Chapter VII: Travel in Europe and America (2)

How glad we are about the grandchild, and what real comfort and delight you will have with the little fellow! And then the satisfaction of having your name go down in the direct line. Why, he may be a botanist, or at least a chemist, and add honor to the name in another generation. Please give, with our love, our united congratulations to the happy papa and mamma.

We have been corresponding with Carey, and shall see him soon.

The sheet is full; so adieu for a few weeks. Ever your affectionate

A. GRAY.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

QUEEN’S HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, November 8, 1869.

We broke up our establishment at Kew, this afternoon, and are having the night here, preparatory to embarkation. Before leaving Kew I received the proof of your sermon,[84] and here I found your last note, and Loring another proof-copy of the sermon; for which he sends best thanks.

So you have been again to Windsor, and this time, I trust, had her Majesty in the congregation....

Loring, the young ladies, and myself had the Sunday at Canterbury, our last cathedral, and a most interesting one, both in the sight and the associations. We have Stanley’s “Memorials” to read up, with other things, on the voyage, if the Atlantic will allow it.

Wednesday morning.--Off Irish coast; shall reach Queenstown before noon; very smooth water, especially since we were out of the St. George’s Channel. We are all doing very well, though some of our party, including Mrs. Gray, are poor creatures on the water.

I have read over the sermon with real interest. What I much like in it is the broadness of view and moderation of claim, which adds strength to the argument. It seems to me that every Christian man, churchman or no, would yield full assent to all you say.

And, dear Mr. Church, consider that all your friends think, no doubt, as I do, that you are hardly at liberty to take counsel of your misgivings and humility, if asked to take some position in which your gifts may tell more directly upon educated men, especially the younger men. I don’t want to see you in a position which brings cares and anxieties along with high honors; these I do not covet for you in the least. What I covet for you is fruitful leisure, some position for you which, while it gives you time, and income enough to supply real wants, makes also some demands; for rarely does one do anything to much purpose that he is not somehow constrained to do.

We leave behind us in England most delightful friends, and we are not likely to forget them; but we are somehow drawn to you in a peculiar way, and shall often be thinking of you and yours when settled down again, if it please God that we may be, at our pleasant home on the other side of the Atlantic.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., November 23, 1869.

Just a line to tell you--which you will be glad to know--that we safely accomplished our voyage home, landing yesterday morning [Monday] early, on the thirteenth day. Very well for that vessel, the slowest of the line, and at this season, with much head wind. No gales, but some stiff breezes, and the vessel tumbled and rolled about, to our discomfort. However, it is all over; and Mrs. G. and the other ladies, who suffered a good deal, are looking brighter again.

My wife sends kind love to you and all yours, and the young people, if they knew of my writing, would send kind and grateful messages. The voyage now seems to me only as a disturbed night’s sleep, dozing off in Old England to awake in the New.

Ever yours affectionately, A. GRAY.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

CAMBRIDGE, February 14, 1870.

MY DEAR DARWIN,--Being eve of post-day we respond at once to yours of the 27th January--which arrived this very morning--lest you should send us down to posterity with a fabulous dog-story.

I well remember telling you of our “Max”[85] and his habit of washing cat-fashion; which you suggested might have come from being brought up with a cat, and I think I told you that I had not been able to learn definitely whether that was the case or no. Here, you see, by some shuffling of memory, a suggestion of what might explain a fact has taken the place of the fact itself. I am curious to know if it be true, for it is the only explanation I can think of.

I trust you have some of the slender-leaved Drosera I sent through Hooker.

Well, our homeward voyage was not a nice one, especially for Mrs. Gray, and it now seems a long time ago. I dropped at once into a world of work; but am not killing myself. The main struggle for existence will come in the spring, when my duties crowd on me dreadfully.

It gave us both very great pleasure to see again Mrs. Darwin’s well-known handwriting, and your signature.

I knew you would be pleased with young Agassiz and his Yankee wife. I wish his health were better; and I do hope your own will be such that you can next summer see and know my trump of a colleague J. Wyman.

TO GEORGE BENTHAM.

CAMBRIDGE, March 28, 1870.

... You hope that I will not resign my chair here unless to devote myself wholly to botanical work. What other object could I have in view? I am not likely to be idle, and I care for nothing else. The difficulty is, that the university cannot well spare me now, nor find a fit person to take either the whole or a part of my work, but there is a good disposition to favor my views.

Charles Wright is helping me as curator of the herbarium, and is getting the large accessions into it--rather slowly.

The winter is nearly passed; I have employed diligently all the time I could command, but the net result looks small. All I have for the printer is a revision of Eriogoneæ, which I have turned over to him, and which you shall soon see. I think I have done it very well. I have in Eriogonum made use of a character which you have not employed, i. e., the attenuation of the base of the flower into stipes, which marks the umbellata and the eriantha well, and I have increased the number of the sections. The species I have actually diminished from eighty-one to seventy-nine, although several had been added to those in the Prodromuses, and I have added half a dozen myself.

