[Illustration: AGE 31. _From a Photograph._]
It is, unfortunately, impossible to obtain a portrait of Professor
Huxley in the days when he was not yet a professor--when he was catching
sticklebacks and chasing butterflies at his father's school at
Ealing--for at thirty-one, the age at which his earliest photograph was
taken, he was already a professor of two sciences--of Natural History at
the Royal School of Mines, and of Physiology at the Royal Institute. As
assistant-surgeon to H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_ he had spent three years in
studying natural history off the Australian coasts, and had written out
the record of his observations in the earliest of his books. The
Admiralty refused to pay a penny of the publishing expenses; the young
assistant-surgeon's salary was seven-and-sixpence a day; and the volume
only saw the light some five years later, when it was issued by the Ray
Society. But, from the days of his first fight with fortune, Professor
Huxley's fame rose steadily, and by the time at which our second
portrait shows him he had been President of the British Association, and
had developed that limpidity of style and strength of logic which makes
him both the most redoubtable antagonist in the literary arena, and the
most popular exponent of the discoveries of science. Professor Huxley's
health, never of the very best, has latterly compelled him to withdraw
entirely from the active duties of the many posts which he has held; but
the magazine articles which he occasionally puts forth show all his
early faculties as strong as ever.
[Illustration: AGE 45. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]
[Illustration: AGE 64. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]
For the above interesting early photograph we are indebted to the
kindness of Professor and Mrs. Huxley.