From G. J. Romanes   1 July [1881]1

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park, N.W.:

July 1.

I have told Collier that he had now better write to you direct at whatever time he intends to make his final arrangements with you as to place and time of sitting.2 He has just finished a portrait of me, which my mother had painted as a present to my wife. It is exceedingly good, and as all his recent portraits are the same—notably one of Huxley—I am very glad that he is to paint you.3 Besides, he is such a pleasant man to talk to, that the sittings are not so tedious as they would be with a less intelligent man.

I shall certainly read the ‘Creed of Science’ as soon as I can.4 The German book on Evolution I have not yet looked at, as I have been giving all my time to my own book.5 This is now finished. But talking of my time, I do not see how the two or three hours which I have spent in arranging to have a portrait, which will be of so much historical importance, taken by a competent artist, could well have been better employed.

You will see that I have got into a row with Carpenter over the thought-reading. Everybody thinks he made a mistake in lending himself to Bishop’s design of posing as a scientific wonder. Bishop is a very sly dog, and has played his cards passing well. In an article which he published two years ago in an American newspaper, he explains the philosophy of advertising, and says the first thing to attend to is to catch good names. He has now succeeded well.6

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours, | Geo. J. Romanes.

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to G. J. Romanes, 27 May 1881.
3
Romanes’s mother was Isabella Gair Rose Romanes; his wife was Ethel Romanes. Collier’s 1883 portrait of Thomas Henry Huxley hangs in the National Portrait Gallery (https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw03338/Thomas-Henry-Huxley, accessed 19 September 2019); an earlier one has not been identified, and no earlier portrait of Huxley is listed in Collier’s sitters book (photocopy facsimile of Register of Paintings of the Hon John Collier held by the National Portrait Gallery Library). Collier’s portrait of Romanes has not been found, but is listed under 1881 in his sitters book.
5
Roux 1881; see letter to G. J. Romanes, 16 April 1881 and n. 3. Romanes was working on his Animal intelligence (G. J. Romanes 1882).
6
In an article titled ‘Thought-reading’, Nature, 23 June 1881, pp. 171–2, Romanes had criticised William Benjamin Carpenter’s decision to recommend the thought-reader Washington Irving Bishop to the attention of a large assembly of scientists. The article described experiments that Romanes took part in with a few other men of science, with Bishop’s co-operation, which he felt showed that Bishop’s thought-reading feats depended on his ability to detect unconscious muscular movements in the ‘thinkers’. In a letter to Nature, 30 June 1881, pp. 188–9, Carpenter wrote that he had never attributed Bishop’s powers to anything other than the ability to detect muscular indications in others, and described a card trick that Bishop had demonstrated to him. On Bishop, see Wiley 2012; on Carpenter’s involvement, see Delorme 2014. Bishop’s article has not been identified; he was in the UK from 1878.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13229,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13229