I should have written to you long ago, but as you would always have news of me through Hooker, and I had nothing special to say, I refrained. It is always a pleasure to hear from you, and I have no idea that our long correspondence should drop. I should have seen more of you and Mrs. Bentham (and my wife, too, regretted much), but you were much laid up with that sciatica, and we were dreadfully pressed at the last. Could we have had this winter in England, as we had at first hoped, it would have been well.

Torrey made me a visit in January; is well and happy, except that he gets only odds and ends of time for botany, and so cannot do anything to much purpose. The Eriogoneæ being a pet group of his, and his old sketches very useful in my elaboration, I have joined his name to my own in the paper I am now printing.

At the wonderful rate you are going on you will soon complete the “Flora Australiensis.” Happy and fortunate man that you are, both in the faculty of accomplishing work and in having your whole time for just what you want to do.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S., February 15, 1870.

MY DEAR CHURCH,--My good wife has just handed me these sheets for Mrs. Church, and if it were not just on post-morning I should gossip with you, I suppose, to the extent of a sheetful, and send you our hearty thanks for your most kind and welcome Christmas letter,--the acknowledgments for which have been deferred too long already.

For myself, I have had three or four delightful weeks out of our short winter vacation, which have been given wholly to botanical work in my study. But this week begins again my round of official duties, to continue till July.

I rather weary of it as I grow older; and still more I grudge the time. I could now, I see, make fair arrangement for relinquishing a large part of my work in the university if there were some one ready to come in as a colleague or suffragan. But the person wanted is not to be found, and it will take a long while to hatch and raise one. We shall see.

I keep up all my lively interest in English affairs. But I do not get the items of news now as early as I used to do when the “Gardener’s Chronicle” had a news-sheet attached. I do well enough in the scientific line, however, as I see both “Nature” and the “Academy.” The former should bear for its motto “Natura non facit saltum;” it does not jump at once to perfection; the articles are many of them rather weak and washy. The “Academy” in its way seems better. The “Athenæum” (which I hope will revive, now that Dixon is out of it), the “Saturday Review,” and the “Pall Mall Budget” come to us in our book club, after a while, in our turn.

So Temple, having carried his point, is now making his over-active opponents look a bit foolish by preaching earnest orthodox sermons. And Gladstone has done a (to me not unexpected) thing which gratifies his friends here, in giving to Mr. Fraser the see of Manchester; I had not heard of the death of the former incumbent when the news of this offer came. What a run Gladstone is having in the way of church patronage! Then the memorial from both universities themselves for the abolition of religious tests! How you are getting on! And how are you to manage to secure proper religious influence at the universities? By moral power and the strength of your cause alone? which may, after all, be more truly effective than statutes. Yet there will be natural anxieties.

Pray give me, now and then, an inside view of what is going on, or better, what is thought.

Why, here is my sheet filled and nothing said. I have nothing to tell you from here--nothing worth sending you. I don’t think much of Lowell’s “Cathedral.” The grotesque bits are not in half as good keeping as the gargoyles and other queer pieces of ornament on the old cathedrals.

CAMBRIDGE, April 4, 1870.

I have for a long while been wishing and endeavoring to write to you, but it is not so easy, so many other letters have to be written, to answer letters from persons that I don’t particularly care for, as to leave little time for those that I do.

I owe you for two very interesting letters; for it was a hurried note of mine that we need not count, which crossed yours of February 4, and then there is your later one of March 1, along with Mrs. Church’s to my wife. I leave it for her to tell you about the novelists. And I have not much to say of myself. I have pottered all winter over the herbarium and upon an article for our “American Academy’s Proceedings,” of a wholly technical nature, which is just in the printer’s hands. I am about to begin another,--a study of another group of North American plants; but the professional work absorbs so much of my time and energy that it will, I know, make no great progress until July brings a long vacation. And then I may have my hands full, somewhat as yours will be, superintending building. I have _my_ church to enlarge. I need a lecture-room here on the spot, and a students’ laboratory in connection with it; and I have a plan for this, to form a wing to the herbarium building, and a fair prospect that I may get it done. We shall see before long; and if the means are forthcoming, I will soon let you know, with all the details....

The last “Spectator” received gives an abstract of Gladstone’s and Forster’s Irish Land and Education bills, and of the general favor they were received with upon their introduction. To have almost satisfied all parties and interests is really a wonderful and a most unexpected achievement. You ought to be proud of Gladstone, and well satisfied at having inevitable and great changes wrought out under so strong a ministry, and so high-minded a leader. Courage, earnestness, and high principle here are seen to command success, in Parliament at least. How anything will work in Ireland remains to be seen. But don’t think as some of my English friends do, that the Irish are incapable of good things. The race over here, as a general thing, develop at once what they seem to lack at home, thrift, and with thrift come order and respect for law.

