To G. J. Romanes 27–8 May [1877]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
May 27th
My dear Romanes
I must thank you most cordially for your letter.2 It has been a greater relief to me than you would easily believe.— I did not know what the referees may have thought or said about Frank’s paper.3 Whether the moving filaments are protoplasm or not seems to me an open question, but that they are there is a new & surprising phenomenon, seen by Ray Lankester & Balfour.4 The latter by the way said he could not conceive any one who had seen them doubting that they ought to be called protoplasm.— It is terribly discouraging to a young worker to have his work rejected because the facts are quite new. But again I thank you heartily for your letter, which I will show to Frank when he comes home.—
Your letter has interested me much in other ways. I shall be delighted to read your Lecture when it appears in Nature.5
If any friend has been deceiving you in your sceances, how wicked & scandalous such a proceeding is.—6
I am soon going away from home for a month for I want rest & a change.7
Farewell | Yours | Ch. Darwin
I have read through about a of Mr Grant Allen’s book.— it seems to me wonderfully clever, but is rather too much in the deductive strain for me,—though I know this is very illiberal.—8
I cannot but think that he neglects too much the effects of habits, in modifying tastes of all kinds, but perhaps I shall come to this hereafter.
P.S. 28th.
Can you spare time to come down any day this week, except Saturday, to dine & sleep here?9 We shd. be very glad indeed if you can come. If so, I wd. suggest your leaving Charing X by the 4o 12’ train, & we wd. send a carriage to Orpington to meet you, & send you back next morning. In this case let me have a line fixing your day. It will be dull for you, for none of my sons except Frank are at home.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Allen, Grant. 1877. Physiological aesthetics. London: Henry S. King & Co.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Darwin, Francis. 1877a. On the protrusion of protoplasmic filaments from the glandular hairs of the common teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris). (Abstract.) [Read 1 March 1877.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 26: 4–8.
Darwin, Francis. 1877b. On the protrusion of protoplasmic filaments from the glandular hairs on the leaves of the common teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris). Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science n.s. 17: 245–72.
Romanes, George John. 1877b. Evolution of nerves and nervous systems. Nature, 19 July 1877, pp. 231–3, 2 August 1877, pp. 269–71, 9 August 1877, pp. 289–93.
Summary
Discusses Francis Darwin’s paper on teasel [Dipsacus].
Comments on GJR’s investigation of spiritualism.
Comments on book by Grant Allen [Physiological aesthetics (1877)].
Invites him to visit
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10973
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- George John Romanes
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.514, Mss.B.D25.546)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10973,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10973.xml