by the
sea regularly saw a good deal of time devoted to writing, while his
exercise consisted of long walks.

Unlike Darwin, who at last found nothing save science engrossing
enough to make him oblivious of his constant ill-health, Huxley
never lost his keen delight in literature and art. He was a rapid and
omnivorous reader, devouring everything from a fairy tale to a blue
book, and tearing the heart out of a book at express speed. With this
went a love of great and beautiful poetry and of prose expression that
is at once exact and artistically balanced. "I have a great love and
respect for my native tongue," he wrote, "and take great pains to use
it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can
get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious
as I grow older." Indeed, even after much re-writing, his corrections
in proof must have appalled his publishers. "Science and literature,"
he declared, "are not two things, but two sides of one thing." "Have
something to say, and say it," was the great Duke's theory of
style. "Say it in such language," added Huxley, "that you can stand
cross-examination on every word. Be clear, though you may be convicted
of error. If you are clearly wrong, you will run up against a fact
some time and get set right. If you shuffle with your subject, and
study chiefly to use language which will give a loophole of escape
either way, there is no hope for you."

Herein lay the secret of his lucidity. Uniting the scientific habit
of mind with the literary art, he showed that truthfulness need not
be bald, and that power lies rather in accuracy than in luxuriance of
diction. As to the influence which such a style exerted on the habit
of mind of his readers, there is remarkable testimony in a letter from
Spedding, the editor of Bacon, printed in the _Life of Huxley_, ii,
239. Spedding, his senior by a score of years, describes the influence
of Bacon on his own style in the matter of exactitude, the pruning
of fine epithet