T.H. Huxley.
[He was eventually offered more congenial occupation at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, but preferred not to enter into the bonds of an unaccustomed office.
Meanwhile, through Sir John Donnelly, Huxley was placed in communication with the Reverend Montague Powell, who, at his request, called upon the docker; and finding him a man who had read and thought to an astonishing extent upon scientific problems, and had a considerable acquaintance with English literature, soon took more than a vicarious interest in him. Mr. Powell, who kept Huxley informed of his talks and correspondence with G.S., gives a full account of the circumstances in a letter to the "Spectator" of July 13, 1895, from which I quote the following words:—
The Professor's object in writing was to ask me how best such a man could be helped, I being at his special request the intermediary. So I suggested in the meanwhile a microscope and a few scientific books. In the course of a few days I received a splendid achromatic compound microscope and some books, which I duly handed over to my friend, telling him it was from an unknown hand. "Ah," he said, "I know who that must be; it can be no other than the greatest of living scientists; it is just like him to help a tyro."
One small incident of this affair is perhaps worth preserving as an example of Huxley's love of a bantering repartee. In the midst of the correspondence Mr. Powell seems suddenly to have been seized by an uneasy recollection that Huxley had lately received some honour or title, so he next addressed him as "My dear Sir Thomas." The latter, not to be outdone, promptly replied with] "My dear Lord Bishop of the Solent."
[About the same time comes a letter to Mr. Knowles, based upon a paragraph from the gossiping column of some newspaper which had come into Huxley's hands:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 9, 1893.
Gossip of the Town.
"Professor Huxley receives 200 guineas for each of his articles for the
'Nineteenth Century'."
My dear Knowles,