he wordy duel between Huxley and Gladstone prompted Toole, the great comedian, to send a box of grease-paints to Huxley with a note saying, "These are for you and Gladstone to use when you make up." It was a joke so subtle and choice that the Huxleys, always dear friends of Toole, laughed for a week.
Poor Gladstone required a diagram when he heard of the procedure; and then, not being trepanned for the pleasantry, remarked that if Toole and Huxley collaborated on the stage, it would be eminently the proper thing, and in his mind there was little choice between them, both being fine actors.
Later, we hear of Huxley saying he thought of sending the box of grease-paints to Gladstone, so the Premier could use them in making up with God; as for himself, he was like Thoreau and had never quarreled with Him.
Huxley had many friendships with people seemingly outside of his own particular line of work. Henry Irving, the Reverend Doctor Parker, John Fiske and Hall Caine once met at one of Huxley's "Tall Teas," and Doctor Parker explained that he personally had no objection to visiting with sinners.
For Parker, Huxley had a great admiration and often attended the Thursday noon meeting at the Temple, "to see and hear the greatest actor in England," a compliment which Parker much appreciated, otherwise he would not have repeated it. "If I ever take to the stage, I will play the part of Jacques or Touchstone," said Huxley.
John Fiske in his delightful essay on Huxley said that in the Huxley home there was more jest, joke and banter than in any other place in London. The air was surcharged with mirth, and puns, often very bad ones, were tossed back and forth with great recklessness.
At one time John Fiske was at the Huxleys and the dual or multiple nature of man came up for discussion. Huxley spoke of how very often men who were gentle and charming in their homes were capable of great crimes, and of how, on the other hand, a man might pass in the world as a philanthropist, and yet in his household be a veritable autocrat and tyrant.
Fiske then incidentally mentioned the case of Doctors Parker and Webster of Harvard—men of intellect and worth. These men brooded over a misunderstanding that grew into a grudge and eventually hatched murder. One worthy professor killed the other, cut up the body, and tried to burn it in a chemist's retort. Only the great difficulty of reducing the human body to ashes caused the murder to out, and brought about the hanging of a scientist of note.
"Yes, I have thought of the difficulty of disposing of a dead body," said Huxley, solemnly; "and often when on the point of committing murder this was the only thing that made me hesitate!"
"Oh, Pater, we are ashamed of you," said his three lovely daughters in concert. Huxley's ability to joke and his appreciation of the ludicrous marked him, in the mind of John Fiske, as the greatest thinker of his time. The humorist knows values, and that is why he laughs. Sensibility is, in fact, the basic element of wit.