48 GEOEGB JOHN EOMANES 1875- 



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. Eomanes made the acquaint- 

 ance 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. Eomanes 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 after- 

 noon, when there were very few people at the Priory, 

 the conversation drifted on to the Bible, and George 

 Eliot and Mr. Eomanes 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, ex- 

 claimed impatiently, ' Come, we've had enough of 

 this ; we might as well be in a Sunday school.' Both 

 George Eliot and Mr. Eomanes, by the way, preferred 

 the Bible version. 



In one of the letters to Mr. Darwin, Mr. Eomanes 

 alludes to the question of . spiritualism, and his own 

 determination to investigate the question so far as in 

 him lay for himself. 



He worked a good deal at spiritualism for a year 

 or two, and he never could assure himself that there 

 was absolutely nothing in spiritualism, no unknown 



