Note 9 — Chapter I · THE NEEDS OF ADOLESCENCE
Reading edition
More recently still the world has been afforded a glance into the inner history of a life destined to noble uses and high achievements. In the meridian of his fame Professor Huxley wrote thus to Charles Kingsley: “Kicked into the world a boy without guide or training, or with worse than none, I confess to my shame that few men have drunk deeper of all kinds of sin than I. Happily my course was arrested in time—before I had earned absolute destruction—and for long years I have been slowly and painfully climbing, with many a fall, towards better things.”—Life of Professor Huxley, vol. 1, p. 220.