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,