1890 LETTEE FEOM ME. GLADSTONE 231 



personal claims, which has taken up most of the 

 short time since my arrival. It does not, however, 

 I think, require much time to learn from your book 

 whether you have or have not the poetic gift. Before 

 many minutes had passed the affirmation, I will not 

 say dawned, but glared, upon me. 



I am very glad that you have proceeded to its 

 further exercise. I can see no good reason why a 

 man of science should not be a poet. Lord Bacon 

 surely shows in his Essays that he had the poet in 

 him. It all depends upon the way of going about it, 

 and on the man's keeping himself, as man, above his 

 pursuit, as Emerson well said long ago. 



I do not quite apprehend your estimate of Darwin, 

 nor of Darwin's works, in p. 119. This is no doubt due 

 to my ignorance. I knew him little, but my slight 

 intercourse with him impressed me deeply as well as 

 pleasurably. 



With sincere thanks, I remain, dear Mr. Eomanes, 

 faithfully yours, 



W. E. G-LADSTONE. 



Mr. Eomanes was an omnivorous reader of poetry, 

 and this taste grew by what it fed on. On a holiday 

 he read poetry in preference to anything else, and he 

 was very fond of good anthologies, beginning first and 

 foremost with the ' Grolden Treasury.' Shakespeare, 

 Milton, and, above all, Tennyson were the poets he 

 most loved. For Byron he had had an early boyish 

 enthusiasm, but this he seemed to outgrow ; at least 

 Byron was not an author to whom in later years he 

 turned. He grew more and more addicted to versi- 

 fying in the later years of his life, and girl friends who 

 grew into intimate acquaintances were sure to have 



