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.