Alfred Russel Wallace 



of literary merit, once said he thought Wallace one of the 

 most lucid English writers and lecturers of his time. Prof. 

 Barrett was anxious to induce Wallace to lecture in Dublin, 

 and brought the matter before the Science Committee of the 

 Royal Dublin Society, which arranges a course of afternoon 

 lectures by distinguished men every spring. The Committee 

 cordially supported the suggestion that W^allace should be 

 invited to lecture, and the invitation was accepted. During 

 his visit to Dublin, Wallace stayed with Prof. Barrett at 

 Kingstown, and was busily engaged in revising the proof- 

 sheets of his book on " Land Nationalisation " (1882). 



In ''My Life" (Vol. II., p. 334) Wallace says that 

 among the eminent men whose '' first acquaintance and 

 valued friendship " he owed to a common interest in 

 Spiritualism was Frederic Myers, whom he met first at 

 some seances in London about the year 1878. 



F. W. H. Myers to A. R. Wallace 



LecJchampton House, Cambridge. April 12, 1890. 



My dear Wallace, — I will read your pamphlet^ most care- 

 fully; will write and tell you how it affects me; and will 

 in any case send it on with your letter and a letter of my 

 own to Sir John Gorst, whom I know well, and whom I 

 agree with you in regarding as the most acceptable member 

 of the Government. 



If I am converted, it will be wholly your doing. I 

 have read much on the subject — Creighton, etc., and am at 

 present strongly pro-vaccination; at the same time, there 

 is no one by whom I would more willingly be converted 

 than yourself. 



I am glad to take this opportunity of telling you some- 

 thing about my relation to one of your books. I write now 

 from bed, having had some influenzic pneumonia, now going 

 off. For some days my temperature was 105 and I was very 

 restless at night, anxious to read, but in too sensitive and 



* Against vaccination. 



202 