I happened to be in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day, and was stopped in my carriage while a very long Irish procession passed. They were mainly of the more well-to-do sort, no doubt; but they had made themselves so. Probably nearly every one of middle age was born in Ireland, and would have been a peasant laborer at home, very likely ill-conditioned enough. They were, however, in holiday attire; still they were fair representatives of the race, and I wished we could send them over to you for a day, as specimens of what may be made out of such material, under circumstances, not altogether the best, but much better than those at home. They are not the best element of our population, certainly, but they make by no means a bad lower stratum, out of which many show a truly Yankee-like aptitude for rising. They are almost all Romanists, to be sure; and there is an element of danger. But the influence of the priesthood is much tempered (as witness how they ran into Fenianism, against their exhortations) and in most respects is far from bad. The Germans are counted as a much better population, but they are quite as clannish, and in the towns are rather disposed to be actively anti-Christian.

By the way, I met some time ago Mr. Stanley, who has been in the country before; is now on his way round the world via California, a favorite route. He is, or was, an M. P., a son of Lord Stanley of Alderley, an Oxford man, bright, sharp, and very talkative. He is a specimen of ultra-secularistic liberalism, I should think, of a set that will be apt to give you some trouble hereafter, in the questions that are to come up; if I do not misjudge him, one who thinks the world, or at least England, has not much farther use for distinctive Christianity; just one of the sort you must have had in view, in yours of February 4, as extremely generous “in making free with what other people value, and you don’t care for.” Most uncivilly, I fear, I fell almost into a wrangle with him directly. He even seemed to think us on the whole a bigoted set here in Cambridge,--rather a novel view to us....

Well, I must break off.

Our spring is tardy, after a wintry March. Only snowdrops yet out in the Garden, and those in the sunniest place, a lot which I brought with me from England. For primroses we have to look into a cold frame, in which they, with violets, have been blossoming all the latter part of the winter.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

November 15, 1870.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--Many thanks for your most kind letter of the 24th October. Taken along with one from Mr. Bentham of about the same date, it gives me tidings of several of our French confrères, who are now in such great tribulation. What a change since last year, since last summer even; and for Mrs. Gray and me, how fortunate that we had our visit made and over before the deluge! And what can be the end, and when? It is useless to conjecture. And now there is fear that while Germany is holding the Gallic wolf by the ears,--a situation growing daily more uncomfortable and dangerous for Prussia, and England is left quite alone,--Russia is to take a step forward in the Black Sea, etc., which will greatly vex England and Austria, and perhaps send the torch of war all over Europe; and if all closes up soon Europe will feel this powerful Germany. But it may be the better for Switzerland, whose danger is always from France. It used to make me uneasy and indignant to see the French flag on the shore of your Lake, where it has no business to be!

The Caruel[86] pamphlet reached me to-day. To the first question the answer is simple and easy. About the second, there is perhaps more to be said. As the publication of a name without a character goes for nothing, why should the dubious proposal of a name with a hypothetical character go for more? And suppose the suggested character does not prove true, and a genus afterwards be founded well upon the same species with a good character, and under another name, must that give place to the conditional name, etc.? Vain the endeavor to settle every such little question by the terms of any positive enactment.

One thing I see, that is, that our solitary point of disagreement will erelong disappear. The fact of the publication of a certain name, at a certain date and a certain place, being the main thing, the form (and I add the agent) of publication being a subsidiary consideration, I think you will come to agree that, _e. g._, names proposed by Fischer and published in his name by De Candolle, must be said to be Fischer’s, and cited, in the last resort, as, _e. g._, “A. dasyglottis, Fisch. in DC.,” just as I write “Phlox rigida, Benth. in DC.” For all the rest, I think I agree with you fully. I perfectly agree that, _e. g._, “Diceratium Lag.” is correct only as a generic name, that “Sect. Diceratium DC.” is the only correct way. I myself and others have not followed this proper course always in former times; but should do so hereafter....

Believe me to remain as ever, most cordially yours,

ASA GRAY.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

CAMBRIDGE, October 14, 1870.

MY DEAR FRIEND: ... I have the hour of leisure and am in the mood for writing this evening. The latter I may count on, but the former I cannot, in these busy and rather distracting days.

On Tuesday evening last I heard Tom Hughes give a public lecture, the only one he gives in America. He manfully stood up and turned the tables upon us, by insisting that the Americans were wronging the British, by blaming them when they ought to be praised for their general conduct during the war of the Rebellion. His lecture was very able and pleasant; and he seemed well pleased, as well he might be, at the reception of it. He, at least, did excellent service in our behalf, in our times of trial.

