1872-82 'DANIEL DERONDA' 231 



South Africa ' in the collection of the British 

 Museum. He varied his more serious work by 

 contributing an article on ' Petroleum and Oil 

 Wells' to ' Phaser's Magazine.' 



A frequent correspondent of Owen's was G. 

 H. Lewes. The following letter, dated Christ- 

 mas Eve, 1876, is interesting, as it gives a few 

 particulars about George Eliot's ' Daniel Deronda,' 

 and will also serve to show the strong feeling of 

 friendship which existed between both of them 

 and Owen. 



G. H. Lezaes to Richard Owen 



The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park : 

 Christmas Eve, '76. 



* My dear Owen, — It was a most pleasant 

 reminder of the bygone happy days when we 

 used to see much of each other, greatly to my 

 profit, that letter of yours, with its accompanying 

 paper ! 



'It is cheering also to contemplate the work 

 you are still doing, though I am forced to admire 

 it at an ignorant distance, feeling how much I 

 need to approach and appreciate it. I don't find 

 my own powers of work at all what they were — 

 very far from it — but I go on "doggedly," as 

 Johnson said, with the uncomfortable sense that 

 the more I study the nervous system the feebler 

 my grasp of it gets, and the profounder my con- 

 viction that most of what is taught in the text- 



