The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

by George John Romanes; Ethel Duncan Romanes

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by Francis Darwin, vol. i. p. iii.

[38] Miss M. M. Paget.

[39] The friend referred to on [p. 178].

[40] It should be explained that the writer of this memoir is responsible for the Journal, but as it was kept for the benefit of both husband and wife a few extracts are given.

[41] The answer is the word six.

[42] A moor taken in addition to the low ground shooting of Geanies.

[43] Mr. F. Balfour was killed on the Aiguille Blanche de Peuteret, July 1882.

[44] Mr. Browning told the same story of the Carlyles at this party which Mrs. Ritchie narrates in Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning, pp. 198, 199.

[45] The nom de plume adopted in writing Candid Examination of Theism.

[46] See sonnets, The Bible of Amiens, and Christ Church, Oxford.

[47] See Nature, January 25, 1883.

[48] Mr. Romanes remarked à propos of Pfleiderer's lecture that St. Paul seemed to be a very hard nut for the lecturer to crack.

[49] Dr. King.

[50] Through the kindness of Lord Rosebery.

[51] One of Mr. Romanes' numerous pet names.

[52] This is in allusion to a minister of a small country parish in Scotland, who prayed that there might be at this time, on account of this parish, 'a very great commotion among the angels.'

[53] Of Germany.

[54] His brother was ill.

[55] An old nurse.

[56] Mr. Aubrey Moore reviewed Mental Evolution in Man in the Guardian.

[57] I have not been able to discover any answer to these.

[58] Nature, vol. xvii. p. 168.

[59] Nature, vol. xxxvi. p. 273.

[60] Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 630.

[61] C. Logan, Esq., W.S., who had married Mr. Romanes' cousin.

[62] p.s.—physiological selection; s.s.—sexual selection; n.s.—natural selection.

[63] Of Mr. Darwin.

[64] Mr. F. Darwin had pointed out some erroneous conclusions in a projected scientific paper.

[65] Darwinism, by Alfred Russell Wallace.

[66] Evolution and Religious Thought.

[67] Fac. Ment. des Anim. tom. ii. p. 207.

---

[CHAPTER IV]
OXFORD

Life had run very smoothly during these years from 1879 to 1890, only now and then fits of gout had shaken the belief Mr. Romanes had hitherto felt in his own strength, in his possession of perfect health.

But about the end of 1889 other signs of ill-health appeared in the shape of severe headaches; he began to weary of London and the distractions of London life.

By degrees his thoughts and inclinations turned strongly in the direction of Oxford. Oxford seemed to satisfy every wish. The beautiful city gratified his poetic sense; there were old friends already there to welcome him, and there seemed abundance of appliances and of facilities for scientific work.

Also the ease with which he could get into the country, the opportunities for constant exercise, the freedom he would obtain from councils and committees, were tempting. A beautiful old house opposite Christ Church was to be had, and this finally determined him. He fell absolutely in love with Oxford, and brief as his connection with her was to be, the University has had few more loyal sons, nor has she ever exercised more complete influence over any who have fallen under her sway.

It is surprising, as one looks back on the Oxford years, to realise how short a time Mr. Romanes spent there, and yet it is impossible not to realise also for how much that time counted in his life.

Many influences were working in him, a ripening judgment, a growth of character, a deepening sense of the inadequacy of scientific research, philosophical speculation, and artistic pleasures to fill 'the vacuum in the soul of man which nothing can fill save faith in God.'[68] And now Oxford, with all the beauty still left to her, with all the associations which haunt her, with all the extraordinary witching spell which she knows so well how to exercise—Oxford, the home of 'lost causes' and also of forward movements, Oxford came to be for four brief years his home.

1890 opened with the death of Mr. Aubrey Moore. Only a very few weeks before his too early death, Mr. Moore had been present at the Aristotelian Society,[69] and had heard the joint papers contributed by Professor Alexander, the Rev. S. Gildea, and Mr. Romanes on the 'Evidences of Design in Nature.'

Here, again, Mr. Romanes showed how far he had receded from the materialistic point of view. In his paper he quoted passages from Aubrey Moore's essay in 'Lux Mundi' (just published), and says:

Yet once more, it may be argued, as it has been argued by a member of this Society in a recently-published essay—and this an essay of such high ability that in my opinion it must be ranked among the very few of the very greatest achievements in the department of literature to which it belongs—it may, I say, be argued, as it recently has been argued by the Rev. Aubrey Moore, that 'the counterpart of the theological belief in the unity and omnipresence of God is the scientific belief in the unity of nature and the reign of law'; that 'the evolution which was at first supposed to have destroyed teleology is found to be more saturated with teleology than the view which it superseded'; that 'it is a great gain to have eliminated chance, to find science declaring that there must be a reason for everything, even when we cannot hazard a conjecture as to what the reason is'; that 'it seems as if in the providence of God the mission of modern science was to bring home to our unmetaphysical ways of thinking the great truth of the Divine immanence in creation, which is not less essential to the Christian idea of God than to the philosophical view of nature.' But on the opposite side it may be represented—as, indeed, Mr. Aubrey Moore himself expressly allows—that all these deductions are valid only on the preformed supposition, or belief, 'that God is, and that He is the rewarder of such as diligently seek Him.' Granting, as Mr. Aubrey Moore insists, that a precisely analogous supposition, or belief, is required for the successful study of nature—viz. 'that it is, and that it is a rational (? orderly) whole which reason can interpret,' still, where the question is as to the existence of God, or the fact of design, it constitutes no final answer to show that all these deductions would logically follow if such an answer were yielded in the affirmative. All that these deductions amount to is an argument that there is nothing in the constitution of nature inimical to the hypothesis of design: beyond this they do not yield any independent verification of that hypothesis. Innumerable, indeed, are the evidences of design in nature if once a designer be supposed; but, apart from any such antecedent supposition, we are without any means of gauging the validity of such evidence as is presented. And the reason of this is, that we are without any means of ascertaining what it is that lies behind, and is itself the cause of, the uniformity of nature. In other words, we do not know, and cannot discover, what is the nature of natural causation.

Nevertheless, I think it is a distinct gain, both to the philosophy and the theology of our age, that science has reduced the great and old-standing question of Design in Nature to this comparatively narrow issue. Therefore, I have directed the purpose of this paper to showing that, in view of the issue to which science has reduced this question, it cannot be answered on the lower plane of argument which Mr. Alexander has chosen. All that has been effected by our recent discovery of a particular case of causality in the selection principle is to throw back the question of design, in all the still outstanding provinces of Nature, to the question—What is the nature of natural causation? Or, again, to quote Mr. Aubrey Moore, 'Darwinism has conferred upon philosophy and religion an inestimable benefit by showing us that we must choose between two alternatives: either God is everywhere present in Nature, or He is nowhere.' This, I apprehend, puts the issue into as small a number of words as it well can be put. And whether God is everywhere or nowhere depends on what is the nature of natural causation. Is this intelligent or unintelligent? Is it the mode in which a Divine Being is everywhere simultaneously and eternally operating; or is it but the practical expression of what we understand by a mechanical necessity? In short, is it original or derived—final, and therefore inexplicable, because self-existing; or is it the effect of a higher cause in the existence of a disposing Mind?

Although I cannot wait to argue this, the ultimate question which we have met to consider, I may briefly state my own view with regard to it. This is the same view that the originator of the doctrine of natural selection himself used habitually to express to me in conversation—viz. to use his own words, 'I have long ago come to the conclusion that it is a question far beyond the reach of the human mind.' Such, of course, is the position of pure agnosticism.

At the end of this paper, Mr. Aubrey Moore remarked that he agreed with all Mr. Alexander's arguments, but disagreed with all his conclusions, and that he disagreed with all Mr. Gildea's arguments but agreed with his conclusions; and as for Mr. Romanes, he could only leave him out, after the kind and flattering terms in which he had spoken of the essay in 'Lux Mundi.' At the end of his little speech he said aside to a friend, 'What a fellow Romanes is! "Lux Mundi" has been out about three weeks, and he knows all about it.'

The friends are lying almost side by side in Holywell,[70] and it is impossible not to feel that their deaths have left places hard to fill. About Aubrey Moore, Mr. Romanes wrote some touching words in the 'Guardian' (he was never afraid to express his admiration, to wear his heart upon his sleeve). The little notice has now been reprinted with two others as a Preface to the volume of Mr. Moore's Essays 'Science and the Faith.'

To Professor Poulton.

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: January 27, 1890.

My dear Poulton,—Many thanks for your letter, with its very clear and cogent reasoning. But I am not sure that the latter does not hit Weismann harder than it hits me. For the cases you have in view are those where very recently acquired characters are concerned; and where, therefore, according to my views, 'the force of heredity' is weak and thus quickly 'worn out.' In such cases (as I say in the last passages of enclosed, which I return for you to hand me on Friday) 'cessation will (quickly) ensure the reduction of an unused organ below fifty per cent, of its original size, and so on down to zero; but this it does because it is now assisted by another and co-operating principle—viz. the eventual failure of heredity.'

Now it is just this co-operating principle that Weismann is debarred from recognising by his dogma about 'stability of germ-plasm.' And it is a principle that must act the more energetically (i.e. 'quickly') the shorter the time since the now degenerating organ was originally acquired. In the 'Nature' articles I was speaking of 'rudimentary organs' which in Darwin's sense are very old heirlooms. All this to make you reconsider whether there is any disagreement between us upon this point.

It is, indeed, a terrible thing about Aubrey Moore, and also a loss to Darwinism on its popular side.

G. J. R.

February 16, 1890.

After receiving your letter this day a month ago, it occurred to me that I had better write an article in 'Nature' on Panmixia, pointing out the resemblances and the differences between Weismann's statement of the principle and mine. Shortly after sending it in, Weismann's answer to Vines appeared, and from this it seems that he has modified his views upon the subject. For while in his essays he says that 'the complete disappearance of a rudimentary organ can only take place by the operation of natural selection' (i.e. reversal of selection through economy, &c.), in 'Nature' he says, 'Organs no longer in use become rudimentary, and must finally disappear, solely by Panmixia.' Thus, the same facts are attributed at one time 'only' to the presence of selection, and at another time 'solely' to its absence.

Now, the latter view seems exactly the same as mine, if it means (as I suppose it must) that the cessation of selection ultimately leads to a failure of heredity. (How about stability of germ-plasm here?) The time during which the force of heredity will persist, when thus merely left to itself, will vary with the original strength of this force, which, in turn, will presumably vary with the length of time that the organ has previously been inherited. Thus, differences of merely specific value (to which you allude in your letter) will quickly disappear under cessation of selection, while 'vestiges' of class value are long-enduring. The point to be clear about is that the cessation of selection (in my view) entails two consequences, which are quite distinct. First, a comparatively small amount of reduction due to promiscuous variability round an average which, however, will be a continuously sinking average if the cessation is assisted by a reversal of selection; and second, later on, a failure of the form of heredity itself.

Touching the first of the two consequences you say that 'variations below or away from the standard would not be balanced by those above, because the standard was reached by the selection of such an extremely minute fraction of all variations which occurred.' But can variations in the matter of increase or decrease take place in more than two directions, up or down, smaller and larger, better or worse? (Read Wallace, 'Darwinism,' pp. 143-4.)

I write this in view of the lecture you say you are going to give, because I do not know when 'Nature' will bring out my article.

March 20, 1890.

It might perhaps be well for you to read the type-written reply which I have prepared to Wallace's criticism on 'physiological selection.' But this is for you to consider. He has fallen into some errors of great carelessness, not only with regard to my paper, but also to that of Mr. Gulick, whose theory of 'segregate fecundity' is the same as mine. On this account I am able to upset the whole criticism, and, bottom upwards, to show that it really supports the theory.

I see 'Nature' of this week contains my letter on Panmixia, and hope it will define in your and other minds the outs and ins of the matter.

Please return the enclosed, which I send as a fact that may interest you.

To Professor J. C. Ewart.

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: April 27, 1890.

As Ethel has already told you, I believe, we have taken a three years' lease of a charming old house, and let this one for a corresponding period. It is a very old house in Oxford, having been built by Cardinal Wolsey. It is immediately opposite Tom Tower of Christ Church, and full of old oak—walls, floors, and ceilings of the principal rooms being nothing else.

I do wish you could come up before we begin operations, to give us the benefit of your advice how so splendid an opportunity in the way of decoration should be utilised. We have to get out of this house, with all our furniture, on or before May 20. The children and servants will then go to Geanies, while my wife and I will go to Oxford to begin the decorations.

I am preparing my lectures on Darwinism for the press, so that they may be ready for publication on the last day of my course at Edinburgh in November. I suppose I have your permission to reproduce your R.S. pictures of electric organs? Also, could you send me for a day or two Haddon's book on Embryology?

I have just heard that Charles Lister (whom I think you met at Geanies) has died of fever in Brazil, where he was zoologising.

Yours ever sincerely,

Geo. J. Romanes.

94 ST. ALDATE'S

The move was made from London to Oxford in May 1890. Mr. Romanes incorporated with the University and became a member of Christ Church. This connection with 'the House' was a great pleasure to him.

For a little while during the early summer of 1890 Mr. Romanes was alone in Oxford, and he writes:

To Mrs. Romanes.

I called to-day on Mr. Dodgson, to sign my name in the Common Room, and signed my name in the book where the signatures go back to the foundation of the House. It is certainly the best thing I could have done to join Christ Church, and I am enjoying this return to my undergraduate days as something quite novel. Yesterday Liddon[71] graced the high table with his company. He was particularly gracious to me, remembering all about our meeting years ago, and hoping to be allowed to have the pleasure of calling upon us when we were settled in the 'almshouse.'[72] After dinner in the Common Room, seeing that the party was both elderly and reverend, all the other six being parsons, I started what seemed to me a suitable game, viz. who could best 'card wool' in opposite directions, or turn the right hand round and round one way, while at the same time turning the left hand round and round the other way. This innocent occupation at once became very popular—the Canon in particular being greatly interested in the peculiar difficulty which it presents. For my own part, I much enjoyed the spectacle of all these dons winding their hands about, and this enjoyment reached its climax when Dr. Liddon ended by tilting his glass of claret off the table into his lap.

But there is a good deal of fun from behind his serious exterior, and he enjoyed this little catastrophe as much as the rest of us. So you see that the snares and temptations of University life do not dangerously assail your husband at the high table of Christ Church.

Yesterday we had our physiological picnic, starting in five boats, and taking tea on the river-bank near the old farmhouse. I took supper with the Sandersons, who had a party. The Victor Horsleys were at the picnic, and I have arranged that they will pay us a visit in October.

It is very jolly living in this house, but it is well we are both good sleepers, the noise of traffic is so great, even the foot-passengers sound like burglars.

But this will not affect the children in the other wing, and as for me, I could sleep if the carriages were driving through the rooms, with the burglars to boot.

I have only time to write a very few lines, as I am now momentarily expecting to be called on to give my exposition before the Physiological Society,[73] which has mustered in considerable force, and is now being regaled by Horsley[74] and Gotch[75] while I am watching my plants which are coming on next.

The dinner at Ch. Ch. yesterday was most enjoyable, though there were only four others besides myself at the high table. We had turtle soup and very good wine; is that good for gout?

St. Aldate's: July 1, 1890.

I have just come back from dinner. My next neighbour to-night was Liddon, and we had a long talk on the ethics of suicide regarded from the pre-Christian or purely 'secular' point of view.

I also improved the occasion in the interests of ——. It was clearly a new light to Liddon that —— should be so highly thought of by a man of science, and he appeared to have determined there and then to exert himself in getting a more suitable berth for 'a man now so greatly needed in the Church.'

Oxford.

Two bits of news. Dunstan[76] has a son and Liddon is seriously ill. Dr. John Ogle came yesterday afternoon from town to see him, and dined with us. There is great pain in the neck.

I lunched with the Sandersons, or rather with Mrs. Sanderson, as the Professor did not leave his room, but he is getting on very well.