The next evening I met him at the house of a colleague here in Cambridge, and had a very pleasant talk with him. On telling him that I came near to hearing him speak to the electors of Frome, and was prevented only by the rainy day that made our walk to Longleat too late, he spoke of you with much interest, and told me, what I did not know, that he was of Oriel while you were tutor. He is very much pleased with his trip through the country.

As to the Franco-German war, it is thus far a succession of wonders, and now when a week passes, like the last, without any astounding event, one feels dissatisfied. At first, the crowning and unexpected result, of judgment overtaking Louis Napoleon here on the spot, was only to be rejoiced over. And I think you in England must all be glad to see the vulgar Empire vanish in a day, and in the collapse show how hollow and good for nothing it was in what we supposed its strong side, military force and military ability. But now, it is painful to see France reduced to such straits, and I long to see peace made with as little weakening of France as may be. Only, if it goes on, this chastening, and the effort it may induce France to make, may regenerate her spirit. But, as you say, only the prophetic books of Scripture furnish language in which to express one’s feelings and sentiments.

“And then this nation will I judge, saith the Lord”--sounds in your ears, as these vast changes sweep on.

If I fail to enter wholly into your feelings as to Bismarck and Prussia, here is Mrs. Gray, who has been anti-Prussian from the very first, and who shares all your misgivings, and more. Now, I think it a pity, and a loss to the world, that the German people should be broken up into jealous rival kingdoms and little principalities, always liable to be played off against each other by outlying nations. I think Germany as such ought to take its place as a great Central European power. And yet a simple centralized government is dangerous; at best could ill replace local governments. So I hope for, and expect, a close confederation of German states, in a restored and efficient German empire, the states of which will be as closely united as those of our Federal Union, but yet sovereignties in all that relates to internal concerns. I don’t despair of the Germans working out a fairly successful constitutional parliamentary system, along with state parliaments, etc., after their own fashion. And I fancy that a united Germany will tend to peace in Europe, when one section can no more be played off against another.

But what sort of a policy is this which Great Britain seems to have been pursuing in weakening, and as if inclined to sever, her connections with her principal colonies? Why not contrive some mode of uniting home and colonial interests, giving the colonies imperial representation, or something of the sort, or somehow be making sure that the men you will be wanting one of these years shall be sturdily growing up on these virgin soils, where crowding is out of the question, and who may feel as they grow up that they are part and parcel of a strong empire. For myself, I can’t abide the idea of the English nation ever coming to play any secondary part.

As for ourselves, I feel more and more what a good thing it is, and what an economy in the long run, to have no neighbors, but the whole breadth of country to ourselves, and to be so far away from Europe that we may look with unconcern upon the rise or fall of states there, so far as they affect any interests of ours. That does not prevent our being all alive to events in Europe, however. The telegraph feeds our lively curiosity, day by day; but what I write about to-day will have ceased to interest by the time it reaches you: perhaps the strife all over there; devoutly do I wish it may be.

I see you have taken up “Anselm” again; and that, I presume, is the book you are going to send me, and which I shall be pleased to see.

Yes, you must come over here; but when you do, please arrange for time enough. When you cross the ocean, be sure to stay long enough to get your money’s worth. If it be the summer after next, perhaps we may cross the continent together, and see the parent of your Wellingtonia tree on the lawn, and the rest of the grove, and visit the wondrous Yosemite Valley, as yet an arduous journey from San Francisco, but it will soon be within easy reach.

I see that my writing is very bad, and will stop short.

Inclosed are seeds of the two passion-flowers which are so good for showing the movements of tendril, both the coiling after being touched, and revolution, etc. Sow in April in your little conservatory, or in hotbed, and you may have good plants for your purpose in June. The tendrils show off best under a temperature of 80° or 90° Fahr. P. acerifolia will give you tendrils a foot long, when in full growth.

I note the uneasiness in England, and the rumors of difference in the cabinet,--dangerous times for Gladstone’s ministry, but I do hope it will last.

I suppose your church is all in order, and your cares over as to the rebuilding....

TO JOHN TORREY.

November 4, 1870.

I have to-day a long letter from Bentham, which I would send to you, but that it is full of Compositæ queries and statements, which I have soon to attend to. What a worker he is, and what a good one!

At last accounts Decaisne and Brongniart were drilling. Rather old sojers, I think! Cosson[87] had dispatched his wife and daughter and granddaughter to England, and was communicating now and then by balloon-post! Bentham very well, and working hard at Compositæ for “Genera.” ...

I have an advanced class this year, and they come up here, and take up a vast deal of my time. But it is enjoyable work, as they are the pick of a dozen out of fifty or sixty of the preceding year.

March 28, 1871.

... I hope, with you, that the Domingo annexation will break down. But Grant is working for Cuba too, and that is worse than the other; ignorant blacks are better than Creole Spaniards to deal with.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

February 27, 1871.

