question, I said to Sir Benjamin, in an undertone, "The Lord hath
delivered him into mine hands."

That sagacious old gentleman stared at me as if I had lost my senses.
But, in fact, the Bishop had justified the severest retort I could
devise, and I made up my mind to let him have it. I was careful,
however, not to rise to reply, until the meeting called for me--then I
let myself go.

In justice to the Bishop, I am bound to say he bore no malice, but was
always courtesy itself when we occasionally met in after years. Hooker
and I walked away from the meeting together, and I remember saying to
him that this experience had changed my opinion as to the practical
value of the art of public speaking, and that from that time forth I
should carefully cultivate it, and try to leave off hating it. I did the
former, but never quite succeeded in the latter effort.

I did not mean to trouble you with such a long scrawl when I began about
this piece of ancient history.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[In the evening there was a crowded conversazione in Dr. Daubney's
rooms, and here, continues the writer in "Macmillan's," "everyone was
eager to congratulate the hero of the day. I remember that some naive
person wished 'it could come over again'; Mr. Huxley, with the look on
his face of the victor who feels the cost of victory, put us aside
saying,] 'Once in a lifetime is enough, if not too much.'"