Preserve it, my dear child, as evidence of the paternal genius, when those light and fugitive productions which are buried in the philosophical transactions and elsewhere are forgotten.
My best wishes to Fred and you, and may you succeed better than I do in keeping warm.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[Later on, however, the younger children who kept up the home at Marlborough Place after the elder ones had married or gone out into the world, enjoyed more opportunities of his ever-mellowing companionship. Strongly as he upheld the conventions when these represented some valid results of social experience, he was always ready to set aside his mere likes and dislikes on good cause shown; to follow reason as against the mere prejudice of custom, even his own.
Severe he might be on occasion, but never harsh. His idea in bringing up his children was to accustom them as early as possible to a certain amount of independence, at the same time trying to make them regard him as their best friend.
This aspect of his character is specially touched upon by Sir Leslie
Stephen, in a letter written to my mother in July 1895:—
No one, I think, could have more cordially admired Huxley's intellectual vigour and unflinching honesty than I. It pleases me to remember that I lately said something of this to him, and that he received what I said most heartily and kindly. But what now dwells most in my mind is the memory of old kindness, and of the days when I used to see him with you and his children. I may safely say that I never came from your house without thinking how good he is; what a tender and affectionate nature the man has! It did me good simply to see him. The recollection is sweet to me now, and I rejoice to think how infinitely better you know what I must have been dull indeed not more or less to perceive.
As he wrote to his son on his twenty-first birthday:—]
You will have a son some day yourself, I suppose, and if you do, I can wish you no greater satisfaction than to be able to say that he has reached manhood without having given you a serious anxiety, and that you can look forward with entire confidence to his playing the man in the battle of life. I have tried to make you feel your responsibilities and act independently as early as possible—but, once for all, remember that I am not only your father but your nearest friend, ready to help you in all things reasonable, and perhaps in a few unreasonable.