T.H.  Huxley.

[Great was Huxley’s astonishment when he learned in reply that his correspondent was a casual dock labourer, and had but scanty hours of leisure in which to read and think and seek into the recesses of nature, while his means of observation consisted of a toy microscope bought for a shilling at a fair.  Casting about for some means of lending the man a helping hand, he bethought him of the Science and Art Department, and wrote on December 30 to Sir J. Donnelly:—­]

The Department has feelers all over England—­has it any at Southampton?  And if it has, could it find out something about the writer of the letters I enclose?  For a “casual docker” they are remarkable; and I think when you have read them you will not mind my bothering you with them. (I really have had the grace to hesitate.)

I have been puzzled what to do for the man.  It is so much easier to do harm than good by meddling—­and yet I don’t like to leave him to “casual docking.”

In that first letter he has got—­on his own hook—­about as far as Buffon and Needham 150 years ago.

And later to Professor Howes:—­]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 12, 1894.

My dear Howes,

Best thanks for unearthing the volumes of Milne-Edwards.  I was afraid my set was spoiled.

I shall be still more obliged to you if you can hear of something for S—.  There is a right good parson in his neighbourhood, and from what he tells me about S—­ I am confirmed in my opinion that he is a very exceptional man, who ought to be at something better than porter’s work for twelve hours a day.

The mischief is that one never knows how transplanting a tree, much less a man, will answer.  Playing Providence is a game at which one is very apt to burn one’s fingers.

However, I am going to try, and hope at any rate to do no harm to the man I want to help.

Ever yours very faithfully,

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.”