The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.Romanes, George John
Science
The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
Romanes, George John
Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Romanes, George John, 1848-1894
I have an idea that you are afraid I am neglecting Pangenesis for
Medusæ. If so, I should like to assure you that such is not the
case. Last year I gave more time to the former than to the latter
inquiry; and although the results proved very disproportionate,
this was only due to the fact that the one line of work was more
difficult than the other. However, I always expected that the
first year would require to be spent in breaking up the ground,
and I am quite satisfied with the experience which this work has
brought me. I confess, however, that but for personal reasons
I should have postponed Pangenesis and worked the Medusæ right
through in one year. There is a glitter about immediate results
which is very alluring.
_From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes._
I will send the books off by railway on Monday or Tuesday. You
may keep that on Medusæ until I ask for it, which will probably
be never. That on Siphonophora I should like to have back at some
future time.
So far from thinking that you have neglected Pangenesis, I have
been astonished and pleased that your splendid work on the
jelly-fishes did not make you throw every other subject to the
dogs. Even if your experiments turn out a failure, I believe
that there will be some compensation in the skill you will have
acquired.
P.S.--I have been having more correspondence with Galton about
Pangenesis, and my confusion is more confounded with respect to
the points in which he differs from me.
About this time Mr. Romanes made the acquaintance of Mr. Herbert
Spencer and also that of Mr. G. H. Lewes, and of the wonderful woman
known to the outer world as George Eliot, and to a small circle of
friends as Mrs. Lewes.
Mr. Romanes was one of the favoured few who were allowed to join the
charmed circle at the Priory on Sunday afternoons. He enjoyed the few
talks he had with George Eliot, and, amongst other reminiscences, he
told a characteristic story of Lewes. One afternoon, when there were
very few people at the Priory, the conversation drifted on to the
Bible, and George Eliot and Mr. Romanes began a discussion on the
merits of the two translations of the Psalms best known to English
people--the Bible and the Prayer Book version. They 'quoted' at each
other for a short time, and then Lewes, who had not his Bible at his
finger ends to the extent the other two had, exclaimed impatiently,
'Come, we've had enough of this; we might as well be in a Sunday
school.' Both George Eliot and Mr. Romanes, by the way, preferred the
Bible version.
In one of the letters to Mr. Darwin, Mr. Romanes alludes to the
question of spiritualism, and his own determination to investigate
the question so far as in him lay for himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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