... There are so many things I wanted to write about your church (for which it was shabby of me not to remember and send you a contribution, in a small way) and the reopening services of which you sent us a newspaper account; your “Anselm,” which we read aloud in our deliberate way, on successive Sunday evenings, when not interrupted, and very much enjoyed; I think the later chapters most; perhaps because we got more interested as we went on, perhaps, too, the narrative flows on with a more free movement in the later than in the earlier chapters. Then there is this wonderful German-French war, which is only now closing, if it be the close, in such bitter humiliation of the French as no Frenchman could ever imagine possible, nor any but a German contemplate without deep sorrow and pity: all their hard measures of former generations meted out to them again, to this one hapless generation, in a way that till now it could never have dreamed of. For long years France must play a secondary political part, which of itself will be a bitter thing, we may hope a wholesome thing; and when with long care and nursing of resources she recovers, she cannot be so strong relatively again, while the German empire holds together. And I suppose you in England have a good deal of misgiving as to what this Germanic power portends. Perhaps the next great wonder, and surely the best thing, may be a great defensive alliance of English-speaking people round the world, which would render any European continental changes less momentous.

It seems to me that the hopeful prospect for France is in the ascendency, seemingly assured, of the conservative republicans and the Orleanists. But there are rumors that even the Orleans family are falling out among themselves.

As I grow older I can sympathize thoroughly with a disinclination you may feel as to assuming any new public duties. The deep ruts which the daily routine of life has worn for us do become such pleasant paths, as one ages, that we do not thank anybody for trying to force us out of them.

Nothing have we heard or seen of Mr. Horner yet: he has gone South probably, which is wise. I hope he will come this way in June, when we shall be very glad to see him....

By the way, I see in “Popular Science Review” a neat presentation of Wallace’s points on the limitations of natural selection as applied to man, by Buckle (I suppose your Oriel friend), who makes the point very well that these limitations apply hardly less, in their way, to other parts of the animal kingdom.

I am too much occupied with humdrum botanical work to read or think much of such matters.

Have you read or seen Bryant’s translation of the Iliad? It was discussed in our club last week by my neighbor, who read extracts from this, Lord Derby’s, and other translations: it was thought to be as readable as Lord Derby’s, to adhere quite as closely to the original, and to reflect more truly the simple directness of Homer, both of expression and thought. I should like to know what you think of it.

The most important matter, as concerns myself, is, that I am busy with plans of building, having found a man who is disposed to give the money for constructing here, adjacent to the herbarium, a much needed botanical lecture-room and laboratory for students. Between the herbarium (which, you know, adjoins our house, and communicates with it) and the conservatory, there is a space of 127 feet. This we mean to fill up: First, with a one-story brick building 60 × 38 feet, rather less than one half for botanical laboratory and cabinet, the rest lecture-room; then a lobby, and the remainder of the distance a low stove and a short, cool greenhouse, to establish connection with our present hothouse. Then, on the one hand, I can bring plants at all seasons into the lecture-room; and on the other I can reach the same under cover, from my private study, through the herbarium; and Mrs. Gray may walk, in winter, from her dining-room, through our little drawing-room, entry, library or parlor, my study, greenhouse corridor, herbarium, lobby, laboratory, lecture-room, passage, stove and coolhouse, into conservatory, of three compartments, a long affair, but don’t imagine anything at all grand. A snake, of which our house is the head and the farthest wing of the conservatory the tail, will give the best idea. In a lucky time I asked a man to build in this 127 feet, at an expense of at least twelve

thousand dollars; and I am authorized to get plans and estimates complete, and I suppose it will be done, though I have no positive assurance of it yet. I thought you would like to know it, without waiting till all is absolutely settled.

Here is a second sheet filled: thick paper, too, and I must cut all short. How I wish we could be with you in Switzerland next summer!

Ever yours affectionately, ASA GRAY.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

March 10, 1871.

MY DEAR DARWIN,--It is very good of you to send me, and so kindly address, a copy of your new book,[88] which safely reached me two days ago. I have not yet had time to read any of it, except the preface and the ending; and I do not like to dip into it and so blunt the edge of curiosity. So I keep it well out of sight, not caring to look just yet at any of the pages which you think likely to “aggravate” me, until some day I can get a good pull at it....

April 14, 1871.

You have such a way of putting things, and you write in such a captivating way. One can only say:--

Almost thou persuadest me to have been “a hairy quadruped, of arboreal habits, furnished with a tail and pointed ears,” etc.

But I have read only the first part of the book and the closing chapters; have left all the Sexual Selection till I can read it leisurely next summer, and have lent it to a judicious friend, who has just returned it.

I have been besought to write notices of the book, but I decline. You don’t know how distracted I am in these days,--doing the work of professor, gardener, builder, financier, and what not, all at once.

