solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising
from the serene consciousness of his strength--all this
belonged to Huxley, and to him alone. The first glance
magnetized his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed
to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on
occasion to use it. The hair swept carelessly away from the
broad forehead and grew rather long behind, yet the length did
not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in
everything--look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing
of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art,
he had, nevertheless, the secret of the highest art of all,
whether in oratory or whatever else--he had simplicity. The
force was in the thought and the diction, and he needed no
other. The voice was rather deep, low, but quite audible; at
times sonorous, and always full.... His manner here, in the
presence of this select and rather limited audience--for the
theatre of the Royal Institution holds, I think, less than
a thousand people--was exactly the same as before a great
company whom he addressed at Liverpool, as President of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science. I remember
going late to that and having to sit far back, yet hearing
every word easily; and there, too, the feeling was the
same--that he had mastered his audience, taken possession of
them, and held them to the end in an unrelaxing grip, as a
great actor at his best does. There was nothing of the
actor about him, except that he knew how to stand still; but
masterful he ever was.

Equally perfect of their kind were his class lectures, which made a
deep and lasting impression on his students. In the words of Jeffery