192 GEORGE JOHN ROMANES issi- 



He was always ready to listen to what younger 

 men (and women) had to say, to talk to them about 

 his own subjects, his own work, to draw out their 

 abilities, to discuss their difficulties. What Mr. 

 Lionel Tollemache has written of Professor Owen is 

 not less applicable to him : 



1 His innate modesty enabled him, when speaking 

 upon his own subject, so to let himself down to the 

 level of the ordinary listeners that they not only felt 

 quite at their ease with him, but fancied for the 

 moment that they were experts like himself.' 



Journal, Jan. 1888. Met Mr. Burne-Jones at 

 the Humphry Wards', and had much interesting 

 talk anent Eossetti. Burne-Jones said Kossetti was 

 like an emperor ; his voice was that of a king who 

 could quell his subjects. Also that he had a won- 

 derful memory for metre, but that Swinburne's is 

 better still, inasmuch as he can remember prose. 

 On one occasion Swinburne recited to Burne-Jones 

 several pages of Milton's prose which he had read 

 once twenty years previously. Burne-Jones went on 

 to say that Eossetti worked a great deal at his poetry, 

 and added, ' That's what you can do with words, 

 worry them as much as you like, but you can't tease 

 a picture.' 



March 9. Mr. Leslie Stephen lectured on Cole- 

 ridge most admirably. 



To Miss C. E. Eomanes. 



18 Cornwall Terrace : March 1, 1888. 



My dearest Charlotte, I find that neither of us 

 wrote yesterday, so I have two of your letters to 

 answer to-day. 



