As late 1880's gentlewoman, author, traveller, and psychic investigator E. Katherine Bates writes, "psychometry is the science of learning to receive impressions and intuitions from the atmosphere surrounding any material object-a letter, a ring, a piece of pebble or shell, and so naturally this is especially the case in letters written and signed by us." One of Bates' many pieces written as she traveled the world investigating psychic phenomena, 'Psychometric Portraiture of the Victorian Era', addresses the psychometry of paintings and portraits.