Last night after dinner I looked in at the Poultons, and found them entertaining two Natural Science young ladies from Somerville Hall. A very agreeable party. Huxley is expected here this week. His article on 'Lux Mundi' is very characteristic.[77]

It would be very enjoyable to go with you to Ober Ammergau, but I am sure I ought not. First, I should not enjoy it half so much as you; second, it would double the expense; third, it would run away with all the time I want to give to the book. So in this case what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.

I wish I had some jokes to treasure up, but Oxford is not a joke-yielding place at present; Geanies must be jubilation itself compared with Oxford now.

I am the sole occupant of the laboratory as of the house. But I rather enjoy the exclusive privilege of my own company, save so far as it is relieved by guinea-pigs. I have written a letter to 'Nature' which will furnish a little joke for you on Friday next.

I am sorry to hear poor old Parker[78] is dead. You did not know him, but he was a real good fellow, and hearty friend to me.

I enjoyed my three days in London very much. Went twice to the theatre, and one of the plays was 'Judah.' Mr. H. A. Jones gave me a box. Saw a great deal of the Pollocks; met Scott,[79] who asked me to let him put me up for Royal Society Club; played chess with G. R. Turner.

I have now got to work on my plants and guinea-pigs.

To Professor Poulton.

Geanies, Ross-shire, N.B.: July 16, 1890.

My dear Poulton,—I went to the tennis ground yesterday week, but, as I expected, on account of the rain, found nobody there.

I now write to ask you if you would have any objection to my borrowing with acknowledgment figures from your book for mine, supposing the publishers also consent. In particular figs. 1, 2, 6, 10, 40, and 41.

Having now read the book,[80] I may say how greatly it has delighted me. The whole is a wonderful story, and I congratulate you on the large share which you have had in adding to this chapter of Darwinism.

There is only one point I am not quite clear about, viz. pp. 213-215. It is doubtless an advantage to the parasites that the caterpillars should warn them off as having been already 'occupied.' But would not this be rather a disadvantage to the caterpillars—i.e. to their species? For in this way, it seems to me, a greater number of caterpillars would become infested than would be the case in the absence of such warning. Or is there any point about it which I do not understand?

When is your next book coming out? I should like you to read my reply to Wallace before it does. Also my re-statement of physiological selection, with discussion on the principles of Segregation and Divergence. I hope the whole will be in type before November. Can you wait till then, or shall I send type-written MSS.?

Yours very sincerely,

George J. Romanes.

P.S.—Talking about hon. degrees the last time I saw you reminded me—but something again put it out of my head—that I had been wondering why Oxford or Cambridge does not offer one to F. Galton. Could you start a movement in that direction?...

I am getting so convinced about physiological selection, that I do not care what is said at random, or without understanding the theory.

Later in the autumn he writes:

To Mrs. Romanes.

I hope to find letters from Ober Ammergau when I return to Geanies, with a dozen bottles of sulphur water and several pounds of heather honey. Went yesterday to see a waterfall, which was wonderfully beautiful; on the way back met a pony with half a trap, and afterwards came on the other half with its previous occupants, Lord and Lady ——, cut about the face, but not seriously hurt. There is an awful row going on here in the Free Kirk, which bids fair to end in bloodshed locally, if not disruption generally.

I am so glad you do not repent going, and am longing to hear what you think of the play. I took Ethel and Ernest partridge-shooting, and had tea outside. The new hound, 'Dart,' has arrived. He is beautiful, and as gentle as a lamb with the children. This threw us off our guard, and at tea there was a horrible scene, ending in the murder of Sharpe.[81] The latter barked at him, and five minutes afterwards was a mangled misery. Have returned Dart with a civil note, for the sake of Norah and Jack,[82] the latter having only been saved by heroic measures on the part of Mytsie.

Later in the autumn he wrote:

To Mrs. Henry Pollock.

Geanies: October 9, 1890.

My dear Mentor,—The lyric is certainly very pretty, but I am still—and much—more touched by the unrhymed, and perhaps unconscious, poetry that accompanies it. We have, indeed, many associations with Geanies in common;[83] and as neither the joys nor the sorrows of them can ever return into our lives as they were when they arose, it is perhaps better that they should be kept in our memories as they now are, without being overlaid by future experiences in the same moods and the same cliffs by the same sea. 'The water that has passed' has been beautiful, even in its sadness; and however long the wheel of life may still have to go, I do not think it could have done better work for any of us than during the years that it has gone at Geanies.

With my philosophic love to both of you, ever the same,

Geo. J. Romanes.

My very dear Mentor,—You are quite too kind to me. The touching little present has just arrived, and I am smoking it now. It is just the kind that I like best. I wonder whether the vendor thought it was for yourself? Very many thanks.

Ethel sends her love, and tells me to ask you whether you want a copy of the photo group, where you do not look like a Mentor.

I enclose payment for the pipe in the form of sonnets—although I am sure they are not so sweet—and remain, with love to Marion,

Ever yours most sincerely,

Geo. J. Romanes.

This autumn Mr. Romanes delivered the last of his Edinburgh course of lectures. Giving the lectures had been a real pleasure, and he liked his Scotch students, who on their side were keenly appreciative and intelligent.

He was alone at Geanies for a few days before leaving for Edinburgh, and a letter written at this time shows for the first time a foreboding of failing health; but when the headaches left him the foreboding vanished, and there was no real idea of serious mischief.

To his Wife.

Geanies: November 1890.

I really have three of your dear letters to answer. I did not write yesterday. I have had one continuous headache; it is now nearly away, but the matter is getting serious, and I have written to Edward,[84] to send the 'home trainer' to Oxford, so that I may lose no time in giving his cure (exercise) a trial.

Don't get low about me; I begin to doubt if these headaches are due to gout at all, and somehow or other I shall find a means of preventing them.

I am sorry for myself, my work, and most of all for you; but we must take illness as it comes, and be glad it is no worse.

Geanies: October 31.

I will not disappoint you about the sonnet, which you expect to be in the vein of 'Weltschmerz,' and therefore send you the first of the series which I wrote in the small hours, after reading your favourite Psalm.[85] There was only one verse that remained appropriate to me, so I took it as a text.

The principal thing that has happened to-day is my having seen on the shore a sea otter. It was lying on a rock, and I came upon it at such close quarters I could have hit it with a stone. But it was so quick that I had not even time to fire my gun.

I may return the compliment as to letters. I did not intend to send the sonnet even to you when I wrote it, but afterwards thought I ought to have no secrets.

Fritz[86] and Ernest came out shooting. I am all right as to hitting;[87] and my head is perfectly well. Jack[88] has been very Jackish. I told him we were all going to leave Geanies. He said, 'Geanies belongs to us.' I answered, 'No, it belongs to the Murrays.' 'Part of it belongs to me,' he continued. 'How is that?' said I. 'Because I was born here.' What would Victor Horsley say to this for early appreciation of rights conferred by birth?

Ernest and Gerald are very happy. I allow them to play with the fire when they are with me, and this I find to be very popular.

To Mrs. Romanes.

Edinburgh: November 23, 1890.

My lectures are now concluded, and I took an affectionate farewell of the class amid much enthusiasm on their side.

There is no news to give. I play chess with Mrs. Butcher and read MSS. which Professor Butcher lends me of his own; pay many calls, have sundry talks with professors that come to dine with Ewart, and so on.

Yesterday we had here what at Cambridge used to be called a 'Perpendicular,' twenty students to supper. Mrs. Butcher and Miss Trench came in to help to entertain them; the latter sang Irish songs.

I am going to give an additional lecture to the class on the controversy in 'Nature.'[89]

I send you a report of my lecture, that you may see how orthodox I was. Sellar[90] was at the lecture, and told me that I reminded him of some professor at St. Andrews, who had told him as a fact that he (the St. Andrews professor) always made a point of alluding to Providence in an introductory lecture, and afterwards 'threw him aside!'

The sonnet alluded to in one of the letters (p. 265) is so beautiful that it is inserted here. It shows better than any words could do the attitude of George Romanes' mind. Profoundly sincere, anxious, almost unduly anxious, to give no indulgence to his own longings, to state to himself and to others unsparingly, unflinchingly, what appeared to him the as yet irrefutable arguments against the Faith, when he was alone he relaxed and poured out his inmost heart.

'I ask not for Thy love, O Lord: the days

Can never come when anguish shall atone.

Enough for me were but Thy pity shown,

To me as to the stricken sheep that strays,

With ceaseless cry for unforgotten ways—

O lead me back to pastures I have known,

Or find me in the wilderness alone,

And slay me, as the hand of mercy slays.

I ask not for Thy love; nor e'en so much

As for a hope on Thy dear breast to lie;

But be Thou still my shepherd—still with such

Compassion as may melt to such a cry;

That so I hear Thy feet, and feel Thy touch,

And dimly see Thy face ere yet I die.'

In November Mr. Romanes came formally into residence, and at first nothing could have been happier than his Oxford life.

He simply revelled in the facilities for work which the splendidly equipped laboratories afforded, and he once said, 'that the laboratory alone had made the move from London to Oxford worth while!'

He set to work on his book, 'Darwin, and after Darwin,' and on many experiments bearing on Professor Weismann's theories and on some other points.

He much wished to see established in Oxford what M. Giard has called an Institut transformiste, and wrote to many leading men of science on the subject. As yet the idea has come to nothing, but possibly it may be revived.

January 22, 1891.

My dear Poulton,—I am very sorry that, being already engaged for to-morrow, I cannot attend the meeting. But I should like to join the Society.[91] Only, please, postpone any suggestion about lecturing, as this term I shall be dreadfully busy, between the book and the experiments. H. has certainly been very successful over a very difficult experiment. I tried it in an elaborate way. But I lacked assistance for the mechanical performance, and so intended to do it here this term. Now I am saved the trouble, but have gained experience. This prevents me from regarding H.'s result as final, although, as you say, valuable. My scepticism is founded on a queer freak of heredity, which my own work showed me; but as I think I spoke too much about the experiments I was trying, in future I shall adopt Weismann's method of silence before publication.

Yours ever,

Geo. J. Romanes.

About this time Mr. Romanes was much interested in a scheme for promoting the establishment of a garden or farm for the purpose of studying questions of hereditary transmission, or heredity. His object was to afford facilities which at present do not exist for observing the modifications produced in animals and plants by subjecting them during long periods and in successive generations to suitable external conditions, and for testing the transmissibility of the modifications so produced. He was anxious that such an Institution should be founded in connection with one of the Universities, and with this view, circulated the following memorandum.

'AN INSTITUT TRANSFORMISTE.'

In an English translation of a lecture which was recently delivered by M. Giard, as Professor of Evolutionary Biology in France, there occurs the following passage:

'If evolutionists must content themselves in most cases with experiments carried on in nature, or those of breeders, instead of applying themselves to verifications made with all the rigour of modern scientific precision, is it not because of the deplorable insufficiency of our laboratories? It is astonishing that in no country, not even where science is held in greatest honour, does there yet exist an Institut transformiste devoted to the long and costly experiments now indispensable for the progress of evolutionary biology.'

That an institution of the kind in question would tend to promote the solution of problems in 'evolutionary biology,' it seems needless to argue. Many of the most desirable experiments in heredity and variation, for example, require such prolonged time and such constant attention, that it is practically impossible for individual workers to undertake them; and, therefore, as M. Giard observes, they have never been undertaken. But if there were an Institut transformiste to which material might be sent from any part of the world, with directions as to its treatment, biologists of all countries would be furnished with an opportunity of experimentally testing any ideas which might occur to them in regard to these or kindred matters.

Again, it seems needless to remark that England ought to be regarded as the natural territory of an establishment of this character; that the establishment itself should be situated in the vicinity of others which are already devoted to the study of morphology and physiology; and that sufficient land should belong to the Institut to admit of plots of ground being set apart for researches on plants, as well as buildings for the accommodation of animals.

In order to satisfy all these conditions, the Institut ought to be established either in Oxford or Cambridge; and at least, one skilled naturalist, one competent gardener, and one trustworthy keeper ought to be resident. This would involve an annual expenditure of between 300l. and 400l. But the capital sum which would have to be sunk in the purchase of land and the erection of buildings would not be considerable; because, in the first instance, at all events, two or three acres of ground would probably be sufficient; while the animal houses would be chiefly—if not exclusively—required for the accommodation of small mammalia, birds, insects, and aquatic organisms.

Nevertheless, seeing that an initial expenditure of at least 1,000l. would be needed for the purposes just mentioned, as well as an annual income of at least 400l., and seeing that even this much money is not likely to be forthcoming for objects of a purely scientific nature, the scheme on behalf of which we solicit your opinion is the following.

From inquiries which we have made here, we think it is probable that the University would take up the matter, or, at any rate, render important assistance thereto, if the Hebdomadal Council were satisfied as to the desirability of the project from a scientific point of view. It is on this account that we have ventured to address you upon the subject. The appended memorial is being sent, together with this circular letter, to all the other leading biologists in this country; and if you could see your way to signing the former, you would render additional weight to the body of authoritative opinion which it will eventually convey to the University.

One of the experiments Mr. Romanes tried in the summers of 1891-93 was as to whether animals completely isolated would reproduce the real sounds natural to their kind. In other words, whether these vocal sounds were due to imitation. Through the kindness of Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Romanes got the permission of the Trinity Brethren to try these experiments on lighthouses situated on lonely islands or rocks; he selected puppies, chickens, &c., but the results were not decisive. The puppies barked and the young cocks crowed, but Mr. Romanes was not able entirely to establish to his own satisfaction that the isolation had been complete.

Experiments were also carried on bearing on Heliotropism and on Seed Germination. Of these mention will be made later.

In the spring of 1891, he paid a visit to Paris and saw M. Pasteur and his laboratory, and also M. Brown-Séquard, in whose work he was specially interested.

And, apart from his work, Oxford and Oxford life were great sources of enjoyment. He made many new friends, and keenly enjoyed the institution, so characteristic of Oxford, of 'walks.'

Intimacies seemed to grow up quickly, and he often spoke of the extreme kindliness, the 'pleasantness' which marked Oxford society.

Of all the friends made in these four years, Mr. Romanes undoubtedly was most drawn to the Rev. Charles Gore.

It is very difficult, very often misleading and even impertinent to speak of what one man owes to another in the way of direct or indirect intellectual or spiritual help. But those few persons who really watched and could see the workings of George Romanes' mind, saw that these Oxford years were, even before the first beginnings of fatal illness, years of rapid growth in what perhaps may be termed spiritual perception.

In 1891 Mr. Gore's famous Bampton Lectures were preached. Mr. Romanes heard them all, and was intensely interested by them; he wrote many notes on them for his own private use, notes by no means always in agreement with them, and in his 'Thoughts on Religion' he refers to them.

Many of his older friends were clergymen, and he was once much amused by hearing that a scientific friend in London had said, 'How on earth will Romanes stand the clerical atmosphere of Oxford?' Another time, a very eminent scientific man asked him his opinion of Liberal High Churchmen, 'Do you really think these people believe what they say?' to which Mr. Romanes replied that he knew several pretty intimately, and he was sure they would all go to the stake on behalf of their Faith.

In the spring of 1891 Mr. Romanes was elected by the committee a member of the Athenæum Club. The Journal notes:

Pleasant dinners at Merton, Keble, &c. Visit from the Gills,[92] which we much enjoyed. Lord and Lady Compton, from the 6th to the 8th of June. He delighted us with his magnificent singing.

This summer, for the first time, Scotland and shooting were given up, and Mr. Romanes, accompanied by his wife and daughter, tried what the Engadine would do for his incessant headaches.

He enjoyed this tour, especially three weeks at Tarasp, in the lower Engadine, where he met his old friend Professor Joachim and also Professor Victor Carus. On the way back the Romanes stayed with Mr. H. Graham, M.P., at his lovely country home near Heidelberg, enjoying themselves much, but failing to see the famous ghost which is said to haunt the place. In the autumn, in spite of often-recurring headaches, he struggled on with his work and lectured in one or two provincial towns.

He says in one of his letters at this time: 'There is much excitement in Oxford to-day over the announcement that Paget is to be the new Dean of Christ Church. Of course we are greatly delighted. As he said to me to-day, 'We may now look forward to being close neighbours for not a few years to come.'

