windedness, stones, nits, and a pervading sense
of the wisdom of rest and be thankful, most of us have little
enough sense of the beautiful under these circumstances. The
ordinary schoolboy is precisely in this case. He finds Parnassus
uncommonly steep, and there is no chance of his having much time
or inclination to look about him till he gets to the top. And
nine times out of ten he does not get to the top."

The last example we shall take comes from a speech made after dinner
at a much later period of his life. The occasion was a complimentary
dinner to the editor of the English scientific periodical _Nature_,
which had been for long the leading semi-popular journal of English
science. Huxley, in proposing the health of the editor, declared that
he did not quite know how to say what he wanted to say, but that he
would explain by a story.

"A poor woman," he said, "was brought into one of our hospitals
in a shockingly battered condition. When her wounds had been
cleaned and sewn, and when the care of the surgeons had restored
her to comparative comfort, someone said to her, 'I am afraid
your husband has been knocking you about.' 'What!' she said, 'my
Jim bash me? no it worn't by him; he's always been more like a
friend to me than a husband.' That," went on Huxley, "is what I
wish to say about our guest of to-night. In all our intercourse
with him he has been more like a friend to us than an editor."

It is impossible to make a real distinction between the essays and the
addresses of Huxley. Many of the most important of his addresses, as
for instance his Romanes lecture on "Evolution and Ethics," were
written and printed before he delivered them; most of them were
carefully prepared, and revised and printed after delivery. It is
therefore not remarkable to find a close resemblance in matter and
manner between what was originally spoken and what was published
without a _viva voce_ delivery. Everything that may be said of the one
set applies with an equal fitness to the other set. There are many
who assert with confidence that Huxley is one of the great masters of
English, and although an examination of this opinion involves
discussion of the elusive quality termed "style," it is necessary to
attempt it.

In that totality which consists of an essay or of a printed address,
and of which we are, most of us, ready to discuss the style, there are