Stories of Authors, British and AmericanChubb, Edwin Watts
General
Stories of Authors, British and American
Chubb, Edwin Watts
Authors, American -- Biography; Authors, English -- Biography
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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