But I must not let this mail pass without sending you the little I could get as to Laura Bridgman.

Through Dr. Jarvis, a medical man, etc., I got the queries put to the woman who has now the personal charge of Laura, and he brought me the inclosed, which I think I should not much rely on.

When Dr. Howe is on hand, some day, I will see if I can get anything authentic and particular,--not, I fear, in time for you.

TO CHARLES WRIGHT.

CAMBRIDGE, June 28, 1871.

... Well, I say the same as then, only I feel sad about the chance of the “Flora of North America.” What is my bête noire, as I said before, is the care of the Garden; and till I can get rid of that, by some complete reorganization, which shall result in the Garden’s being much better seen to than it has been,--better taken care of and better named up and superintended,--I shall not be comfortable nor of much use in writing “Flora of North America.”

I am going to try if I cannot find or make some sort of superintendent, and pay him out of what I pay for rent of house, and have succeeded in getting credited to Botanic Garden fund. This will leave me to pay for work in the herbarium (which is the work you prefer) out of the only $800 a year yielded by herbarium fund, which has first of all to pay for books, paper, fuel, and freights,--in short, most of it, and some years all,--must come out of my own pocket, until I can find somebody who will endow a curatorship. Or else I must put this work in the herbarium on to my assistant, Farlow, who, however, will have his hands full enough without it.

As to the way you are doing up Cuban botany, I do not find fault with it. I think, with you, that you are doing about the best possible thing under the circumstances. The only thing that you may justly complain of me for, I think, is my sensitiveness and pooh-poohing new-species-making in families where old species are yet all in a jumble, and where I have thought that you could not yet tell what were new and what old. I dare say I have been too impatient about it, and I see I have hurt your feelings somewhat, which I am sorry for. I only meant, take time and pains to clear up the old ones in the books, and get a better assurance, if you can, about the proposed new ones. But, after all, it is wrong and foolish in me to worry myself, or you, about them.

You will have more experience of the sort, in the working up of your San Domingo collection. But if we can get time to refer doubtful cases to say Oliver at Kew, and some one at Paris (where they have many old San Domingo plants), I suppose you may get them pretty straight....

TO R. W. CHURCH.

September 10, 1871.

I have addressed the envelope for this letter before writing it, determined to use once more the familiar superscription. The official may bide its time.[89]

Only yesterday we learned of Gladstone’s doings by a newspaper slip sent us by a friend who knew of you through us on the Nile, Mrs. Howland. But I had a sort of premonition of it and was on the lookout....

I do not know where the Deanery is,--not in so attractive a situation as Whatley Rectory, one may safely say. But I suppose you are not expected to reside there in summer, that you will be fairly able to have some country quarters to your liking. And there is Switzerland always within reach. Happy mortals, who can reach the Alps within forty-eight hours, and with only a narrow, though proverbially nasty, bit of water to cross! But what we hope to gain from this upturning is to see you over here. When Mr. Horner returns (we have heard nothing since they vanished in the West) he will tell you it is no formidable matter even to cross the continent. At least you can come and see us, make us a long visit, and be as quiet here as in a Swiss wayside inn, and sally forth upon an excursion when you like.

Please thank Mrs. Church from me for thinking of us, and writing the very next day after this anxious matter was concluded. It is wonderful she could find time, with so much to do and to think of. And such a full account of the Swiss journey, too.

I owe you letters, too,--one at least lies reproachingly in a drawer of my table, where it was thrust a long while ago along with many others which could be postponed; but once postponed it is not easy to overtake them.

Say to Mrs. C. it is not a part of our house which was moved; that would not have been difficult, for it is of wood (though the herbarium, etc., adjacent is of brick). It must have been the Law School the moving of which Mrs. Gray was describing. Tell Mr. Horner that, like some other things, when once you have seen it done it ceases to be wonderful or even difficult.

As to my lecture-room, etc., all work stopped for near a month, including the fortnight or more when I was away; and now (September 11) all has been clatter and hurry for the last week or so, and they really seem determined to fulfill the terms of their contract, to finish by the 15th instant. They cannot do that; but I trust the workmen may go out with the month. These cares of building have sadly interferred with scientific work all summer. I have accomplished very little of what I intended. I attended, and, when the last year’s president retired on delivering his address, presided over, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, twentieth meeting, at Indianapolis, capital of the State of Indiana,--a journey of forty-eight hours, in very sultry summer weather, over long stretches of country. I broke the journey by a day in New York, to see two sons of Mr. Darwin just as they landed, and by a three days’ stay, including Sunday, with my old friend Mr. Sullivant, in Ohio. The meeting was a pleasant, though not especially interesting one. I met botanical correspondents of many years’ standing whom I had never seen. At the close we were invited to make an excursion to the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, which I counted on seeing. But I found that the excursion was to be an overcrowded one.... So I hastened homeward, and was with Mrs. Gray at Beverly Farms, where she had been passing holidays at Mrs. Loring’s at the paternal homestead on the seashore,--a place that you have heard us talk of not a little. It is delightful. I know nothing to give you so good an idea of it as the Devonshire coast, there being plenty of wood quite down to the water. Were we there now, Miss K. and Charles Loring would, I know, charge me with messages.

