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“Huxley, Aldous Leonard, writer,” recites Who’s Who, “born 26 July 1894; third son of Leonard Huxley, whom see, and Julia Arnold; married, 1919, Maria Nys; one son. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. Worked on the editorial staff of the Athenæum, 1919-1920; dramatic critic of the Westminster Gazette, 1920-1921. Publications: The Burning Wheel, 1916; The Defeat of Youth, 1918; Limbo, 1920; Leda, 1920; Crome Yellow, 1921; Mortal Coils, 1922. Recreation: reading. Club: Athenæum.”
A short private letter dated 13. vii. 22 adds one or two details. “I was educated very conventionally at Eton & at Oxford (the only break in the process being two or three years of partial blindness, from 17 to 19½, when I learned to read Braille embossed writing). I took English Literature at Oxford, under the professorship of the late Sir Walter Raleigh. I have worked on a good many papers—doing literary journalism, art criticism, music criticism & dramatic criticism. I am a close student of French literature & have many acquaintances in Paris. I travel as much as I can—which is not nearly so much as I should like. My ideal at the moment is to be completely idle for three years—but, alas, I see no prospect of its being fulfilled!” The letter also says, in answer to a specific inquiry about Mortal Coils: “Mortal Coils, like Crome Yellow, was chiefly written in Italy last summer (tho’ there are two stories in it of considerably earlier date)—in extreme heat by the Mediterranean.”
Here is a reminiscence of Huxley written in June, 1922:
“Aldous Huxley had tea with me at the Savoy in February, 1922, when London was being raided by a series of particularly nasty fogs. All the salt exhaled by the neighboring sea is sucked in by these fogs, which apply it patiently to the eyes of London, causing the people sore eyes and a weary outlook. Out of one of these fogs Huxley stepped into the writing room of the hotel, where I instantly recognized him. He is very tall and thin, walks with a visible stoop, and looks about him with the uncertainty of those who are new to the extreme of near-sightedness. One of his eyes is almost all white.
“He is very much interested in America and professes to envy us our exuberance and Henry L. Mencken, which seems to me sheer affectation. He also entertains the view that the invasion of Europe by American soldiery during the late war has caused a revolution in European social intercourse, which is a little more reasonable. I have made a complete record of this conversation in a manuscript book of mine entitled ‘In Georgian England,’ which is unlikely ever to find a publisher.
“About him personally I know only what one can gather from a purely impersonal discussion. He has a slight income, and that was why he was leaving for Italy with his wife, and that was why he was very anxious about an American market, and that was why he was writing some plays which, judging by some play work of his I saw, must be pretty bad. But it should interest you to know that at a luncheon of young Oxford poets to which I was invited he was referred to several times as the most learned man in England.”[40]
Huxley’s personal appearance and agreeable manner have been frequently described[41] and his conversational gift is not aptly epitomized by that very famous English novelist who recently said of him: “He looks clever. He says nothing—he has no need to say anything. It suffices for him to sit silent, looking clever.” The same novelist, a very penetrating analyst of literary powers, added: “But this young man is almost the only ‘white hope’ in English literature at present.” Huxley is at his best, conversationally, in a small company. One of his close friends is Frank Swinnerton whose judgment of Huxley’s gifts as a writer strongly confirms the novelist’s estimate just quoted.