Other work diverted him a good deal from this, but Mr. Romanes had always large plans of work, looking forward through a course of years.
There were some experiments on the power dogs possess of tracking by scent, in the autumn of 1886.
With this year came the appointment to a Lectureship in the University of Edinburgh on 'The Philosophy of Natural History.'[50] This lectureship Mr. Romanes held for five years, and he enjoyed the fortnight's residence in Edinburgh it involved, and the meetings with Edinburgh people. He gave to his class a course on the History of Biology, and then proceeded to take them through a course of lectures on the Evidences of Organic Evolution, on the theories of Lamarck, of Mr. Darwin himself, and on post-Darwinian theories. These lectures he worked up into the three years' course he gave as Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution, with many additions and alterations. The substance of them now appears in 'Darwin and after Darwin,' parts i. and ii. A third volume was to have been devoted to Physiological Selection, and enough was prepared in the form of notes to justify publication.
At the end of 1886 there fell on the Romanes family a bitter sorrow. Of the Geanies 'brotherhood,' the brightest and merriest, a remarkably handsome, joyous girl, absolutely unselfish and sweet, most dearly loved and loving, was the first to die. Her death was a terrible sorrow not only to her own immediate circle of relations, but to the friends to whom she had been as a very dear sister. On Mr. Romanes this death, so sudden and so startling, made a deep and lasting impression. From this time more and more he turned in the direction of faith, and his feelings found an outlet in poetry more frequently and more effectually than before.
To Miss C. E. Romanes.
Edinburgh: Christmas Day, 1886.
My dearest Charlotte,—The time has come when it is some relief to write, but how shall I begin to tell the sadness of the saddest tragedy that has ever been put together? First the hours of fluctuating hope, and then the growing darkness of despair. She had previously asked whether Ethel and G. J.[51] had come down from London, and on being told that we were in the house was so glad. We were admitted at night, and only had to watch for three hours the peaceful breathing, slower, slower, slower, until the last. Oh, the unearthly beauty of that face! Nothing I have ever seen in flesh or in marble—nothing I could have ever conceived could approach it. But try to picture it as you knew it in life changed into something so yet more beautiful that it seemed no longer human, but the face of the angel that she was. Then in one room her little child, in another her mother, utterly broken by illness. For my own part I have never had a grief so great as this. Even in our sister's case there were elements of mitigation; but here absolutely none. Oh, it is bitter, bitter; so much of life's happiness emptied out and Edith, our own Edith, no longer here!
In memory of this friend Mr. Romanes wrote a little poem called 'To a Bust,' and from this a few lines are given.
There is one point to which the writer of this memoir would like to call attention.
Mr. Romanes was incapable of exaggeration, of writing for effect, of insincerity. What he wrote he felt, and his very simplicity and sweetness of character, his childlike trust in the sympathy of others, made him unreserved to his friends, to those whom he loved.