Journal, Nov., Birmingham Festival.—The 'Messiah' and Dvorak's 'Requiem,' Parry's 'Blest Pair of Sirens,' which one never hears too often. Went to Compton Wynyates, a splendid old house of temp. Henry VII. Only Lady Compton at home, but we much enjoyed our little visit. Went up to town and saw the Edmund Gosses and various other old friends. Saw Miss Rehan and her company in their last performance, 'A Last Word.' Poor play, but well acted.

It was during this autumn that Mr. Romanes resolved to found a lectureship at Oxford on the lines of the Rede Lectures at Cambridge, and after consulting various friends, chiefly the present Master of Pembroke,[93] the idea was submitted to the University and the offer was accepted. The preface, which is to be prefixed to the first volume of Lectures, gives the founder's ideas.

Founder's Preface.

The primary object of this Lectureship is to secure a perpetual series of discourses in the University of Oxford under the conditions laid down in the foregoing Statute. But seeing that these conditions are necessarily of a general character, I add the following suggestions with regard to certain matters of detail, in order that, as far as from time to time may seem expedient, the proceedings may be conducted in accordance with my wishes.

(1) I desire that the selection of lecturers be irrespective of nationality, and determined with reference either (a) to general eminence in art, literature, or science, or (b) to special claims for discussing any particular subject of high interest at the time.

(2) I deem it desirable that foreigners, otherwise eligible, should not be disqualified from receiving invitations to lecture merely because they may not be able to do so in English. And, in order to meet such cases, I suggest that the translated addresses should be delivered before the University by some competent reader (to be selected by the Vice-Chancellor) in the presence of their authors.

(3) I further suggest that the same method of delivery should be adopted in cases where age or infirmity would render the voice of the lecturer inaudible, or indistinct, to any portion of his audience. And I hope that neither age nor infirmity, any more than inability to speak the English language, will be deemed a hindrance to the issuing of invitations to the men of high distinction in their several departments. For, on the one hand, in order to have attained such distinction, it must often happen that such men will have attained old age, while, on the other hand, it is of more importance that they should be represented in these decennial volumes than that men of less eminence should be chosen in view of their superiority as lecturers.

G. J. Romanes.

To the great satisfaction of the whole University, Mr. Gladstone most generously consented to give the first lecture, which consent he signified in the following letter:

Grand Hotel. Biarritz: December 18, 1891.

Dear Mr. Romanes,—Until I received your kind letter I reposed undoubtingly in the belief that the Vice-Chancellor had accepted my answer as the answer which best met the case.[94] I thought and think it right, for no one knows my poverty except myself. But Oxford is Oxford, and I think that if she desired me to climb up the spire of Salisbury, I should attempt it, or play the Græculus esuriens in any manner she desired. Your letter opens to me unexpectedly the fact that there is a desire, and that the proposal was not simply a courtesy.

I therefore thankfully and respectfully accept; secretly relying a good deal, as I own, on the fact that there is (if I recollect the V.C.'s letter rightly) a good deal of time before me, and that the chances of intermediate reflection may bring up something to the surface which is not now there, for I own my perplexity continues as to the chance of making any presentation not wholly worthless. But enough of this: and let me thank you very much for the interest you, who have so high a title, have personally taken in bringing me to the front.

We are much delighted with this place; more eminently, I think, a sea place than any other I happen to know.

I am sure, let me add, that you will make my apologies to the Vice-Chancellor; for I am sensible that the altered reply may seem less than respectful to the resident Head of the University.

Believe me, most faithfully yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

It had been arranged that the lectures (which the University, rather against the Founder's wish, decided should be called the 'Romanes Lectures') were to be given in the Trinity Term, but owing to the General Election of 1891, Mr. Gladstone postponed the delivery of his inaugural lecture until October 1892.

Journal, March 1892.—The Comptons have been here for Norman's baptism, which was a strikingly pretty ceremony in cathedral at evening service with the choir. Our Dean and the President of Magdalen, as well as Lady Compton, stood sponsors, so the boy is well provided. The students at St. Hugh's Hall decorated the font, and as the boy's second name is Hugh, he is a special protégé of the little Hall.

April 1.—We spent a week at Malvern, in company with the Walter Hobhouses, and then went on to Denton Manor,[95] where a company of the wise, including Ray Lankester, Professors Poulton and Shadworth Hodgson, and Mr. Sully, were. Also others, including Lady Cecil Scott Montagu, who walked abroad with a divining rod, a real act of courage considering who were among the party.

At Malvern Mr. Romanes wrote a sonnet which, in the light of after years, was a sad prophecy.

MALVERN 1892

'To doze upon a sunny hill in June,

And hear the lullaby that Nature lends;

To drink the cup that sweet contentment blends

With sweetlier love of those whose hearts shall soon

Reverberate with joy, as they attune

Their praise to praises that achievement sends:

This is to feel that bounteous Nature bends

A mother's smile on manhood in its noon.

But when the shadows of the twilight come,

And high Ambition needs must fold his wings,

While voices both of hearts and hills grow dumb,

Can she still bring the smile that now she brings?

Yea, by the memory of brighter things,

I'll trust her in the night that calls me home.'

Journal, May and June 1892.—Had a delightful visit from the Butchers and Mr. H. Graham, later on the Comptons, and Mr. Edmund Gosse, full of witty and wise sayings. Lord Compton sang more divinely than ever, and the Principal of Brasenose played the piano. It was a real musical feast.

Professor Le Conte came to stay here, we had Mr. Gore and one or two others to meet him.

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: June 10, 1892.

My dearest Charlotte,—I received your letter of the 6th inst., together with the pair of slippers; the latter are the very thing that is required when occasion again arises.

Ever since you left we have been having Italian weather, the only objection to which being, that for my taste the sunshine is too continuous.

We have had staying with us Professor Palgrave and his daughter. I am going to take her to the Conversazione of the Royal Society on Wednesday next, as Ethel is going to stay behind for her political work. We have also had Lord Justice Fry, with his wife and daughter, staying with us for two or three days.

I have got a promise from Professor Huxley to give the second Romanes Lecture, provided he is able to do so next year. It will be an interesting occasion if he can, because he has not lectured for the last five or six years.

I am glad you like my book, which is selling off very well; but, as you know, the second volume will be much more interesting.

We are all well, and, with united love to both, I remain yours ever the same,

Geo. J. Romanes.

A new investigation is here described.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: March 27, 1892.

My dear Schäfer,—I think I have found a new ordinal character peculiar to the Primates—viz. a nude condition of the terminal phalanges. This does not occur in any other order of mammals that I have looked at, but in all species of primates from Lemurs to Man, as far, at all events, as I have been able to examine. Now I want to see whether hair-follicles, or vestiges thereof, can be found in the terminal phalanges of any species of the order. So I am making a number of sections of the skin of the backs of the terminal phalanges of fingers and toes, of man (adult and fœtal) apes, monkeys, baboons, and lemurs. Hitherto I cannot detect (nor can Kent) any signs or vestiges of follicles. But I should much like you to look over some of the specimens (a few would be enough), in order to see whether your trained eyes would be also unable to trace any rudiments of follicles. If you would care to do this, of course I should acknowledge my obligations in a paper which I am preparing on the subject.

Yours very truly,

G. J. Romanes.

'Darwin, and after Darwin' appeared in the spring of 1892.

It was a book which was written, so to speak, with the writer's life-blood, it was a great burden on him from the moment he commenced it, and one of his greatest sorrows was his inability to finish it.

It is curious to those who know Mr. Romanes' mind intimately to note the exceeding severity, the almost harsh manner in which he treated the theological questions involved in the doctrines called, for convenience sake, 'Darwinism.' As more and more he found himself yielding on the side of emotion, of moral convictions, inducement, of spiritual need to the relinquished faith, so much the more did he resolve to be utterly true, to face every difficulty, to push no objection aside, to leave nothing unsaid—to be, in fact, absolutely and entirely honest. As a friend after his death, speaking of this very book, said, 'It was his righteousness which made him seem so hard.'

Yet there is a ring of hope of something which will one day turn to faith in the words which end the book:

'Upon the whole, then, it seems to me that such evidence as we have is against rather than in favour of the inference, that if design be operative in animate nature it has reference to animal enjoyment or well-being, as distinguished from animal improvement or evolution. And if this result should be found distasteful to the religious mind—if it be felt that there is no desire to save the evidences of design unless they serve at the same time to testify to the nature of that design as beneficent—I must once more observe that the difficulty thus presented to theism is not a difficulty of modern creation. On the contrary, it has always constituted the fundamental difficulty with which natural theologians have had to contend. The external world appears, in this respect, to be at variance with our moral sense; and when the antagonism is brought home to the religious mind, it must ever be with a shock of terrified surprise. It has been newly brought home to us by the generalisations of Darwin, and therefore, as I said at the beginning, the religious thought of our generation has been more than ever staggered by the question—Where is now thy God? But I have endeavoured to show that the logical standing of the case has not been materially changed; and when this cry of reason pierces the heart of Faith it remains for Faith to answer now, as she always answered before—and answered with that trust which is at once her beauty and her life—Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself.'

June 1892 brought the first warnings of serious illness. One day Mr. Romanes announced at lunch that he noticed a blind spot in one eye. He consulted his friend Mr. Doyne, the well-known oculist, who from the first thought seriously of the case.

He went up to town, and saw various doctors, and had some thoughts of taking a voyage. He was, however, well enough to attend the Conversazione at the Royal Society, and showed some experiments on rabbits and rats which bore on questions of acquired characters. He writes:

To Mrs. Romanes.

I have been thinking of you a great deal, and, with a somewhat literal application of a certain expletive addressed by a fast man to his eyes, am driven to address you through my goggles.

Nettleship has appointed to-morrow morning to see me, so I shall not be able to get home sooner than 6 train. Don't trouble to meet me, as I must take a cab for the rabbits and rats. The latter are now at the Royal Society, where ample space has been provided for their exhibition. The Zoological paper[96] went off very well, and Flower made a very good remark on it, the substance of which I will tell you when we meet, it had not previously occurred to me. Your letter to the Pollocks never reached them, so they had given me up. They were as enthusiastically kind as usual, and very sympathetic about my eyes.

He returned to Oxford, and was persuaded to rest, and not to go to London again to pay a promised visit to Professor Palgrave.

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: June 18, 1892.

My dearest Charlotte,—Your little differences of opinion with regard to the rats are very amusing to me, and I quite see how the matter stands.

I am very glad to hear of your improvement in general health, and also of James' continued vigour. As regards myself I have no very satisfactory account to give. The headaches indeed are not worse—if anything they are better; but the gout is at work on other parts of this vile body, and the latest assault is a very serious one for a man of my pursuits. About ten days ago I found myself partially blind in the right eye—the upper half of the field of vision being totally obliterated. I have seen an Oxford and also a London oculist, who have both examined the eye and pronounce the sudden seizure to be one of serous effusion upon the retina. It seems probable that the impairment of vision will be permanent, and so prevent all operative work where any delicacy is required. The blindness is so complete, that if I look about an inch below the electric light placed at a distance of a very few yards, I am not able to perceive any luminosity. Meanwhile, I have to wear the darkest of possible goggles, and generally to live the life of a blind man. Per contra, this may prove a blessing in disguise, as it compels me to abstain from work for some considerable time to come, and I had been advised to this course on account of the headaches. How I am to spend the six months' rest which is prescribed I have not yet determined. Shooting will be probably out of the question, as I cannot use the left eye in any form of recreation. My idea is rather to go to Egypt and Palestine, to take a voyage to the Cape, or in some other such way to break my usual habits without altogether wasting time.

All the rest of the household are flourishing, and with love to both,

I remain yours ever the same,

George.

In a day or two a second blind spot appeared, and now the doctors took a very serious view of his case. Life and sight alike were threatened, and instant rest and quiet were ordered. For about three weeks he remained in bed, until the extreme pulse tension was reduced, and then it seemed as if hope might be entertained of years of life, if only care were taken about diet, and work, and thought.

Now began the two years of quiet, steadfast, endurance; no one could realise from his quiet manner and cheerful talk how great was the inconvenience caused by the affection of his eyes, no one ever found him anything but unselfish and gentle. The one difficulty was to persuade him not to work, and this was almost impossible. He was almost feverishly anxious to finish his book, to work out experiments he had been planning; and as time went on, and he thought and pondered as he had ever done on the ultimate mysteries of life and being, other books were planned, other courses of reading mapped out.

Just then a letter came from Canon Scott-Holland which much touched the recipient.

Mr. Holland writes:

'I hear sad news of you through Philip Waggett.[97] You have passed under the sorest trial perhaps that could have been laid on your courage, your hopefulness, your peace.

I trust, indeed, that there is much to look for yet of recovered power and renewed work, but, for the moment, there must be anxiety, and the bitter strain of disappointment, and the rough curb of pain. You are assured of the deep sympathy of many warmhearted friends to whom you have always shown most generous kindness, and I venture to rank myself among them. We shall remember you often and anxiously.

It is a tremendous moment when first one is called upon to join the great army of those who suffer.

That vast world of love and pain opens suddenly to admit us one by one within its fortress.

We are afraid to enter into the land, yet you will, I know, feel how high is the call. It is as a trumpet speaking to us, that cries aloud—'It is your turn—endure.' Play your part. As they endured before you, so now, close up the ranks—be patient and strong as they were. Since Christ, this world of pain is no accident untoward or sinister, but a lawful department of life, with experiences, interests, adventures, hopes, delights, secrets of its own. These are all thrown open to us as we pass within the gates—things that we could never learn or know or see, so long as we were well.

God help you to walk through this world now opened to you as through a kingdom, regal, royal, and wide and glorious. My warmest sympathies to your wife.'

The first weeks of illness passed away, the physicians seemed more satisfied with his condition, and he was sent to Carlsbad, and after five weeks there, came the last bit of pleasant foreign travel. He and his wife travelled in the Tyrol and in the Bavarian Highlands, and Mr. Romanes was able to enjoy the glorious scenery with what seemed keener appreciation than ever; he especially took a fancy to Parten Kirchen, in Bavaria, and planned a return to it another year with his children.

He got as far as Meran, and much enjoyed meeting Mr. and Mrs. Lecky (Mr. Lecky's works were among the very few historical books he read with any real pleasure). And on his return, Sir Andrew Clark was encouraging, holding out hopes of a return to health: 'You've made a bid for recovery,' he said in his genial way. It was thought best that Mr. Romanes should spend the winter in a warm climate, and Madeira was chosen.

Then came the first Romanes lecture, which was a great success in every way. Mr. Gladstone called it 'An Academic Sketch,' and nothing could have been a happier inauguration of the series. It was a memorable scene. The Prime Minister in his doctor's robes, the crowded Sheldonian theatre, the eloquent lecture, the inspiring words of which came like a trumpet call to Oxford's sons, ending with her motto, 'Dominus illuminatio mea.'

The few days of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone's visit to Oxford were days of real enjoyment to Mr. Romanes. The Journal notes: 'We had a pleasant luncheon party for the Gladstones and Lord Acton, who was also in Oxford; also a breakfast party on the morning after the lecture, to which, among others, came the Principal of St. Edmund's Hall.[98] I put him next Mr. Gladstone, and the consequence was a Dante talk, to Lady Compton's great satisfaction. Mr. Gladstone's talk was wonderful, and no one would have suspected that he had any political cares whatsoever, or that the Election of 1892 was only just over.'

On the day of the lecture we had a delightful time before lunch. Mary Paget and Lord Compton sang for an hour, and put us in good humour.

It was with real regret that good-bye was said to the illustrious guests, with hopes of future meetings never to be realised.

Mr. Huxley accepted the invitation which the Vice-Chancellor permitted Mr. Romanes to give him privately. The following delightful letter gives his final decision:[99]

Hodeslea, Staveley Road, Eastbourne: November 1, 1892.

My dear Mrs. Romanes,—I have just written to the Vice-Chancellor to say that I hope to meet his disposition any time next May.

My wife is 'larking'—I am sorry to use such a word, but what she is pleased to tell me of her doings leaves me no alternative—in London, whither I go on Monday to fetch her back—in chains, if necessary. But I know, in the matter of being 'taken in and done for' by your hospitable selves, I may, for once, speak for her as much as myself.

