170 GEOKGE JOHN EOMANES issi- 



says the study of statistics fascinates him just as 

 skating on thin ice does some people it's so perilous. 



To Mrs. Romanes. 



Your letter and postcard most welcome. Yester- 

 day I dined with the George Turners, and played 

 chess from eight to one A.M., winning two out of 

 three games. I told them that for to-night I hesi- 

 tated whether to go and see some dancing or go to 

 the ' Messiah.' Isabel said she would throw into the 

 latter scale the inducement of her own company, 

 so we are going together. Mr. Diggle signified his 

 desire to see my school, 1 so I went with him. 



Returning for a little while to the scientific work 

 of these years, one may say that they were chiefly 

 devoted to the more philosophical side of his work as 

 a naturalist. 



1 Animal Intelligence,' ' Mental Evolution in 

 Animals,' appeared respectively in 1881 and 1883, 

 and are works designed to prove that the law of 

 evolution is universal, and applies to the mind of man 

 as well as to his bodily organisation. 



Mr. Romanes read widely and observed much, and 

 no one less deserved the charge of writing without 

 observing, or of being a ' paper philosopher.' Both 

 these books abound in stories of animals, and are full 

 of interest for anyone caring at all for ' beasts,' quite 

 apart from the special object of the books. 



Lecturing and reviewing were, so to speak, pas- 

 times to him, and gave him little trouble. One 

 lecture given at the Royal Institution on ' The Mental 



1 See p. 236. 



