hildren more by example
than by spoken precept; much of his attitude may be gathered from a
letter to his son on his twenty-first birthday:--

You will have a son some day yourself, I suppose, and, if you
do, I can wish you no greater satisfaction than to be able to
say that he has reached manhood without having given a serious
anxiety, and that you can look forward with entire confidence
to his playing the man in the battle of life. I have tried to
make you feel your responsibilities and act independently as
early as possible; but, once for all, remember that I am not
only your father but your nearest friend, ready to help you in
all things reasonable, and perhaps in a few unreasonable.

After he had retired from his professorial work and settled down at
Eastbourne, his grandchildren reaped the advantage of his leisure.
His natural love for children had scope for expression, and children
themselves had an instinctive confidence in the power and sympathy
that irradiated his face and gave his square, rugged features the
beauty of wisdom and kindliness. He could captivate them alike by
lively fun and excellent nonsense, and by lucid explanations of the
wonders of the world about which children love to hear. He fired one
small granddaughter with a love of astronomy, and one day a visitor,
entering unexpectedly, was startled to find the pair of them kneeling
on the floor of the entrance hall before a large sheet of paper, on
which the professor was drawing a diagram of the solar system, with
a little pellet and a big ball to represent earth and sun, while the
child was listening with rapt attention to an account of the planets
and their movements, which he knew so well how to make simple and
precise without ever being dull.

One of the most charming unions of the playful and serious was his
letter to the small boy, still under five, who was reading _The Water
Babies_, wherein his grandfather's name is genially made fun of among
the authorities on Water Babies and Water Beasts of every description.
Moreover, there is a picture by Linley Sambourne, showing Huxley and
Owen examining a bottled Water Baby under big magnifying glasses.
Now, as the child greatly desired more light on the reality of Water
Babies, here was an authority to consult. And, as he had already
learned to write, he indited a letter of inquiry, first anxiously
asking his mother if he would receive in reply a "proper let