Don't ask anybody above the rank of the younger son of a peer, because I shall not be able to go into dinner before him or her, and that part of my dignity is naturally what I prize most.

Would you not like me to come in my P.C.[100] suit? All ablaze with gold, and costing a sum with which I could buy, oh! so many books.

Only if your late experiences should prompt you to instruct your other guests not to contradict me—don't—I rather like it.

Ever yours very truly,

T. H. Huxley.

Bon voyage! You can tell Mr. Jones[101] that I will have him brought before the Privy Council, and fined as in the good old days, if he does not treat you properly.

Then came the departure for Madeira, which was a real trial, for never before had Christmas been spent away from home. But the change seemed to do him much good. Save for occasional days of headache he was very bright and well, and worked at his book and wrote several articles for the 'Contemporary Review' on Professor Weismann's theory. But poetry he could not manage.

To Mrs. Henry Pollock.

Madeira: December 18, 1892.

My dear Mentor,—I fear you must have been thinking that I am either very ill or very heartless not to have written ere this. Yet neither is the case. Ill I assuredly am, but not so much as to have prevented me from sending you a letter for the marriage day. The fact is I have been trying to write a sonnet for that occasion ever since I came out here, and cannot. Since my breakdown in June I have entirely lost the power of poetising; I suppose it will come back if my general health should ever return, but still I did think that such an occasion ought to have inspired me. Nothing further than rhymes, however, would come, so the day passed over without my intended contribution to its memorials.

So, dear Mentor, do not think hardly of me. For indeed both you and Marion have been much in my thoughts; and for you especially I know this time must be one of many and varied feelings of the kind that sink deepest into the heart.[102] So not only my old affection, but a new sympathy, is with you—a sympathy in the joy as in the grief of it.

Ethel will have told you what little has to be told about our uneventful life here. As I have said to all my correspondents, it is the island that Tennyson must have had in view when he wrote his 'Lotus-eaters.' The description is so exact, that I need not write anything in the way of description, if you will only read it.

My headaches are growing less intense, although they still keep wonderfully persistent. I cannot foresee what is likely to happen in the end, as no one seems to know exactly what is the matter with me.

The last mail brought me a letter from the Master of my College at Cambridge, telling me that I had been unanimously elected to fill a vacancy in the list of Honorary Fellows. This seems to me very generous, seeing how I have played the prodigal and squandered my living on endowing the enemy.

Please give my very heartiest love and good wishes to the bride. Take also my Christmas greetings for all three of you, coupled with the congratulations that are so meet, and believe me to remain,

Yours ever affectionately,

Geo. J. Romanes.

To James Romanes, Esq.

Madeira: 1892.

I suppose you will have seen in the newspapers, or have been told by Char.,[103] that Caius College has made me an Honorary Fellow.[104] This is a great pleasure to me, because I have always retained my first love for Cambridge, and yet of late years I have so severed my connection with it. These coals of fire have therefore a heat about them which is all the more gratifying.

To Professor Ewart.

This would be a wonderful place for natural history if I were well enough to knock about.

I get fishermen, however, to bring any marine animals which they know to be rare. There is one fish which I never heard of before, and which seems to me remarkable on account of its curious combinations of character, for in all respects it seems to be a large dog-fish, excepting its teeth, which are those of a shark.

To Professor Poulton.

New Hotel, Madeira: December 2, 1892.

My dear Poulton,—I have now read the correspondence in 'Nature.' It seems to me that —— is quite absurdly 'aggressive,' even supposing that he proves to be right. But I send this to ask you about the grasshopper letter in last week's 'Nature,' just received here. I have noticed the same thing in grasshoppers, but do not remember to have seen any account of the changes of colour, or mechanism thereof, in them. Do you know if it has ever been worked at? If not, I might do so here.

The same question applies to lizards. It seems to me that those here vary their colours to suit those of habitual stations. I remember Eimer read a paper about the lizards in Capri, but forget details. He often alludes to it in his book translated by Cunningham. What are his main results?

G. J. R.

The Cambridge Fellowship was a great pleasure to Mr. Romanes. In the last months of his life he longed eagerly to visit his first University and his own college, and planned visits to Cambridge which, alas, were never paid.

Canon Isaac Taylor was in the same hotel at Madeira, and this considerably relieved the weariness of exile. Mr. Romanes was still full of fun and merriment; the headaches diminished; he played chess interminably, and even took part in a little play given one afternoon by a few people who formed themselves into an 'Oxford Brotherhood,' most of the members having some connection with the University of Oxford.

The members of the brotherhood were supposed to deliver lectures in turn, but the burden chiefly fell on Mr. Romanes. The lecturing, which in this particular case was simply talking, was never any trouble to him, and he used to deliver little impromptu discourses which apparently pleased his friendly audience. Canon Taylor kindly gave a discourse on the Aryans, and displeased one of his audience, a young lady, by remarking at the outset, 'My specimens (alluding to Romanes' scientific lectures) are before me, and I suppose we are all Aryans.' The young lady had imagined she was about to hear a lecture on Church history, and was not pleased at being dubbed an Arian.

Mr. Romanes' letters showed nearly always great brightness and increased feelings of health, although now and then he had 'bad days.'

To James Romanes, Esq.

Madeira: January 1, 1893.

This is the first letter which I write in 1893, and am writing it early in the morning before breakfast. New Year's Day is as glorious in sunshine and azure as all—or nearly all—the others have been since we came. I wish you many returns of them and happy, whether in cloud or sunshine.

January 31, 1893.

Your letter on the 15th has been a great treat to me; it rings true and deep, and the next best thing to having dear ones near is to receive expressions of their dearness.

Besides, I am all alone here, for but a few days, it is true, still the place seems dreary under present circumstances, therefore all you say is opportunely said.

For my own part I have always felt that the two most precious things in life are faith and love, and more and more the older that I grow. Ambition and achievement are a long way behind in my experience, in fact out of the running altogether. The disappointments are many and the prizes few, and by the time they are attained seem small.

The whole thing is vanity and vexation of spirit without faith and love.

Perhaps it is by way of compensation for having lost the former that the latter has been dealt to me in such full measure. I never knew anyone so well off in this respect....

Although I have been very much in the world I have not a single enemy, unless it be the ——, who have entirely dropped out of my life.

On the other hand, I do not know anyone who has so many friends, not merely acquaintances, but men and women who are devoted with an ardent affection....

Now, all this might sound very conceited to anyone who would not understand me as I know you will do. But I have been thinking the matter over in my solitude, and candidly I am wholly unable to account for it. Still, to be further candid, even love is not capable of becoming to me any compensation for the loss of faith....

But it is time for me to go to bed and shut up this egotistic screed to post by to-morrow's mail.

I received a telegram yesterday announcing the arrival in England of my brace of Ethels, and to-morrow I expect the arrival here of Charlotte and Mytsie.[105]...

I forgot about the mesmerism article. You will have seen that the writer rather caved in at the end, so that one cannot well understand how much he himself supposes was genuine and how much imposture.

But quite apart from (this), there is no question in my mind that the facts, even as far as hitherto established, are very perplexing. But on this account there is all the more need for caution. I myself went over the Paris Salpétrière two years ago, and saw the doctors' experiments on a number of girls, who were trotted out for my benefit.

But there was such a lot of hocus pocus with magnets that I was much disappointed. Even if none of the girls were humbugging, I saw nothing that could not be explained by suggestion.

For the doctors made suggestions while performing the very experiments which were designed to exclude suggestion.

To Mrs. Vernon Boys.

New Hotel, Madeira: February 1, 1893.

My dear Marion,—If I have your husband's permission still to call you so—your kind letter has been a great solace to me, after my ineffectual efforts to supply a sonnet for the great occasion. For it shows me that your Laureate is forgiven, and my friend, what that friend has always been. Besides, I am now lonely—as my brace of Ethels has flown away—and therefore your affectionate words are all the more welcome.

This, however, is the last day of my solitude, as Charlotte and Mytsie ought to arrive in a few hours.

And now, having given you all my little news, let me pile up my congratulations as high as words can pile them. I heard all about the wedding from many different sources, and there was but one opinion as to the bride. I will not say what it was, but oh, had I been there to see. It is so so good of you to miss us in the middle of it all. But it may have been telepathy, because I was hard at work on my abortive sonnet all that day.

It is like northern breezes to read your account of all the happy doings you have had on your wedding trip, and it makes me happy to feel that you have made so wise a choice in the greatest event of your life. Long may you live together in the cultivation of domestic bliss, although of course only in the moments snatched from the cultivation of science!

February 2.

Charlotte and Mytsie arrived last night at ten o'clock—twelve hours late. They had the roughest voyage which the boat has ever experienced. Poor Char.[106] is literally more dead than alive. But the weather here is beautiful, and I hope she may soon get to rights again.

With affectionate regards to my mentor, and to yours, I remain, ever the same,

Philosopher.

To James Romanes, Esq.

Madeira: March 8.

Charlotte enjoys this place amazingly, she is always saying, 'Just a very Paradise for James.' I quite agree with her. You liked Nice very much, but Nice is far from being up to this either in regard to sun, flowers, rocks, or mountains. It has certainly done me a lot of good. My headaches are virtually gone, and I can work a little again, which makes all the difference between Heaven and its antipodes.

March 13.

I am glad you are pleased about the lectureship foundation. The principal feature of the scheme is the perpetual publication of the lectures in volumes of ten each through all time, or at least as long as Oxford lasts.

I am better even since I last wrote to you. Even my powers of work have, to a considerable extent, returned. So I am answering H. Spencer's articles on 'Weismannism.'

With warmest love, yours ever the same,

George.

To Mrs. G. J. Romanes.

Madeira.

I got your dear note soon after we went down to the pier to see you start. Through the club telescope I thought I saw you and Fritz. When you got far out I came home. The Taylors joined our table, which is very agreeable. The Canon told me a good joke which came off to-day. Sir 'Gorgias' told the Canon he had bought a second-hand book which he thought Dr. Taylor might find interesting.

The Canon asked what the book was, and the Knight replied it was by a man called Locke, and was all about the Human Understanding.

February 2.

Char., Mytsie, and maid arrived; they had a perfectly frightful passage. All passengers shut down for two days, crockery broken, &c.

S—— presented a large wedding cake for the Sunday tea of the Inner Brotherhood.

February 11.

This is the joyful day.[107] Your telegram was handed to me at lunch, so all the Inner Brotherhood had the benefit. The Canon said you ought to have used the comparative degree, so as to leave me an opportunity of returning the superlative.

What a journey you had, poor dears! It does not seem so certain after all that we should be safe for comfort on a long voyage. Mytsie and Char. had a worse passage than you, the wind was dead against them all the way.

It is indeed shocking about the Dean.[108] I heard it before you did. I will write to him by this mail.

So glad you had such a good concert. If you only knew how I was longing to enjoy it with you....

An adagio movement has now followed the allegro, and I am looking forward to a presto home as a finale.

My news is not much. My cold was very bad from Saturday to Monday, but I slept most of the time straight on. If it were not for my eyes I should be almost as well as ever I was.

I read Walter Hobhouse's child story, and Mrs. —— capped it with another. A little girl she knew asked whether, when she got to heaven, she might 'have a little devil up to play with.' Mytsie's nephew, when three years old, had a much prettier idea. On M. telling him that something had happened before he was born, he said, 'Then that was when I was still in heaven.' 'Yes,' answered M., 'but what was heaven like?' 'Oh, there I played with angels, and there was nothing but Christmas trees.'

Are not the debates first-rate? It seems to me I never read so many good speeches as those of Balfour, Bryce, and Chamberlain. But the measure itself is absurd.

We had a party on board the 'Royal Sovereign' on Tuesday last. It was a dance on deck, and was very pretty. Enormous profusion of flags and flowers all over the ship. I asked one of the midshipmen to dine with us at the 'round table;' he had shown us over one of the ships on a previous day, as I told you, and proved an awfully nice little fellow, curiously like P. N. W.[109] Suffers always horribly from sea-sickness, and gave a dismal account of his life at sea.

By the way, à propos of the B.A. I suppose you have heard that Lord Salisbury is to be President next year at Oxford. You had better be thinking whom to invite as guests, leaving a margin in case —— should redeem his promise. I shall meet him between this and then somewhere and ascertain.

March 12.

There has been a most extraordinary change in the weather. Up to yesterday we had three of the calmest days that have been since I came. The sea was without a ripple, and Char. and I were last night hoping it would be like that when we start, as it would be sure to last till we got home. When, lo and behold, this morning there is by far the highest wind and sea I have yet seen. The spray is flying right over the rocks, once up to where Fritz got over the wall by the bathing-place. Rain in sheets. The 'Drummond Castle' will have an awful time of it. No hope of a letter to-day.

March 16.

Letters, such jolly good gossip that I feel disposed to follow the example of the 'distinguished man' who lived apart from his wife because he so much enjoyed her letters. And yet I am like a hound straining at his leash to get away.

I cannot read what it is that York Powell is going to have designed for us, it looks like 'booky flash.'[110]

... By the time you get this, it will only be another fortnight before you get me, and I believe you will get me in a wonderfully restored state of health.

March 17.

The weather is still the same. Tremendous wind and perpetual squalls of rain, 'the sea and the waves roaring,' also 'men's hearts failing them for fear,' for the occupants of the rooms we used to have never went to bed last night.

This morning an English man-of-war ran in for refuge, but had to run out again before the return salutes had been fired, as her anchors could not hold, and an odd accident happened. At the 18-minute gun from the fort, one of the gunners somehow got in front of the cannon and was blown to atoms. I suppose they were all confused with the wind and the spray.

The waterproof coat you sent me is in great requisition. Moreover it is a source of great amusement to the Inner Brotherhood, as Miss Taylor has discovered in it a close resemblance to a hassock—no, I mean a cassock. She wants me to get a round hat wherewith to 'cap' it when I return to Oxford. All the same, it is the best thing in the way of a waterproof that I have met as yet.

March 19.

I have got Weismann's new book, 'The Germ-Plasm.' It is a much more finished performance than the 'Essays.' In fact, he has evidently been consulting botanists, reading up English literature on the subject, so he has anticipated nearly all the points of my long criticisms. This is a nuisance.

Per contra, since coming here I have heard of no less than three additional cases of cats which have lost their tails afterwards having tailless kittens. I wish to goodness I had been more energetic in getting on with my experiments about this, so I have written to John to get me twelve kittens to meet me on my return. It would be a grand thing to knock down W.'s whole edifice with a cat's tail.

The monotony of life here is becoming intolerable. There is nothing to write about.

You will have seen that Taine is dead. I was just about to write to him, to ask if he would be the Romanes lecturer.

March 21.

Here is an odd thing. I find that Weismann in his new book has discussed all the points raised by Spencer. So Spencer and I have been hammering away at things which W. has already written upon. Luckily, he says about what I anticipated he would say (see my article), but how absurd a fiasco! I have written a postscript to go by the mail, hoping it may arrive in time to be bound up as a separate slip before the issue of April number, explaining that absence from England prevented me from getting W.'s new book until now. But S. ought to have known.

March 22.

I have written to Weismann telling him that Bunting will send him a copy of the 'Cont. Review.'[111]

I have asked W. if he will give the Romanes Lecture some year. Love to you and the chicks. You will have to tell me which is which of the boys.

Unless he has already procured ordinary kittens, tell John[112] to get them either Angora or Persian. They will cost more, but will be much better.

I had a long innings with the doctor to-day; he says I am perfectly sound; believes my headaches are all gastric.

Your last letter just received is such a relief to me. I was just Ernest's age when I nearly died of whooping cough.

The home coming was very bright, and again Mr. Romanes set to work with renewed and, alas, too great vigour. Beyond absolutely refusing invitations to dine out at Oxford, and living as quietly as possible at home, there was no keeping him in order. The following letters show how irrepressible his spirits were whenever a day's health made him hopeful again.

To Mrs. G. J. Romanes.

Athenæum Club: May 10, 1893.

