In later years my father used to make humorous play
with its appropriateness, but in plain fact he was named after his
grandfather, Thomas Huxley. I have not traced the origin of the Henry.
Both parents were of dark complexion, and all the children were
dark-haired and dark-eyed. The father was tall, and, I believe, well
set-up: a miniature shows him with abundant, brown, curling hair
brushed high above a good forehead, giving the effect, so fashionable
in 1830, of a high-peaked head. The features are well cut and regular;
the nose rather long and inclined to be aquiline; the cheeks well
covered; the eyes, under somewhat arched brows, expressive and
interesting. Outwardly, there is a certain resemblance traceable
between the miniature and a daguerrotype of Huxley at nineteen;
but the debt, physical and mental, owed to either parent is thus
recorded:--
Physically, I am the son of my mother so completely--even
down to peculiar movements of the hands, which made their
appearance in me as I reached the age she had when I noticed
them--that I can hardly find any trace of my father in myself,
except an inborn faculty for drawing, which, unfortunately
in my case, has never been cultivated; a hot temper, and
that amount of tenacity of purpose which unfriendly observers
sometimes call obstinacy.
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