He characterised the book as a very good and even brilliant piece of work from a literary point of view; but as a helpful contribution to the great controversy, the most disappointing he had ever read. I said, "There has been no adverse criticism of it yet." He answered with emphasis], "No! BUT THERE SOON WILL BE." ["From you?" I asked.] "I let out no secrets," [was the reply. He then talked with great admiration and affection of Mr. Balfour's brother, Francis. His early death, and W.K. Clifford's (Huxley said), had been the greatest loss to science--not only in England, but in the world--in our time.] "Half a dozen of us old fogies could have been better spared." [He remembered Frank Balfour as a boy at [Harrow] and saw his unusual talent there.] "Then my friend, Michael Foster, took him up at Cambridge, and found out that he had real genius for biology. I used to say there was science in the blood, but this new book of his brother's," [he added, smiling], "shows I was wrong." Apropos to his remark about the Comtists, one of the company pointed out that in later life Comte recognised a science of "the individual," equivalent to what Huxley meant by psychology.] "That," [he replied], "was due to the influence of Clotilde de Vaux. You see," [he added, with a kind of Sir Charles Grandison bow to my wife], "what power your sex may have." [As Huxley was going out of the house, I said to him that Father A.B. (the priest who had been present) had not expected to find himself in his company.] "No! I trust he had plenty of holy water with him," [was the reply. ...After he had gone, we were all agreed as to the extraordinary vigour and brilliancy he had shown. Some one said, "He is like a man who is what the Scotch call 'fey.'" We laughed at the idea, but we naturally recalled the remark later on. The story of how the article was written is told in the following letters. It was suggested by Mr. Knowles, and undertaken after perusal of the review of the book in the "Times". Huxley intended to have the article ready for the March number of the "Nineteenth Century", but it grew longer than he had meant it to be, and partly for this reason, partly for fear lest the influenza, then raging at Eastbourne, might prevent him from revising the whole thing at once, he divided it into two instalments. He writes to one daughter on March 1:--] I suppose my time will come; so I am "making hay while the sun shines" (in point of fact it is raining and blowing a gale outside) and finishing my counterblast to Balfour before it does come. Love to all you poor past snivellers from an expectant sniveller. [And to another:--] I think the cavalry charge in this month's "Nineteenth" will amuse you. The heavy artillery and the bayonets will be brought into play next month.