I was very sorry that I could not get home to-day, and hope you will have received my telegram. Everybody was at the Royal Society except Balfour, and I became wearied with congratulations on my improved appearance. I met Moulton,[113] who was awfully nice, and wanted me to dine and sleep at his house some day if I can, in order to talk over 'physiological selection.'

So I asked him to come and hear Huxley. He said he would try.... Galton asked me to join in an investigation of the French calculating boy at his house to-day, so I did. Oliver Lodge was there. The boy was most marvellous.

I am going to the Globe to-night and am very well. After the R.S. last night I went to a party at Lady Tenterden's. Very smart.

Yours ever lovingly,

George.

Journal: May.—Sir A. Clark is fairly encouraging. Dinner at Mrs. Pollock's; met the R. Palgraves and W. Flowers, who have blossomed out into K.C.B.'s since we left.

20th.—The Huxleys' visit has been most delightful. He was most genial and 'mellow,' and his lecture has, of course, aroused great interest. Various people to meet them. Mr. Gore and Professor Froude one day to lunch. Somewhat heterogeneous elements. When the former had gone, Mr. Huxley suddenly awakened to the fact that it was the Principal of the Pusey House whom he had met.

Count and Countess Balzani have been here, and we had an 'historical' dinner for them.

This was the last bit of the old pleasant life which Mr. Romanes had so much enjoyed. He was busy arranging experiments on heliotropism and on the power of germination in dry seeds after precautions had been taken to prevent any ordinary processes of respiration, which were worked up into a Royal Society paper. He writes:

To F. Darwin, Esq.

St. Aldate's, Oxford: June 14.

My dear Darwin,—There has been no hurry about answering my letter because I cannot publish until I shall have ascertained what has already been done upon the subject, and for this purpose I have had to write to Germany. I am greatly obliged to you for the substantial assistance which your letter has given me.

My modus operandi was to give nine different kinds of seeds to Crookes,[114] to place them in one of his ¹/_1000000 atmosphere vacuums for three months last year (viz. February, March, and April). He then left one set undisturbed, whilst the other eight sets were transferred to their respective gases (nine in number), where they remained sealed up for a year. On being planted last month they have all germinated even better than those from the control packets of seeds, which have been in air all the time.

I should have thought beforehand that at any rate the seeds which have been in so high a vacuum for fifteen months would have had any residual air extracted. But I will now try for next year, peeling peas, beans, &c., as you suggest. Do you think it would be well also to soak the seeds for a few hours before sealing in Crookes' tubes?

Do not trouble to answer by letter, as I am going to Cambridge on the 21st inst. for the day, and will then see you if I can find you at home.

I am not exactly 'at work,' as I am not as yet well enough to attempt it at anything like ordinary pressure, but I am certainly better, and much obliged to you for your kind inquiries upon the subject.

With our united kind regards to Mrs. Darwin and yourself,

I remain, yours sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

P.S. My illness has left me half blind, so I write as much as possible by dictation. (What a bull!)

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: June 15.

My dear Dyer,—Many thanks for your letter with enclosures. The letter shows that ——'s opinion has not altered since I last saw him. As I think I told you at the Athenæum, he undertook some two or three years ago on my behalf to raise discussions in the papers, to which he alludes. Since that time he has sent me, I believe, copies of all the numberless letters which have been published in consequence. The result of our inquiry has been to confirm the opinion which he gave me at the first, and also to form my own in the same direction. (See my article in answer to Herbert Spencer in the 'Contemporary Review' for April.[115])

As regards the isolation of species I do not understand why you should suppose that the facts of hybridisation to which you allude should in any way modify my 'belief.' As fully set forth in 'Physiological Selection,' what I maintain is that the origin of species is in all cases due to isolation of some kind, but that only in the case of differential fertility can physo. sel. have been the kind of isolation at work. Therefore, it would be fatal to my views if all species were cross-sterile, because this would prove vastly too much. What the theory of phy. sel. requires is exactly what occurs, viz. cross-sterility between allied species in nearly all cases where species have been differentiated on common areas or identical stations, and more or less complete cross-fertility where they have been differentiated on different (discontinuous) areas, or else prevented from intercrossing by yet some other means of isolation.

I have collected a quantity of evidence in favour of both these otherwise inexplicable correlations. But I should like to know the species of wild fowl which you have found to be hybridisable or cross-fertile, so that I may ascertain whether their natural breeding areas are, or are not, identical. Of course I should expect them not to be.

I have been told to save my eyes as much as possible, and therefore conduct most of my correspondence by dictation. But not being used to this process, I find it even more difficult than before to express my meaning with clearness, so I will tackle with my own hand what you say about Aquilegias.

I have looked up the group, and find that, with the exception of vulgaris (common columbine), all the European species seem to occupy restricted areas, or else well-isolated stations. Also, that the same seems to apply as a very general rule to other species all over the world, for, wherever mountains are concerned, stations are apt to be isolated by difference of altitude, &c.

Now if such be the case with the group in question, the fact of its constituent species being freely hybridisable when artificially brought together is exactly what my theory requires. For the specific differentiation has presumably been effected by geographical (or topographical) isolation, without physiological having had anything to do with it. In fact, as stated over and over again in my original paper, this correlation between geographical isolation and cross-fertility is one of my lines of verification, the other line being the correlation between identical stations and cross-sterility.

Now, as above stated, I have found both these correlations to obtain in a surprisingly general manner.

I wish that, instead of perpetually misunderstanding the theory, you English botanists would help me by pointing out exceptions to these two rules, so that I might specially investigate them. It seems to me that the group you name goes to corroborate the first of them, while all Jordan's work, for instance, uniformly bears out the second. And whatever may be thought about him in other respects, I am not aware that anyone has ever refuted his observations and experiments so far as I am concerned with them.

Yours ever sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: June 22.

Dear Dyer,—I received a letter from —— by the same post that brought yours of the 19th inst. From it I gather that his opinion on the subject of telegony has not changed in any material respect since our inquiry began. His opinion has always been such as you now quote ('atavism' on the one hand, with a small minority of 'dormant fertilisation' cases on the other). His has likewise always been my own view (with the addition of coincidence), and has been corroborated by the result of these inquiries. So I think we are all three pretty well in agreement, because both —— and myself share in your doubts as to the minority of the cases being really due to dormant fertilisation—i.e. not to be ascribed to coincidence or mal-observation. Also, as I said before, I quite agree with you that 'neither view is any help to Herbert Spencer.' In fact, I have somewhat elaborately sought to prove this in my 'Contemporary Review' article for April, and have been in private correspondence with him ever since, but without getting any 'forerder.'

But in this connection I should like to know whether you have any opinion upon the apparently analogous class of phenomena in plants which Darwin gives in the eleventh chapter of his 'Variation,' &c. Here, it seems to me, the evidence is much more cogent and of far more importance to the issue, Weismann v. Lamarck. Focke and Dr. Vris, however, seem to doubt the facts or their interpretation, although, as it seems to me, without presenting any adequate reasons for doing so. You need not bother with Dr. Vris, as he merely follows Focke, but I wish you would read Focke ('Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge,' p. 510, et sq.), and compare what he says with the evidence which Darwin presents.

As I do not know in what respects you have found one part of my previous letter not to 'tally' with another, I cannot fully explain it; but I fancy that you will find they do, if, in reading the letter, you carry in your mind the simple proposition that, from the nature of the case, there can be no physiological selection except where differentiating varieties ('incipient species') occur upon common areas and identical stations. I do not see any difficulty about willows, roses, brambles, &c., since Naudin's researches on Datura have shown how much variability, due to the hybridisation of any two species, may give rise to the appearance of there being many species. This, you will remember, is the view that Naudin himself takes with regard to willows &c.—although, of course, without any reference to phy. sel. If you will refer to p. 405 of the paper on phy. sel. you will find that from the first I have been aware of the difficulty about discontinuous areas to which you allude. But I think the converse line of evidence (viz. that of cross-sterility between incipient species on identical stations) will alone prove sufficient to verify the theory. At the same time I look for more corroboration from the cross-fertility of well differentiated species upon discontinuous areas where these are, as you say, oceanic islands, or, still better, mountainous districts where the allied species are severally peculiar to mountain tops and isolated valleys. For in these cases there must be much doubt, as a general rule, touching the species having been differentiated by topographical isolation upon the particular areas where they are now found. Moreover, and this I think quite as important, the consideration which Darwin adduces in another connection is obviated, viz. 'that if a species was rendered sterile with some one compatriot, sterility with other species would follow as a necessary contingency.'

Yours very sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

P.S.—From your first letter it would almost seem that you had supposed me to doubt the fact (or, at any rate, the frequency) of cross-fertility in general. And this after I had written the article on 'Hybridisation' in the 'Ency. Brit.'!

In June Mr. Romanes took a small house for the summer months outside Oxford at Boar's Hill, a district well known to Oxford people, and it was hoped country air and quiet might do him much good.

He was rather headachy, and liked to lie on the grass in the garden and have novels read to him, but he was able to go up to London one day, and even planned to take a journey to Wiesbaden in order to consult an eminent oculist.

But on July 11 he was stricken down by hemiplegia. And now began the last year of patient endurance, for from that time the Shadow of Death was ever on him, and he knew it; from that July day he regarded himself as doomed. Sometimes the thought of leaving those whom he loved with such intense devotion, such wonderful tenderness, overwhelmed him; sometimes the longing to finish his work was too great to be borne, but generally he was calm, and always, even when he was most sad, he was gentle and patient, and willing to be amused.

On July 13 Dr. Paget gave him the Holy Communion.

He slowly recovered from this attack, and there were hopes—not of perfect health, but of life, and of power to work. Now, more resolutely than ever, he set himself to face the ultimate problems of Life and Being, to face the question of the possibility of a return to Faith.

It is impossible here to tell of the inner workings of that pure and unselfish soul, of those longings and searchings after God, of the gradual growth in steadfast endurance, in faith.

To one or two these are known, and the example of lofty patience and of single-heartedness is not one they are likely to forget. Of this more later.

It was almost pathetic to see how keen and vigorous his intellect was. In fact, the great difficulty was to keep the busy brain from thinking. Novels helped to some degree, and occasional visits from friends as he grew better. Dr. and Mrs. Burdon Sanderson, the President of Trinity and Mrs. Woods, the Dean, Mr. Gore, the President of Magdalen and Mrs. Warren, and Mr. Waggett, all helped, coming and paying brief visits, which did him good, for if he was not listening to reading or conversation, he would be planning experiments or pondering problems of theology, and ask by-and-by that his thoughts should be taken down from dictation, or that paper and pencil should be given him, or, worse than all, devising arrangements for finishing 'Darwin, and after Darwin.' He dictated some 'Thoughts on Things' in the very first days of his illness, and sent for Professor Lloyd Morgan, who came and received instructions about the unfinished books, instructions which he has carried out with unflagging diligence and never-failing kindness.

But still he grew better, and early in August he went back to Oxford, and by the first of September he was able to be present in the cathedral at the baptism by Dr. Talbot of his youngest son.

The fact that the Vicar of Leeds[116] and Mrs. Talbot were in Oxford during that August was a great pleasure to him, and he much enjoyed occasional talks with Dr. Talbot.

To Professor Ewart.

I do not know what account E. gave you of my illness, but it is much too serious an affair to admit of our going to the British Association. Indeed, I hardly anticipate being able to make any engagements or do much work during the rest of my life, which is not likely to be a long one. It is just such an attack as I expected when walking with you over Magdalen Bridge.[117]

Yours ever,

G. J. Romanes.

By September he was able to listen to, and discuss, Dr. Sanderson's Presidential Address, which was delivered in Nottingham at the British Association of 1893.

It was one of the great disappointments of that illness that he could not go to Nottingham. To be at the Association when his dear friend and master was president was a great wish of his, and early in the summer a kind invitation from Lady Laura Ridding, to stay with the Bishop of Southwell and herself for it, had been accepted.

Nottingham and a visit to Denton, to which Mr. Romanes had been looking forward, had to be given up.

These things were real trials. It was not the giving up particular bits of pleasure, but the realisation that he was too much of an invalid to do anything of the sort, which he found so hard to bear, and which he did bear with ever-increasing patience.

His letters sometimes show how hard he felt his trial.

To James Romanes, Esq.

Oxford: September 4.

My dearest James,—I have had two reasons for not writing to Dunskaith since my letter about the birth of Edmund.

I agree with all you say about Fritz and her numerous brothers, the last two of whom you have never seen. But, although I have been so signally blest in my family ... I am not disposed to fall in with your optimism in other respects. Rather am I disposed to agree with the Scotch minister, that 'Man is a mi-ser-able worrm, craaling upon the airth;' for, both as regards the misery and the craaling I am now a type.

And this brings me to my two reasons for not writing before. The first is, that I am almost unable to write; and the second is, that I did not want to let you and Charlotte know all the facts sooner than I could help.

The long and the short of it is that I believe I am dying. I have been gradually getting worse and worse, ... nor shall I be sorry when it comes. Such being the case, I should like to consult you about setting my house in order....

The photos which the children brought with them of Dunskaith make me realise what splendid work the buildings are, and even although it is now improbable that I shall ever see them, I am glad to think that they will be in the family.[118]

I cannot write more now. In fact I have not written so much since my attack. But I send you the best love of a life-time's growth and that of your only brother,

George.

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Esq.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: September 15, 1893.

Dear Dyer,—Many thanks for your letter with enclosures. As you say, there does not seem to be anything remarkable about the hybrid; but I am glad to see that both its parent species are well marked and presumably both of mountain origin. The case thus well accords with my views, as explained in my previous letters. I met with many such (i.e. hybrids between originally isolated species) in Madeira and the Canaries.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Where can your powers of 'observation' have been when you can still remark that I ignore the facts of hybridisation? I can only repeat that from the first I have regarded them as evidence of the utmost importance as establishing a highly general correlation between separate origin of allied species and absence of cross-sterility. In fact, for the last five years I have had experiments going on in my Alpine garden, which I helped in founding for the very purpose of inquiring into this matter. And Focke, with whom I have been in correspondence from the first, and who does understand the theory, writes that in his opinion it will 'solve the whole mystery' of natural hybridisation in relation to artificial.

Since my last letter to you I have been at death's door. On July 11, I was struck down by paralysis of the left side, and am now a wreck. Not the least of my sorrow is that I fear I shall have to leave the verification of phys. sel. to other hands in larger measure than I had hoped. I have little doubt that it will eventually prevail; but more time will probably be needed before it does.

Yours very sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

Oxford: September 18, 1893.

Dear Dyer,—I am not a little touched by the kind sympathy expressed in your letter of the 16th. When one is descending into the dark valley, scientific squabbles seem to fade away in those elementary principles of good will which bind mankind together. And I am glad to think that in all the large circle of my friends and correspondents there is no vestige of ill will in any quarter, unless it be with —— and ——, who both seem to me half-crazy in their enmity, and therefore not of much count.

As for 'fortitude,' sooner or later the night must come for all of us; and if my daylight is being suddenly eclipsed, there is only the more need to work while it lasts. But, to tell the truth, I do not on this account feel less keenly the pity of it. With five boys—the eldest not yet in his teens and the youngest still in his weeks; with piles of note-books which nobody else can utilise, and heaps of experimental researches in project which nobody else is likely to undertake, I do bitterly feel that my lot is a hard one.

Looking all the facts in the face, I do not expect ever to see another birthday,[119] and therefore, like Job, am disposed to curse my first one. For I know that all my best work was to have been published in the next ten or fifteen years; and it is wretched to think of how much labour in the past will thus be wasted.

However, I do not write to constitute you my confessor, but to thank you for your letter, and also to say that I am sending you a copy of my 'Examination of Weismannism,' just published by Longmans.

With our united kind regards to Mrs. Dyer and yourself, I remain, yours very sincerely,

Geo. J. Romanes.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: September 26, 1893.

My dear Dyer,—This is one of my bad days, and I have just exhausted my little store of energy by answering a kind letter from Huxley. So please excuse brevity, as I cannot leave your highly appreciated benevolence without an immediate response.

