ing, it
would rather be a _man_--a man of restless and versatile
intellect--who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in
his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions
with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them
by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his
hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions
and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.

[Footnote 1: Referring to this letter afterwards, my father felt
certain that he had never used the word "equivocal." In this he was
borne out by Prof. Victor Carus and Prof. Farrar, who were present.]

The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been
coldly received--no more than a cheer of encouragement from his
immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he
finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the
other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's
weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out.
As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated
public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main
scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side.
The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was,
he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his
own.

VIII

PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES

For Huxley, one result of the affair was that he became universally
known, and not merely as he had been known to his immediate circle,
as the most vigorous defender of Darwin--"Darwin's bulldog," as he
playfully called himself. Another result was that he changed his idea
as to the practical value of the art of public speaking. Walking away
from the meeting with that other hater of speech-making, Hooker, he
declared that he would thenceforth carefully cultivate it, and try to
leave off hating it. The former resolution he carried out faithfully,
with the result that he became one of the best speakers of his
generation; in the latter he never quite succeeded. The nervous horror
before making a public address seldom wholly left him; he used to
say that when he stepped on the platform at the Royal Institution and
heard the door click behind him, he knew what it must be like to be
a condemned man stepping out to the gallows. Happily, no sign of
nervousness ever showed itself; he gave the appearance of bein