SOURCE: "Citizen, Orator, and Essayist," in Thomas Henry Huxley: A Sketch of His Life and Work, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900, pp. 204-17.

In the essay that follows, Mitchell examines Huxley's rhetorical style and his involvement in scientific organizations.

A great body of fine work in science and literature has been produced by persons who may be described as typically academic. Such persons confine their interest in life within the boundaries of their own immediate pursuits; they are absorbed so completely by their avocations that the hurly-burly of the world seems needlessly distracting and a little vulgar. No doubt the thoughts of those who cry out most loudly against disturbance by the intruding claims of the world are, for the most part, hardly worth disturbing; the attitude to extrinsic things of those who are absorbed by their work is aped not infrequently by those who are absorbed only in...