I am much concerned to hear what you say about yourself, and it makes me doubly desirous of seeing you. On Monday next I am to try to go to town for the purpose of consulting doctors. But any day before that we should be truly glad if you could come as you so kindly propose. Possibly I might be able to drive out to Kew on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, should you find it impracticable to run down here before then. But I fluctuate so much from day to day that I cannot make any engagements.

Most fully do I agree with all that you say regarding criticism. And, especially from yourself, I have never met with any but the fairest. Even the spice of it was never bitter, or such as could injure the gustatory nerves of the most thin-skinned of men. I have, indeed, often wondered how you and —— and —— can have so persistently misunderstood my ideas, seeing that neither on the Continent nor in America has there been any difficulty in making myself intelligible. But this, of course, is quite another matter.

As regards Weismannism, I do not include under this term the question of the inheritance of acquired characters. That has been a question for me since the publication of Galton's 'theory of heredity' in 1875. Indeed, even before that, everybody knew the contrast between congenital and acquired characters in respect of heritability; and you may remember, the first time we met you gave me a lot of good advice regarding my experiments on this subject.

Please remember both of us very kindly to your wife when you write to her, and with our united best wishes to yourself,

Believe me, ever yours sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

To Francis Darwin, Esq.

St. Aldate's, Oxford: October 8, 1893.

My dear Darwin,—Your very kind letter has been one ray of light to me in my gloom. Yet you must not think it is the only one.

---

It is comparatively easy to set our teeth and face the inevitable with 'a grin;' but the 'highest bravery' is to hide our anguish with a smile. I do think I make a decently good Stoic, but confess that in times like this Christians have the pull. Nevertheless, I have often thought of the words, 'I am not in the least afraid to die,'[120] and wondered, when my time should come, I would be able to say them. But now I know that I can, and this even in the bitterness of feeling that one's work is prematurely cut short.... 'Somewhat too much of this,' however. What I want to tell you is that I managed to get to London on Friday for the purpose of consulting my doctors as to my prospects. They take a more hopeful view than I expected, i.e. notwithstanding that I have had three attacks in one year (in both eyes and now in the brain), it is not inevitable that I should have another for years to come, provided that I become a strict teetotaller, vegetarian, hermit, and abstainer from work. In short, 'that my rule of life,' 'the exemplar' for my 'imitation,' is to be that of a tortoise. Hence it does not appear that there is any immediate necessity for saying farewell to my friends, and hence also I will not bother you by falling in with your kind proposal to come over from Cambridge to see me, much as I should like to see you in any case. But if you would care to pay a visit to Oxford any time between this and to-morrow week (16th), when I shall start for the vicinity of Nice, we should both be awfully glad to put you up. I think Dyer will probably be with us from Saturday to Monday (14 to 16).

With our united very kind regards to all,

Yours ever sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

Then came the journey to Costebelle, which he describes as follows:

To James Romanes, Esq.

Hôtel l'Ermitage, Costebelle: November 4, 1893.

My dearest James,—I ought to have answered long ago the kind letter which I received from you just as I was driving to the Oxford station, and read in the train. But I am still such a wretched invalid that I shrink from the smallest exertion, whether of body or mind. I caught a violent cold in crossing the Channel, which kept me in bed for three days at Amiens, and left me so weak that I had to further break the journey at Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles—finally arriving here with a still feverish temperature. But this has now subsided.

We found not only Paris but quite as much Lyons and Marseilles in a state of delirium over the Russian fleet officers, with whom we were muddled up all the way, greatly to our inconvenience. This was especially the case on leaving Lyons, where the railway officials, after having put our luggage (containing our circular notes) in the railway station, locked the doors of the latter in our faces, when the police and military officials hurried us down the hill again in the town (in the rudest of ways) till the arrival of the Russians nearly an hour after our train was timed to depart. We had no doubt that our hand baggage had all been carried off in our railway carriage without us and without labels; but on at last getting into the station found that our train had not started.

This is one of the most charming places I have ever seen. The hotel is situated on the top of a hill which slopes for a mile to the sea, and which is thickly clothed with pine and olive woods in all directions. The climate admits of our sitting out of doors without overcoats or shawls till sunset, amid the most wonderful profusion of aromas I have ever met with.

To the Dean of Christ Church.

Costebelle: November 28, 1893.

My dear Dean,—In the firmament of my friendships there is no such star as yourself, and I find it belongs to them all that the darker and the colder the night becomes, the more brightly do they shine.

It is quite certain that 'the South has not yet rendered its full service,' inasmuch as it has not rendered me any service at all. If anything I am worse than when I left Oxford. My muscular power, indeed, has somewhat improved, but my nervous exhaustion seems to be growing upon me, week by week; so that I am now able to walk but very little—to hope, not much, to think, not at all.

The truth is that my ailment, whatever it is, is not to be reached by climatic influences: it belongs to those mysterious internal changes, which Darwin ascribes to what he calls 'the nature of the organism'—'variations which to our ignorance appear to arise spontaneously.' Hence, I am out of harmony with my environment, whatever the environment may be. And, as this Spencerianism applies to my spiritual, no less than to my bodily organisation, it would seem that somehow or other I have been born into a wrong world—like those poor Porto Santo rabbits, which I took home with me last year, and the history of which I think I told you. However, I do not intend to grumble at the visible universe until I shall have had an opportunity of looking round the edge and seeing what is behind.

Most of our time is spent in sheer idleness, or rather, I should say, all of my time, and that proportion of my wife's which is spent in reading to me—chiefly novels, poetry, and history. Yesterday, we had Coppée's play 'Le Pater,' which I know you have read. For the length of it, I think it is as powerful a piece of dramatic writing as I have ever read.

Very few worries find their way to L'Ermitage. The worst at present is the choice of the next 'Romanes Lecturer.' Owing to his accident, Helmholtz has blocked the way for the last two months, but now promises a final reply in the course of a few days. If he does come, I hope the University will give him the D.C.L.

With our united kindest regards to Mrs. Paget, whose messages to me are of more benefit than all my doctor's drugs (now that is a thing I 'would rather have expressed otherwise'!) and yourself,

I remain, ever your affectionate friend,

G. J. Romanes.

For a while all went well, he liked the place, and was able to work a little, and to have many books read to him. He had taken out Dr. Martineau's 'Study of Religion,' and other philosophical books, and he also plunged into poetry, reading Wordsworth chiefly.

In December came what seemed to be a severe gastric attack, with other alarming symptoms, and for a few hours he seemed to be dying. But this passed off, and although he was kept in bed for three weeks he grew better, and in some ways there seemed grounds for fresh hope.

For a few days in January he was under the care of a cousin with two trained nurses, and his letters home were surprisingly bright.

His wife's maid, of whom he was very fond, was terribly ill in January, and he writes:

Give Jane my love, and tell her I never forget how good she was to me when I thought I was dying in her arms at Boar's Hill.

And again he wrote:

So glad to hear the operation has been successful. Congratulate her from me. Tell her I heartily wish I were in her place as to this, but that nevertheless I have not 'lost heart.' I am now certainly stronger, and if I could only submit my cranial cavity to Tom's[121] hands for removal of anything disagreeable, I should be comparatively joyful.

The weather is glorious. Marian is at mass, having read me one of Church's sermons.

Please tell John to send me a couple of hundred cigarettes (to prevent influenza!).

When you come out you will not find me a kill-joy; the danger will rather be that of my scandalising you all by riotous conduct on Sunday.

And certainly he was astonishingly bright when his wife returned to him. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and his first proposition was, 'The church bell is tinkling, let's go to church.' It was the twenty-eighth of January, and the brightness and gladness of two of the Evening Psalms were oddly appropriate, and chimed in with feelings of a greater gladness dawning on him, for he was leaving the strange land in which for years he had not been able to sing 'The Lord's Song.'

And then began a time, often saddened by hours of intense physical exhaustion and physical depression, but also of what can only be called growth in holiness, in all that comes from nearness to God.

In the early autumn and winter there had been sad moments when still the clouds of darkness, of inability to grasp the Hand of God stretched out to meet him, hung over him, but in these months there had been the same growth.

One to whom he often spoke of the deepest things of life and of death will never forget his saying one day just after the attack of illness in December: 'I have come to see that cleverness, success, attainment, count for little; that goodness, or, as F. (naming a dear friend) would say, "character," is the important factor in life.'

For in early days Mr. Romanes had attached, so it seemed to some of those who knew him best, an undue importance to intellect, to cleverness, to intelligence, and the same person to whom he said the few words just quoted had often discussed with him the relative value of goodness and of intellect.

By goodness is meant perfect and complete goodness, not such as that of which it has been said, 'It is the business of the wise to rectify the mistakes of the good.'

And as weeks passed on he would often plan a country house and a life in which 'good works' were to have a share.

He had always had a high ideal of what Love and Faith should bring about, and in the last months of his life he said to one whom he dearly loved, 'Darling, if you believe what you say you believe, why should you mind so much?' With absolute resignation he gave up all his ambitions, the old longing for distinction, for greater fame, and yet he did not lose for one moment the old interest in his scientific work.

Two papers of his were read at the Royal Society in October 1892. The first described experiments undertaken by Mr. Romanes, the primary object of which was to ascertain whether seeds which had been kept out of contact with air for a lengthy period of time still possessed the power of germination. The method adopted was as follows: a certain number of seeds were taken from each packet, mustard, cress, beans, peas, &c., being the kinds employed, and having been weighed in a chemical balance were sealed up in tubes which had previously been exhausted of air, and kept exposed to the vacuum for a period of fifteen months. At the end of that time they were removed from the tubes and sown in flower-pots buried in moist soil. In some cases, after the seeds had been in the vacuum tubes for three months, they were transferred to other tubes charged with pure gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or with aqueous or chloroform vapour, and there kept for a further period of twelve months, when they were sown as before.

In all cases the same number of seeds, of similar weights to those sealed up in the tubes, were taken from each packet, kept in ordinary air for the fifteen months, and then sown as control experiments.

The results clearly showed that the germinating power of the seeds was hardly, if at all, affected either by being exposed to the vacuum or to the atmospheres of the various gases and vapours. Further, in no single case, in the hundreds of seeds so treated, did the plants produced from them differ from the standard types grown from the control seeds even in the smallest degree.

The second paper described experiments in heliotropism, which had been undertaken by Mr. Romanes with the object of ascertaining whether plants would bend towards a light that is not continuous, but intermittent.

Mustard seedlings, grown in the dark until they were about one or two inches high, were used in all the experiments; they were either placed in a dark room and exposed to flashes of light in the form of electric sparks passed at regular intervals, or they were put in a camera obscura, before which was placed a Swan burner or arc lamp, the light from which was rendered intermittent by the regular opening and shutting of the photographic shutter. The heliotropic effect on the seedlings was found in all cases to be very marked, the most vigorous ones beginning to bend towards the light ten minutes after the flashing began, bending through 45° in as many minutes, and often through another 45° in as many minutes more. By protecting half of the seedlings from the interrupted light, by means of a cardboard cap, then after the experiment uncovering them and exposing that half for the same duration of time to constant sunlight, Mr. Romanes found that the bending was less in this latter case, that is, when the light was continuous. This result was confirmed by placing two sets of plants under exactly similar conditions before a Swan burner, the light from which was constant for one set of seedlings, and rendered intermittent for the other set by working the flash shutter; in all cases the interrupted light caused the plants to start bending more quickly, and through a greater angle in a given time.

As regards the rate the flashes must succeed one another to produce this heliotropic effect, Mr. Romanes found that sparks passed at the rate of fifty in an hour would cause considerable bending in half an hour. It is of interest to note that in no single case was there any green colouring matter produced, the seedlings remaining colourless even when the sparks were passed at the rate of 100 per second continuously during forty-eight hours.

Dr. Sanderson writes:

Friday, November 17.

My dear Romanes,—There was a rather interesting discussion at the R.S. on your paper about the fresh experiments with seedlings. It was objected that there was no evidence that the effects were not due to one-sided drying of the stems of the seedlings, and —— wanted to know whether sufficient precautions were taken to guard against this. I suppose that he meant heat effects. I said that, under the conditions of this experiment, I could not see how any 'drying effect' could possibly take place.

My suggestion is that it would be worth while to add a note, if you think of the impossibility of any effect, excepting a light effect, being concerned. I asked Foster just now, and he agreed with me that it would be useful. I ought to add that it was admitted that the observation was a new one which promised to have very important bearings.

I am writing this in great haste. I trust that you are enjoying Costebelle.

Very truly yours,

T. Burdon Sanderson.

At this time Mr. Romanes had a very interesting correspondence with the Rev. G. Henslow, on the subject of the direct action of the environment on plant structures.

Ealing: October 19, 1893.

Dear Mr. Romanes,—If you are in town on November 16, I should be very glad indeed if you could come to the Linnean Society, and criticise my paper which I am going to read: 'On the origin of plant structures by self-adaptation to the environment, exemplified by desert and xerophyllous plants.'

In this and in subsequent letters Mr. Henslow explained the subject-matter of his paper, and as it formed the basis of the correspondence, a brief analysis, furnished by Mr. Henslow in a later letter, is here inserted.

The object of the paper is to show that the origin of varieties and species—as far as the vegetative organs are concerned—is solely due to climatic causes. For the acquired (somatic) characters become more or less hereditary if the same environment be maintained. But plants possess every degree in their capacities either of reverting, changing, or of stability.

The result is that I do not see any necessity for natural selection at all in Nature, for the following reasons.

Variations are often indefinite in cultivation, especially after several years. Therefore to secure a useful race artificial selection is necessary. On the other hand, variation is definite in Nature, all the seedlings varying in one and the same direction, i.e. towards equilibrium with the environmental forces. Darwin knew of this fact, and you have abundantly described it. But Darwin failed to see that this definite variation in Nature is the rule, and not the exception. Hence, as he admits, natural selection is not wanted at all [i.e. if all variations are definite in Nature].

Moreover, it is contended that climatic variations are of no great, even of any useful importance. This may be so, for all I know, with animals; but it is precisely the reverse with plants. I took my illustrations from desert plants, and showed that their remarkable characteristics, which give the facies to desert plants, are on the one hand the direct results of the excessive drought, heat, light, &c. On the other, they are just those features which enable the plants to live under their extremely inhospitable environment. These characters are the minute leaves, hardening of woody tissues, thick cuticle, dense clothing of hair, wax, storage of water tissues, &c.; so that the whole economy of the plant, including its specific characters, is all climatically acquired. Although some may vary when the plants are grown in ordinary gardens, such is no more than one would expect on a priori grounds to be the case.

I would limit natural selection, as far as plants are concerned, to three things:

1. Mortality among seedlings with the survival of the strongest.

I do not say 'fittest,' because it is ordinarily understood to mean that the survivors have some morphological features, by which they are benefited, which lead on finally to specific characters.

I do not find this to be the case. Take an instance of great contrast. Sow 100 seeds of the water (submerged) Ranunculus fluitans in a garden. They all grow up as aërial plants, i.e. they vary as they grow precisely in the same way. It is only the weakest (from badly nourished seeds) which get crowded out of existence. Here, then, is definite variation without the aid of natural selection. Ex uno disce omnes.

2. Delimitation of varieties and species by the non-reproduction of intermediate forms.

It is generally said that if 'good species' are isolated, the intermediate forms have been killed off by natural selection. I maintain that they were never reproduced. Thus if A has passed by successive generations, A′, A″, A‴, &c., to Aⁿ; A and Aⁿ being now only in existence, then A′, A″, &c., represented a single generation apiece, each offspring being one degree nearer to Aⁿ, but could never be reproduced, as the environment was continually acting upon the whole series, urging each generation forwards till it became stable in Aⁿ.

This is precisely what takes place in cultivating a wild plant like the parsnip. Each year the grower selects a slightly improved form, till the required type is fixed. The 'Student' is now Aⁿ, a more or less permanently fixed form, each of the intermediate forms, lasting one year, having ceased to be reproduced.

