were firm and closely set, with the expression of positiveness, and the
other feature which most marked him was the very heavy mass of hair
falling over his forehead, which he would frequently stroke or toss
back. Occasionally he would light up the monotony of anatomical
description by a bit of humour.
Huxley was the father of modern laboratory instruction; but in 1879 he
was so intensely engrossed with his own researches that he very seldom
came through the laboratory, which was ably directed by T. Jeffery
Parker, assisted by Howes and W. Newton Parker, all of whom are now
professors, Howes having succeeded to Huxley's chair. Each visit,
therefore, inspired a certain amount of terror, which was really
unwarranted, for Huxley always spoke in the kindest tones to his
students, although sometimes he could not resist making fun at their
expense. There was an Irish student who sat in front of me, whose
anatomical drawings in water-colour were certainly most remarkable
productions. Huxley, in turning over his drawing-book, paused at a
large blur, under which was carefully inscribed, "sheep's liver," and
smilingly said], "I am glad to know that is a liver; it reminds me as
much of Cologne cathedral in a fog as of anything I have ever seen
before." [Fortunately the nationality of the student enabled him to
fully appreciate the humour.
The same note is sounded in Professor Mivart's description of these
lectures in his Reminiscences:--
The great value of Huxley's anatomical ideas, and the admirable
clearness with which he explained them, led me in the autumn of 1861 to
seek admission as a student to his course of lectures at the School of
Mines in Jermyn Street. When I entered his small room there to make
this request, he was giving the finishing touches to a dissection of
part of the nervous system of a skate, worked out for the benefit of
his students. He welcomed my application with the greatest cordiality,
save that he insisted I should be only an honorary student, or rather,
should assist at his lectures as a friend. I availed myself of his
permission on the very next day, and subsequently attended almost all
his lectures there and elsewhere, so that he one day said to me, "I
shall call you my 'constant reader.'" To be such a reader was to me an
inestimable privilege, and so I shall ever consider it. I have heard
many men lecture, but I never heard any one lecture as did Professor
Huxley. He was my very ideal of a lecturer. Distinct in utterance, with
an agreeable voice, lucid as it was possible to be in exposition, with
admirably chosen language, sufficiently rapid, yet never hurried, often
impressive in manner, yet never otherwise than completely natural, and
sometimes allowing his audience a glimpse of that rich fund of humour
ever ready to well forth when occasion permitted, sometimes accompanied
with an extra gleam in his bright dark eyes, sometimes expressed with a
dryness and gravity of look which gave it a double zest.
I shall never forget the first time I saw him enter his lecture-room.
He came in rapidly, yet without bustle, and as the clock struck, a
brief glance at his audience and then at once to work. He had the
excellent habit of beginning each lecture (save, of course, the first)
with a recapitulation of the main points of the preceding one. The
course was amply illustrated by excellent coloured diagrams, which, I
believe, he had made; but still more valuable were the chalk sketches
he would draw on the blackboard with admirable facility, while he was
talking, his rapid, dexterous strokes quickly building up an organism
in our minds, simultaneously through ear and eye. The lecture over, he