Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/228

 educational, and social questions. He is far too sensible of the gravity of the existing evils not to part company with the enthusiasts who believe in hasty panaceas and manufacture them out of fine phrases. To convert an amiable sentiment into a maxim of universal validity, to override facts and refuse to listen to experience, to 'drive fast,' like his Irish carman, without asking where you are going, was of course contrary to all his convictions. But the deep and generous interest in all well-directed efforts at alleviation is equally conspicuous. He was not an indiscriminate philanthropist; he hated a rogue and did not love a fool; and he held that both genera were pretty numerous. But he was a most heartily loyal citizen; doing manfully the duties which came in his way and declining no fair demand upon his cooperation. And the secret is given in the phrase about love. There is, for obvious and sufficient reasons, little direct account of Huxley's domestic life, and the allusions to his private happiness suggest more than could find overt expression. Yet the book cannot be read without a pervading impression of the life which lay behind his manifold successes and official activities. Like Wordsworth's 'happy warrior,' he was one who,