3. The geographical distribution of varieties and species by self-adaptation.

That is, if a number of plants migrate to a new locality with new environmental conditions, half of them may die; because they cannot adapt themselves; the other half may live—change, and become fixed forms, by their power of adaptation. The final conclusion of the whole is that plants require nothing more than climatic influences, to which their protoplasm may respond. The result is new varietal or specific characters. Then, if the same environment lasts, these become gradually more and more fixed and hereditary, but one can never tell beforehand but that the oldest plant in creation may not change again as soon as it finds a new environment.... This is what a long study of plants and experiments has led me to; and it is not a conclusion arrived at solely by 'thinking out' or evolving from my own consciousness—like the German camel!

Hoping you are progressing,

Believe me, yours sincerely,

George Henslow.

Hôtel l'Ermitage, Costebelle, Hyères, France: October 29, 1893.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—You will correctly infer from this address that I shall not be able to attend the Linnean Society meeting on the 16th prox. For two or three years past my health has been breaking up, and several months ago I had a stroke of paralysis. So I have had to knock off all work, and have just arrived here to spend the winter—finding your letter, forwarded from Oxford, awaiting me.

It has interested me very much, and some time I should like to see the paper to which it refers, whether in MS. or print. As far as I can gather, you are spontaneously following in the footsteps of Asa Gray, Nägeli, and some other botanists. But, it seems to me, this self-adaptation doctrine is equivalent to an a priori abandoning of all hope to obtain any naturalistic explanation of the phenomena in question. It simply refers the facts of adaptation immediately to some theory of design, and so brings us back again to Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. As when a child asks why a flower closes at night, and we answer him: Because God has made it so, my dear. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la science.

But do not mistake me. My quarrel is with the term self-adaptation, which seems to imply causes of a non-naturalistic kind. Which, of course, is quite a different thing from doubting whether the naturalistic explanation given by Darwin is adequate to meet all the facts. I am myself more and more given to question 'the all-sufficiency of natural selection,' and this, whether or not use-inheritance is one of the supplementary factors. But that there are some hitherto undiscovered factors of this kind where many of the phenomena of adaptation are concerned, I am more and more disposed to suspect. Nevertheless I believe, in the light of analogy, that they will all prove to be natural causes, and therefore not correctly definable as due to 'self-adaptation.'

My hemiplegia has given me a terrible shake, so I cannot write much. Indeed, this is the longest of the few letters which I have written since my attack. So please excuse seeming bluntness, and believe me to remain,

Ever yours, very truly and most interestedly,

Geo. J. Romanes.

P.S.—Of course you would not in any case expect to find so much variability of the conspicuously indefinite kind in nature as in cultivation. For, by hypothesis, natural selection is present in the one case (to destroy useless variations) while absent in the other. But I allow this does not apply to the examples you give me. Only remember the point in publishing your paper.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: February 10, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—I am much indebted to you for all your most interesting letters, and also for prospect of receiving your books. Although forbidden to write letters myself, or to think about anything as yet, I must send a few lines, pending arrival of the books and papers, giving my general impression of your views as set out in your correspondence.

Briefly, it seems to me that your argument is perfectly clear up to a certain point, but then suddenly becomes a petitio principii. In other words, so far as your view is critical of natural selection considered as a hypothetical cause of adaptive evolution, I can well believe you have adduced a formidable array of facts. But I fail to follow, when you pass on to the constructive part of your case—or your suggested substitute for natural selection in self-adaptation. For self-adaptation, I understand, consists in results of immediate response to stimuli supplied by environment. But, if so, surely the statement that all the adaptive machinery of plant-organisation is due to self-adaptation is a mere begging of the question against natural selection unless it can be shown how self-adaptation works in each case. Now I do not find any suggestion as to this. And yet this is obviously the essential point; since, unless it can be shown how self-adaptation works—i.e. that it is a vera causa, and not a mere word serving to re-state the facts of adaptive evolution. We have got no further in the way of explanation than the physician, who said, that the reason why morphia produces sleep is because it possesses a soporific quality.

Observe, I purposely abstain from considering your criticism of natural selection, which, although perfectly lucid and possibly justifiable, yet certainly does admit of the answer that incipient variations of a fortuitous kind under nature may often be inconspicuous (while Wallace shows that in animals they are, as a matter of fact, usually considerable). But we need not go into this. The interesting point to all of us must be the constructive part of your work; and I have tried to explain my difficulty with regard to it. Why should protoplasm be able to adapt itself into the millions of diverse mechanisms of nature by converse with environment? The theory of natural selection gives a logically possible, even if it be a biologically inadequate answer. But I cannot see that the theory of self-adaptation does, unless it can be shown that there is some sufficient reason why, say a direct-environment should produce self-adaptation in the direction of hairs, a marine one in that of fleshiness, &c. &c.

I have been very frank, because I know you, and therefore that this is what you would prefer. But I am too ill to make myself clear in a letter. I wish you could stop here for a day on your way home, by which time I shall probably have read your books, and we might discuss the whole business before I publish mine on the Post-Darwinian Theories.

With very many thanks,

I remain yours very truly,

G. J. Romanes.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: February 24, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—Nothing can be more clear than are all your letters, and the last one, I take it, sets at rest the only question which I had to ask. For it expressly answers that, in your own view, hypothesis of 'self-adaptation' is a statement rather than an explanation of the facts. Nevertheless, it is also to some certain extent advanced as an explanation on Lamarckian lines, for in your books (for which I much thank you) you attribute adaptive mechanism in flowers to thrusts, strains &c. caused by insects. But here, if I may say so, it does not seem to me that you sufficiently deal with an obvious criticism, viz. How is it so much as conceivable that protoplasm should always respond to insect irritation adaptively, when we look to the endless variety and often great elaboration of the mechanism? Similarly as regards the inorganic environment, Lamarck's hypothesis of use-inheritance (i.e. mere increase and decrease of parts as due to inherited efforts of greater or less development by altered flow of nutrition) was at least theoretically valid. But how can you extend this to structures which, though useful, are never active, so as to modify flow of nutrition, e.g. hard shells of nuts, soft pulp of fruits, &c.? Here it is that natural selection theory has the pull. And so of adaptive colours, odours, and secretions? I confess that, even accepting inheritance of acquired characters, I could conceive of 'self-adaptation' alone producing all such innumerable and diversified adjustments only by seeing with Newman (in his 'Apologia') an angel in every flower.

Besides, I do not see why you are shut up to this, even on your own principles. For surely, be there as much self-adaptation in Nature as ever you please, it would still be those individuals (or incipient types) which best respond to stimulation (i.e. most adaptively do so) that, other things equal, would survive in the struggle for existence, and so be naturally selected. In other words, I do not see why you should accept natural selection as regards 'vigour' of seedlings, and nowhere else.

I quite accept the validity of your criticism of my physiological selection in your book, supposing your 'self-adaptation' true to the extent you suppose. But otherwise what you say tells in favour of physiological selection, at least, excepting the statement as to new allied species originating as a rule on distant areas from parent types. This, however, is certainly an erroneous statement, though I should like to know how you came to make it.

I much wish I could write more or meet you. For, notwithstanding apparent bluntness (for brevity's sake), I see you are one of the few evolutionists who think for yourself.

With many thanks, yours very truly,

G. J. Romanes.

I am not against your criticism of natural selection, for I have always thought there must be some other additional principle of adaptation at work.

Grand Hôtel, Costebelle, Hyères (Var): March 12.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—My husband has much enjoyed your long and clear letter which I have just read to him. He is too ill to reply himself, but he will dictate a few notes to me to send to you.

Yours very truly,

Ethel Romanes.

(A) I cry 'Peccavi' as regards natural selection co-operating with self-adaptation. Since you show that, even if it does, you are not concerned with this fact—i.e. of the development of the adaptation, but only with its origin.

(B) All the same, however, we must remember that where high elaboration of mechanism is concerned, the question as to the causes of its development become of more importance than those of its origin; e.g. even if self-adaptation be conceived capable of making a first step towards producing the exquisite mechanism of a bivalve shell, by discriminate variation, how is it conceivable that it should go on through the odd millions of successive steps of improvement needed to produce the perfect mechanism in which the great wonder of adaptation really occurs?

I can conceive of no natural process to accomplish this development even in one such case of mechanism other than natural selection. Let alone the 'endless variety' of elaborate mechanism elsewhere.

(C) Of course, if you could prove that indiscriminate variations have not occurred in wild plants, but only under cultivation, you would destroy Darwinism—in toto. But is the proposition credible a priori; or sustainable a posteriori, &c.?

I suppose you have read Wallace on the subject as regards wild animals, and if you were to make similar measurements with regard to wild plants, you would obtain analogous results.

I remember as a boy having a game of who could find most specimens of fern-leaved clover in a given time, or even two leaves of clover which would be exactly alike in all respects. But I have already discussed the matter of definite and indefinite variability in 'Darwin and after Darwin.'

(D) I will let the question of Use-Inheritance in relation to seemingly Passive Organs, go by default against me, as it is rather a side issue and would need much writing to discuss. The same applies to your remarks on Teleology. As regards both points I agree with your observations.

(E) Touching varieties as found in different areas from parent types, I suppose you heard how carefully Nägeli has gone into the subject, with the result that after making allowances for defects of isolation, change of environment, &c., only about five per cent. of species of plants seem to have originated on distant areas, while Wallace has shown that some such proportion applies to animals.

(F) As regards plants having been brought under cultivation, and yielding variations that prove heredity, I knew there were innumerable cases where artificial selection had been brought into play. But of course they are all out of court until the question on which you are engaged has been decided in your favour, i.e. until you have succeeded in disproving natural selection as analogous or parallel to artificial. It was for this reason I mentioned the case of parsnips, where the hereditary variations seem to have taken place in the first generation after transplanting, and therefore without leaving time for selection of any kind to have come into play.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: March 29.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—I am still terribly ill and cannot write much. We must have a talk. Could you come to Oxford any day you like and be our guest? I think we might derive mutual benefit. I shall be there from the middle of April till I do not know when. Why not come on May 2, to hear Weismann give his lecture in the afternoon?

I much wish you would save seed of any fixed local varieties of plants you may find to be in seed, while you are in Malta (or bulbs), in order to see whether plants grown from them in England will or will not prove fully fertile. This is in relation to my own theory of physiological selection, according to which isolation produces segregation of type; in the same way as it does that of a language—viz. by prevention of intercourse with the parent type and consequently with an independent history of variation. Where the isolation is due to physical barriers (as at Malta) there is no need for any sexual differentiation to originate a species. But on common areas, sexual differentiation is the only means of securing the isolation. Therefore (I say) we can see why Jordan's French varieties all prove sterile with their parent forms, and I should expect your Malta varieties to prove fertile with theirs elsewhere.

G. J. R.

Costebelle: April 15, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—Yes, please write when you get back, suggesting any time you may find convenient for spending a day or two with us at 94 St. Aldate's, Oxford (immediately opposite Christ Church). I cannot talk long at a time, but I think the meeting will be of use to both.

Of course 'Isolation produces segregation of type,' is only a short-hand expression, meaning—indiscriminate variation being supposed—isolation supplies a necessary condition to segregation of type by upsetting the previous stability that was due to free inter-crossing.

I quite agree that Darwin very greatly over-estimated the benefit of inter-crossing, as I am showing in my forthcoming book on 'Physiological Selection.' But this is quite a different thing from his having made too much of inter-crossing as a condition to stability of type; I do not think that this can be made too much of. Indeed, how is it conceivable that there ever can be divergence of type without isolation of some kind having first occurred at the origin, and throughout the growth of every branch? Moreover, I agree with you about self-fertilisation, but see in it a form of physiological selection; it is one kind of sexual isolation, or prevention of inter-crossing with neighbouring individuals. So that the more perfectly it obtains in any given type, the better chance there is for that type to become a new species by independent variability—and this whether or not the independent variability is likewise indiscriminate (or in your terminology 'indefinite').

In my last letter I referred to the works of Jordan and Nägeli for any number of 'facts in Nature of varieties arising among the type forms.' I will show you the passages when we meet. But even in cases of 'local varieties,' where a variety has a habitat of its own surrounded by the type-form, I should expect experiment would often (though by no means always) show some degree of cross-infertility between the two, pointing to pre-potency (i.e. early stages of physiological selection) being the origin of the divergence.

Before we meet I wish you would try to think of any plants which can be propagated by cuttings (or otherwise asexually) which are known to be modifiable by changed conditions of life in the first generation. I understand you that in some cases the seed of such a plant will not revert—when sown in its natural environment, though, of course, the rule is that it does. Well, in either case, I should much like to try whether a cutting &c. from the transplanted (and therefore modified) tubers &c. would revert to its ancestral character. When retransplanted to its natural environment, much would follow from result of such an experiment as regards Weismannism.

Yours very and always truly,

G. J. Romanes.

P.S.—Of course in saying 'on common areas, sexual differentiation is the only means of securing the isolation,' I did not include self-fertilising plants—any more, e.g. than insect fertilising where changes in the instincts of insects may cause sexual isolation.

I leave for Oxford to-morrow.

These months were made very happy to him by the fact that three friends, Mrs. and Miss Church and the Rev. R. C. Moberly,[122] were staying in the same hotel. He often alludes in his letters to the intense pleasure these friends gave him, and speaks of how much he owed to their tenderness and sympathy, and to their perception when to come and when to stay away.

Many books were heard and read by him. Mr. Gore's Bampton Lectures were read aloud to him, and he liked them even better than when he heard them preached. Several other theological books were read, and of all these the one which bears marks of most careful study is Pascal's 'Pensées.' He used Mr. C. Kegan Paul's translation. The copy he had at Costebelle, which used to lie by his bedside, is marked and annotated. It is the last book he read to himself in his own careful and student-like fashion. He also wrote some notes of advice to his boys.

At this time he began to make notes for a work which he intended to be a supplement or an answer to the 'Candid Examination of Theism.' As he went on, his notes grew—so it seemed to one who read them—increasingly nearer Faith, but of them the world can now judge.

He said one day, while scribbling down notes, 'If anything happens to me before I can work them up into a book, give them to Gore. He will understand.'

Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that the change in point of view was sudden, or due to any fear of death, or that it caused mental suffering to the author of 'Thoughts on Religion,' or that he was influenced by anyone, priest or layman.

There will always be unconscious influence, and it probably was not altogether in vain that two or three of Mr. Romanes' greatest and most intimate friends were Christian as well as intellectual men. But of influence and argument and persuasion, as most people imagine them, there was nothing. Discussions many, during the past years, but to these he owed little.

It is written, that those who seek find, and to no one do these words more fitly apply.

During these months Mr. Romanes read many books of a religious nature; particularly and pre-eminently he liked to have Dean Church read aloud, and he also liked Mr. Holland's 'City of God' and Mr. Illingworth's sermons, particularly one on 'Innocence,' which he asked for more than once. He also read much poetry, Miss Rossetti and Archbishop Trench being especial favourites at this time.

To himself he read or had read to him the Bible and Thomas à Kempis, and he liked Dr. Bright's Ancient Collects, and in part Bishop Andrewes' Devotions. He never would read or have anything read to him which did not ring true to him and which he could not appreciate; for instance, the Pleadings of Our Lord's Physical Sufferings in Andrewes' Devotions for Friday were very distasteful to him.

He often went to the English Church for short services, and on Easter Monday Dr. Moberly gave him Holy Communion, for which he had asked and for which he wished.

In the week before Easter he felt very ill, and said, 'I wish Moberly (who had gone away for a few days) were here, and we could have that Celebration; I don't think I shall live till Easter.' But this passed away, and on Easter Day he was peculiarly bright, and in the evening said, 'I have written this poem to-day.'

It is impossible to resist the wish to insert it here:

HEBREWS xi. 10 (or ii. 10).

'Amen, now lettest Thou Thy servant, Lord,

Depart in peace, according to Thy Word:

Although mine eyes may not have fully seen

Thy great salvation, surely there have been

Enough of sorrow and enough of sight

To show the way from darkness into light;

And Thou hast brought me, through a wilderness of pain,

To love the sorest paths if soonest they attain.

'Enough of sorrow for the heart to cry—

"Not for myself, nor for my kind, am I:"

Enough of sight for Reason to disclose,

"The more I learn the less my knowledge grows."