I must tell you that the Scientific Association is invited to meet at San Francisco, California, next summer; and that we have fixed the meeting there conditionally, that is, in case the Californians care enough for our presence to transport a certain number of our representative men free of cost, or nearly so, across the wide continent. If not, we are to meet on the northern part of the Mississippi,--at Dubuque, Iowa, far enough west in all conscience, but a place from which we may easily reach the Falls of St. Anthony and Lake Superior. I must needs attend, as I shall have a retiring address to deliver. And though I can ill spare the time or afford the expense, yet Mrs. Gray and I are longing to see California. What say you and Mrs. Church about joining us for your next summer’s vacation? The mountains which form the sides of the Yosemite Valley will hardly offer as many kinds of flowers as the alpine turf of the Riffelberg, but they may be more novel to you....

* * * * *

On December 15, 1871, Dr. Gray wrote to President Eliot, after describing formally the completion of the new buildings, and something of the history and arrangement of the department, the following letter:

* * * * *

... I beg to add, for your consideration and that of the corporation, a few words of a personal character.

With the present academic year I shall have completed thirty years of service in the professorial chair to which I was called in the spring of 1842. The Garden, which had been under no professorial care for years, and which has since had a long and hard struggle for existence, the conservatories, the herbarium and its library, both steadily increasing, and now the lecture-room, laboratory, etc., make up an establishment which has grown by degrees into one which requires much time, care, and anxiety to administer, and for which I have now done the main part of what could be expected of me or any one man. The experience of the last and the present year clearly shows me that the work of instruction, steadily increasing in its demands under the present system, weighted more and more with the load of administration, is more than I can carry on. I have some warnings, besides, of the increase of years, which I ought to consider; and I definitively propose to lay down, at the close of the present academic year, as large a part of this load as I possibly can without serious prejudice to this department and this establishment. I suppose that either the duties of instruction or of administration, beyond that of the herbarium, must be entirely surrendered. If I can be spared, and if what I could do for the herbarium could be reckoned an equivalent for rent of the house I reside in, I should crave to resign both the charge of the Garden and of the professorship. There is reason to think that the time is at hand when changes such as are here suggested may be propitiously made.

When I came here, in 1842, I was carrying on and publishing a most important original work, the “Flora of North America.” I have worked on it from time to time, but I never have been able to publish any more of it. And now what was done has all to be done again, and carried if possible to a completion; and there is no one else to do it if I do not. My educational books, or most of them, require to be re-edited; and I fail to find time and sufficient freedom of mind for the undertaking. If I could accomplish these tasks, or a good part of them, I am of opinion that I should in consequence be able (as is especially my desire) to do a great deal more for the university and the permanent interest of this establishment than I can expect now to do, as at present situated, even if it were possible or probable that I could so continue for any length of time. I am,

Very respectfully and truly yours, ASA GRAY.

TO JOHN TORREY.

CAMBRIDGE, January 4, 1872.

DEAR DOCTOR,--I have a horrid cold, which makes me unwell.

I write a brief line, in response to yours of yesterday, mainly to say that I fear I disagree with you about the reply to be made to Wilkes’s urgent request to print the manuscript of the Oregon collection of Wilkes’ Expedition.

It was prepared to print long ago; is not your fault that it has been delayed so long. The library committee have a right to print it, and might do so without your corrections if you decline to make any. We want the plates, which are now thrown away, and must be published. I would print in the form of a naked list,--except where remarks and descriptions are still wanted,--and to make all right and sure, and to relieve you, I, with Watson’s kind help, will fix it all up for you and read the proofs once, and so save you the worry. And I urgently request you to send this line to Professor Henry, as embodying my opinion, and my offer of help.

I am sure that if the rest of my manuscript is called for, I shall turn it over with satisfaction, though the same applies to it as to yours. And I should either alter accordingly or add notes.

The rest of your letter I will respond to in due time.

But I feel concerned to have those Oregon plates out.

I think I have some right to, as I paid for one hundred of them; but that is no matter. They are now neither published nor unpublished, which is a bad state of things.

* * * * *

Dr. Gray had the manuscript prepared some years before for the second volume of the “United States Exploring Expedition,” and notified the library committee that he was ready for publishing. Meantime came the war, and there was no money or thought for such things. When the country was again quiet and prosperous, the library committee who had formerly known and been interested in the work and its printing had passed away; there was no one to care for it, and the manuscript was never called for.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

CAMBRIDGE, March 7, 1872.

