Huxley was a great reader of history, poetry, metaphysics, and fiction, but this is not what made him a great scientist. Original men make books, they do not need to read them. Yet Huxley loved to read. He even in his old age studied Greek to read Aristotle and the New Testament in the original. But Huxley loved things even more than books. He had little respect for mere bookish knowledge. "A rash clergyman once, without further equipment in natural science than desultory reading, attacked the Darwinian theory in some sundry magazine articles, in which he made himself uncommonly merry at Huxley's expense. This was intended to draw the great man's fire, and as the batteries remained silent the author proceeded to write to Huxley, calling his attention to the articles, and at the same time, with mock modesty, asking advice as to the further study of these deep questions. Huxley's answer was brief and to the point: 'Take a cockroach and dissect it.'"
Huxley was fond of children and their ways. His son, Leonard, tells us that Julian, the grandchild of Huxley was a child made up of a combination of cherub and pickle. Huxley had been in his garden watering with a hose. The little four-year-old was with him. Huxley came in and said: "I like that chap! I like the way he looks you straight in the face and disobeys you. I told him not to go on the wet grass again. He just looked up boldly straight at me, as much as to say, 'What do you mean by ordering me about?' and deliberately walked on to the grass." In the spring the approval was not so decided. "I like that chap; he looks you straight in the face. But there's a falling off in one respect since last August—he now does what he is told."
When Julian, the grandchild, was learning to read and write, he became interested in Water-Babies, a story that has delighted so many children. In it he found a reference to his grandfather as one who knew much about water-babies. So he wrote to his grandfather:
Dear Grandpater, have you seen a water baby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Can I see it some day?
Your loving
Julian.
This is the answer to the letter:
March 24, 1892.
My Dear Julian:
I never could make out about that water-baby. I have seen babies in water and babies in bottles; but the baby in the water was not in the bottle and the baby in the bottle was not in the water.
Ever your loving
Grandpater.