Ah! not as citizens of this our sphere,

But aliens militant we sojourn here,

Invested by the hosts of Evil and of Wrong,

Till Thou shalt come again with all Thine angel throng.

'As Thou hast found me ready to Thy call,

Which stationed me to watch the outer wall,

And, quitting joys and hopes that once were mine,

To pace with patient steps this narrow line,

Oh! may it be that, coming soon or late,

Thou still shalt find Thy soldier at the gate,

Who then may follow Thee till sight needs not to prove,

And faith will be dissolved in knowledge of Thy love.'

From the manuscript it is difficult to determine what was the motto of the poem, Hebrews xi. or Hebrews ii.; the latter is more probable, at least so it seems to the present writer.

On the 28th Mr. Romanes wrote a letter to the Dean of Christ Church, which, besides some items of personal interest, and of expressions of affection too intimate to be given, contains the following:

Costebelle: March 28, 1894.

My dear Paget,—I have had to abandon letter writing for several weeks past, as the least effort, even in the way of conversation, produces exhaustion in a painful degree. So, as usual, I had to ask my wife to answer your kind letter yesterday. But this morning I feel a little bit better, so I should like to have a try. She has gone to church, and therefore, as I could not even hear her read the letter which she posted to you yesterday, there is likely to be some repetition.

---

Oddly enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the only means of research in regions transcendental. It is too large a matter to deal with in a letter, but I hope to have a conversation with you some day, and ascertain how far you will agree with a certain 'new and short way with the Agnostics.'

---

Yours ever sincerely and affectionately,

Geo. J. Romanes.

He had all his old interest in psychical research, and a friend, Mrs. Crawfurd, of Auchinames, who shared this interest, used to beguile many weary hours with ghost stories, and he and she used to 'cap' each other's narratives.

There were pleasant people in the hotels around, and the bright sunshine and balmy air were great sources of enjoyment to him. Dr. Bidon, of Hyères, was unfailing in constant kindness, and it would be ungrateful not to say how much was owed to the kind landlord, M. Peyron, and to Madame Peyron.

The journey to England was apparently borne without undue fatigue, and the home coming was very bright, with joyous meeting with his children and with various friends. The only difficulty was to keep him quiet enough. It was said one day, 'When you go home you must not see too many people.' 'Oh, no,' he replied, 'I only want to see Paget, and Dr. Sanderson, and Gore, and Philip (Waggett), and Mrs. Woods, and Ray Lankester, and ——' but he stopped, laughing, the list was already so long and would soon have been doubled. For a few days his wife was away, and during this brief absence a very dear friend, Miss Rose Price, the daughter of the Master of Pembroke, died.

He writes:

To Mrs. Romanes.

How glad I am you are still mine! I have just returned from Rose's funeral, which was all but too much for me. As you know, I have seen other such things on a grander scale, but never any approach to this one in point of beauty and pathos. The College Chapel was completely filled with members of the University, with wives and daughters, yet all personal friends of hers, including all members of the family, the poor Master separated from the rest in his official seat. All the undergraduates of Pembroke were present, each provided with a lovely wreath, carried in procession to the grave. The whole of the east end was one mass of white flowers, the coffin with its own flowers being placed in the middle of the aisle. The procession walked first all round the quad, and then through Christ Church Meadows, being met at Holywell by the choir.[123]

This is the last letter I shall write. All well here, and the Interlopers[124] know me now. Weismann accepts invitation to lecture, and is on his way on purpose. I have obtained an invitation from the Royal Society for him to the 'soirée.'

Four weeks more, and the writer of this letter was also borne through Christ Church Meadow, and laid to rest near the young girl whom he had made his friend, and whose death he deeply mourned.

It was thought at this time that a country home would be possibly better for him. Many drives were taken in search of houses or of possible sites for building, and he was often positively boyish and merry during these expeditions.

He began to devise experiments again, and also set to work to arrange his papers and manuscripts in the most methodical way. As has been said he had already arranged that if he died before completing 'Darwin, and after Darwin,' Professor Lloyd Morgan should finish it and publish it, and any other scientific papers, an arrangement to which Mr. Lloyd Morgan most kindly consented. To Mr. Gore were bequeathed the fragmentary notes now published under the title 'Thoughts on Religion.'

On May 3 came the third Romanes Lecture. It was given by Professor Weismann, and was a worthy successor to the two which had preceded it.

Mr. Romanes was glad to meet Professor Weismann, and enjoyed the pleasant talk he and his distinguished opponent had in his house after the lecture.

On the seventh of May he went to London to consult doctors, and for the last time he stayed with his two dear friends, Sir James and Lady Paget.

He saw one or two people and was, as one friend said, 'just his dear merry old self, chaffing and being chaffed.'

He enjoyed music as much as ever, and on the nineteenth of May he went to a concert given by the Ladies' Orchestral Society.

He was often at the Museum, and he wrote frequently of the experiments he was devising, all bearing on Professor Weismann's theory; in these he was assisted by Dr. Leonard Hill.

He wrote several times to Professor Schäfer, and on May 19, four days before his death, in the midst of a long letter too technical to be given, he says, 'All I can do now for science is to pay.'

He still took much interest in Oxford life, and one of the last things he did was to vote against the introduction of the English Language and Literature School.

Cathedral was more than ever a pleasure to him, and he used often to slip in for bits of the service, particularly if some particular service or anthem was going to be given. Especially he loved a few special anthems; Brahms' 'How lovely are Thy dwellings fair' being a great favourite.

He used to go down to the 'Eights' when they began, and on almost the very last day of his life he was with difficulty dissuaded from writing a letter to the 'Times,' strongly supporting the Christ Church authorities whose proceedings in some disturbances in the College had been criticised. On Whit Sunday, for the last time, he went to the University Sermon, which happened to be preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, and which greatly impressed Mr. Romanes, brought as he was for the first time under the spell of one who has influenced more than one generation of Oxford men.

And as the days went on, there was a curious feeling of preparation for some change. He made all his arrangements and was quite calm, quite gentle, even merry at times; now and then the weary fits of physical lassitude or of headache would prostrate him, but when these were past he would placidly begin some bit of work.

On Thursday in Whit week he went to the eight o'clock Celebration of Holy Communion in the Latin Chapel of Christ Church, and in the course of that day he said, 'I have now come to see that faith is intellectually justifiable.' By-and-by he added, 'It is Christianity or nothing.'

Presently he added, 'I as yet have not that real inward assurance; it is with me as that text says, "I am not able to look up," but I feel the service of this morning is a means of grace.'

This was almost the last time he ever spoke on religious subjects.

With Mr. Philip Waggett there had been in these last days some talks, and the two friends, united as they had been in earlier years by their common interest in science, and in those problems which all who think at all must sooner or later face, now found themselves in closer and fuller agreement than either could at one time have believed possible.

Sunday, the twentieth of May, was his birthday and that of his eldest son, and had always been a family festa. He was bright and merry, went to Magdalen to see Mrs. Warren, saw for the last time Dr. Paget, and had a little talk about his 'Thoughts on Religion' with Mr. Gore, whom he went to hear preach in one of the Oxford churches. And on Monday he keenly enjoyed a small luncheon party, consisting of the Master of Balliol, Mr. Gore, and Miss Wordsworth, saying that Poetry, Science, Theology, Philosophy were all represented, and that he would have such-like little parties every now and then, they were so refreshing and did not tire him.

One or two special friends came in to see him on these last days, and he had planned to go and stay at a country house belonging to the President of Trinity, which had been with characteristic kindness put at his disposal.

On Wednesday, May 23, he seemed particularly well; he wrote a letter to the Editor of the 'Contemporary Review' and did some bits of work. It was Sir James and Lady Paget's Golden Wedding day, and he despatched a telegram of congratulation to them. (The very last bit of shopping he ever did was to buy a present for that Golden Wedding, which reached those for whom it was intended after he was dead.)

He came into his study about twelve, and asked that the book in which he was then interested, 'Some Aspects of Theism,'[125] might be read aloud; but before the reading began he changed his mind, and said he would lie down in his bedroom and be read to there. On lying down he complained of feeling very ill, said a few loving words to one who was with him, and became unconscious. His children and the Dean came to him, but he did not recover enough to know them, and passed away in less than an hour: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.

Five days later he was laid to rest in Holywell Cemetery, after an early Celebration in Christ Church, the first part of the service being said in the cathedral which he had loved so much, and which had brought him so much comfort in the last weeks of life.

His favourite hymn, 'Lead, kindly Light,' was sung, and the service was said in part by the friend who had been with him on his wedding-day, given him his first Communion after the illness began, and who had been bound up with many joys and sorrows;[126] and in part by Mr. Philip Waggett, who had been to him as a young brother, more and more loved, during the seven years in which they had walked and talked as friends, the friend known as 'Carissime.' (One other special friend, Mr. Gore, was prevented by illness from coming.)

Looking back over these two years of illness, it is impossible not to be struck by the calmness and fortitude with which that illness was met. There were, as has been said, moments of terrible depression and of disappointment and of grief. It was not easy for him to give up ambition, to leave so many projects unfulfilled, so much work undone.

But to him this illness grew to be a mount of purification,

Ove l'umano spirito si purga,

E di salire al ciel diventa degno.[127]

More and more there grew on him a deepening sense of the goodness of God. No one had ever suffered more from the Eclipse of Faith, no one had ever been more honest in dealing with himself and with his difficulties.

The change that came over his mental attitude may seem almost incredible to those who knew him only as a scientific man; it does not seem so to the few who knew anything of his inner life. To them the impression given is, not of an enemy changed into a friend, antagonism altered into submission; rather is it of one who for long has been bearing a heavy burden on his shoulders bravely and patiently, and who at last has had it lifted from him, and lifted so gradually that he could not tell the exact moment when he found it gone, and himself standing, like the Pilgrim of never to be forgotten story, at the foot of the Cross, and Three Shining Ones coming to greet him.

It was recovery, to some extent discovery, which befell him, but there was no change of purpose, no sudden intellectual or moral conversion.

He had always cared more for Truth, for the knowledge of God, than for anything else in the world. In the years most outwardly happy he was crying out in the darkness for light, with a soul athirst for God, and, as was said before, he did most truly re-echo St. Augustine's words, 'Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te.'

It is difficult for anyone who has lived in closest intimacy with him to speak of him in words which will not to those who did not know him seem exaggerated, nay, extravagant; to those who knew and loved him, cold, inadequate, lifeless; for he bore 'the white flower of a blameless life' from boyhood onwards, and in heart and life he was unstained, pure, unselfish, unworldly in the truest sense.

When the Shadow of Death lay on him, and the dread messenger was drawing near, and he looked back on his short life, he could reproach himself only for what he called sins of the intellect, mental arrogance, undue regard for intellectual supremacy.

No one better understood him than the friend[128] who wrote:

When a man has lived with broad and strong interest in life, neither discarding nor slighting any true part of it in home, or society, or work, the various aspects of his character and career are likely to be many and suggestive. And so there may be some warrant for an attempt to disengage one line of advance in the life, one trait in the example, and to concentrate attention upon that, while the other and perhaps more widely recognised elements are for the moment left unnoticed. There was one such line of advance in the life of George Romanes, of which it may be hard to speak, but wrong, perhaps, to be wholly silent. Few men have shown more finely the simplicity and patience in sustained endeavour which are the conditions of attainment in the quest of truth. It is easy to see how the training and habits of a mind devoted to natural science may render faith more difficult, and cross or check the venture of the soul towards the things eternal and unseen. But there is one quality proper to such a mind which should have a different effect, and act as a safeguard against a fault that often checks or mars the growth of faith. That quality is tenacity of uncorrelated fragments; the endurance of incompleteness; the patient refusal to attenuate or discard a fact because it will not fit into a system; the determined hope that whatsoever things are true have further truth to teach, if only they are held fast and fairly dealt with. The sincerely scientific mind shows such tenacity as that under every trial of its faith and patience, howsoever long and unpromising and unrelieved; for it knows itself responsible not for attainment, but for perseverance; not for conquest, but for loyalty. It resists even the temptation to dislike the untidy scraps of observation or experience which will match nothing and go nowhere; for it suspects and reveres in all the possibility of new light.

And surely there is a like excellence of thought, rare, and high, and exemplary, in regard to the things unseen, the things that are spiritually discerned. Scattered up and down the world, coming one way or another within the ken of all men, there are facts of plain experience which will not really fit, unmutilated, undisfigured, into any scheme or view of life that leaves God out of sight. They are facts, it may be, of which a full account can hardly, if at all, be given. They are fragmentary, isolated, imponderable; clearer at one time than at another; largely dependent, for anything like due recognition, upon the individual mind, and heart, and will. Yet there they are, flashing out at times with an intensity which makes all else seem pale and cold; disclosing, or ready to disclose, to any quietness of thought, great hints of worlds unrealised and possibilities of overwhelming glory.

And it is on loyalty, on justice to such fragments of truth, unaccounted for and unarranged, that for many men the trial of faith may turn. All is not lost, and everything is possible, so long as the mind refuses to doubt the reality of the light that has come, perhaps, as yet only in broken rays. Of such justice and loyalty George Romanes set a very high example. The strength and simplicity and patience of his character appeared in nothing else more remarkably, more happily, than in his undiscouraged grasp of those unseen realities which invade this world in the name and power of the world to come. The love of precision and completeness never dulled his care for the things that he could neither define, nor label, nor arrange; in their fragmentariness he treasured them, in their reserve he trusted them, waiting faithfully to see what they might have to show him. And they did not fail him. This is not the place in which to try to speak of the graces and the gladness which from such loyal sincerity passed into his life, nor of the clearer light that grew and spread before his wistful, hopeful gaze. But it hardly can be wrong to have said thus much of so noble and so timely a pattern of allegiance to all truth discerned; and of this great lesson in a life which seemed even here to have the earnest of that promise—'He that seeketh, findeth'—a life which seemed to be moving steadily towards the blessing of the pure in heart, the vision of Almighty God.[129]

F. P.

A letter from Mr. Gladstone cannot be omitted, and seems to come in fittingly at this place:

1 Carlton Gardens: June.

Dear Mrs. Romanes,—My present circumstances are not very favourable to direct personal communication, and my personal intercourse with Mr. Romanes was so scanty in its quantity as hardly to warrant my present intrusion, but I cannot help writing a few words for the purpose of conveying my deep sympathy on the heavy bereavement you have sustained, and further of saying how deep an impression he left upon my mind in the point of character not less than of capacity. He was one of the men whom the age specially requires for the investigation and solution of its especial difficulties, and for the conciliation and harmony of interests between which a factitious rivalry has been created.

Your heavy private loss is then coupled in my view with a public calamity; but while I can rejoice in your retrospect of his labour, I also trust it may please God in His wisdom to raise up others to fill up his place and carry forward his work. May you enjoy the abundance of the Divine consolations in proportion to your great need.

Believe me, most truly yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

Not much remains to be said. The life here described would seem to have been cut short, but, as was said by a friend, 'in a short time he fulfilled a long time,'[130] and few have won for themselves more love in the home and beyond it. He left no enemy, and those who loved him and to whom his loss has left a blank and desolation of which it is not well to speak, can only be thankful for what he was and for what he is. Not indeed that one would forget those words of Dean Church quoted in the beautiful preface to his Life:[131]

'I often have a kind of waking dream: up one road, the image of a man decked and adorned as if for a triumph, carried up by rejoicing and exulting friends, who praise his goodness and achievements; and, on the other road, turned back to back to it, there is the very man himself, in sordid and squalid apparel, surrounded not by friends but by ministers of justice, and going on, while his friends are exulting, to his certain and perhaps awful judgment. That vision rises when I hear, not just and conscientious endeavours to make out a man's character, but when I hear the loose things that are said—often in kindness and love—of those beyond the grave.'

But there have been men and women who have lifted the minds and the hearts of those who knew and loved them to increasing love for goodness, to increasing loftiness of ideal, and for these, whom now no praise can hurt, no blame can wound, one can but lift one's heart in ever growing thankfulness for the gifts and graces which made them what they were, and which will grow and increase in them until the Perfect Day.

Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt.

May 23, 1895.