Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch by Leonard Huxley
page 24 of 131 (18%)
page 24 of 131 (18%)
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anthropological work.
The Australian voyage, then, provided a magnificent field for original research and original thought: the unknown naval surgeon returned from it to find himself recognized as one of the coming men. Contact with the larger world had broadened his outlook; the touch of naval discipline concentrated his powers. But Australia gave him another gift. He met at Sydney his future wife. The young couple fell in love almost at first sight, and became engaged. They were of the same age, 22; they hoped to get married when he was promoted to the rank of full surgeon; they were destined to wait seven-and-a-half years before she returned home to fulfil his early jesting prophecy of making her a Frau Professorin. Here, again, was stern disciplining on the part of destiny. For the first years they were able to meet during the intervals between the long surveying cruises of the ship; they cheated the months of separation by keeping journals for each other. But for nearly five years they were parted by twelve thousand miles of sea, and, worse, by slow sailing ships, when letters would take five months or more to receive an answer, which by that time might be entirely at cross purposes with the changed aspect of affairs. The possibilities of estrangement were incalculable. Their lives were developing on entirely different lines. He had been admitted to the inmost circle of men of science as an intellectual peer; he was elected F.R.S. when he was barely twenty-six, and received the Royal Medal the following year, as well as being chosen to serve on the Council of the Society; he wrote; he lectured at the Royal Institution. And yet, with all the support of the leaders in science, he could not find any post wherein to earn his bread and butter. He stood for professorships at Toronto, at Sydney, at Aberdeen, Cork and King's College, London. The Admiralty, in March, 1854, even refused further leave for the |
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