Mr. Packard, one of our best entomologists, a most excellent and modest man, has asked to be introduced to you, that he may pay his respects.

I shy or refuse such applications generally, saying you can rarely see visitors or callers. But Packard is “fish to your net,” has his head crammed with facts bearing on derivation, is a disciple of the Hyatt-Cope school, that you may have heard of,--people who have got hold of what they call a law, though I do not see that they contribute any vera causa at all.

If you will turn the world of science upside down, you must expect that people will wish to see you....

May 31.

By the hand of an old correspondent of yours, and cousin of ours, Mr. Brace, I send you a little book, which may amuse you, in seeing your own science adapted to juvenile minds.[90] In some of those hours in which you can do no better than read, or hear read, “trashy novels,” you might try this instead. It will hardly rival “The Jumping Frog,” and the like specimens of American literature which you first made known to us....

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

BOTANIC GARDEN, June 10, 1872.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--You must set me down as a faithless correspondent. Your pleasant letter of April 6, from Paris, has been long upon my table, and I think there is one of older date somewhere below. But all this spring I have been so overworked that I could respond only to the most necessary letters of business, duties of my professorship, of the Garden, and many other things. Well, my lectures are over, and for the ensuing year I may hope for some emendation. I give up the superintendence of the Botanic Garden, which has become a great burden, and I nominally devolve other university work in part upon an assistant, surrendering at the same time a part of my salary, hoping thereby to purchase time. We shall see if it be possible. But I have to begin with a new assistant, who will need training; but will then, I hope, take much off my hands. My youthful assistant of the past two years goes in a week or two to Europe, to study in some German university for a year or two; to Strasburg, I think, unless he first should go to Sweden, and there study Algæ, with Agardh, if he will receive him. He takes a fancy to lower Cryptogamia. His name is Farlow, an honest, good fellow. He will most likely be in Switzerland in the summer; and I shall give him a letter of introduction to you, whom he will wish to know. But take no trouble on his account, except to introduce him to Dr. Müller, from whom, as a working lichenologist, he could learn much.

Well, Mrs. Gray and I are going to set out, two weeks hence, for California. We both need the change, and are curious to see the country, having never seen even the Mississippi! The scientific meeting was to have been held there; but there is now a hitch about it. We go, however, at all events, and expect to pass a month in the Yosemite Valley, and elsewhere in the mountain region. I wish you were here to go with us. Hooker was counted on to go with us; but the very bad state of his mother’s (Lady Hooker) health, and the state of affairs at Kew prevent it....

I hope soon to receive your “Mélanges historiques,” which are sure to interest me. If I can I will write you a long letter from California, or Utah, or the Rocky Mountains!--more interesting than this scrawl from yours ever,

ASA GRAY.

TO JAMES D. DANA.

June 22, 1872.

MY DEAR DANA,--I fancy you have got hold of a good topic for your handling, and have a promising inquiry before you, in coördinating cephalization and natural selection as operative on the nervous system of animals. I expect you to get something interesting out of it.

But every now and then something you write makes me doubt if you quite get hold just right of Darwinian natural selection. What you still say about struggle not applicable to plants makes me think so.

Suppose the term be a personification, as, no doubt, strictly it is. One so fond as you are of personification and good general expressions ought not to object to what seems to me a happy term.

Speaking from general memory, I should say that the term, as used to express what we mean, was introduced by the elder De Candolle and applied in what I thought a happy way to the vegetable kingdom. I cannot drop it because you say there is no struggle where there is no will; perhaps you mean without consciousness, and then the field of struggle will be much limited. But call the action what you please,--competition (that is open to the same objection), collision, or what not,--it is just what I should think Darwin was driving at. Read “Origin” (4th ed.), pp. 72, 73, and so on, through the chapter, especially pp. 81-86.

This is enough to show you that when you speak of “Darwinian struggle” as occurring only “when the faculties of an animal are called into requisition,” you take too limited a view of what Darwin means.

For myself I should say that the faculties of the lowest animals and the faculties of plants were equally called into requisition in the case, in a manner so parallel that there is no drawing any but a purely arbitrary distinction between the one and the other.

I conceive one as effective as the other as regards the leading on and fixing variation.

When I say now again that the expression “fitted by its regional development to the region” conveys no clear meaning to me, I am only telling you, as I did before, my way of looking at things, not finding fault with yours.

By the way; “variation (inherent) in particular directions,” is your idea and mine, but is very anti-Darwin. Good-night.

A. GRAY.

Dr. Gray greatly enjoyed his visit to California, with the long overland journey thither. It was an ever-renewed excitement to see plants growing which he had seen only as dried specimens, and the conductor of the train was at last almost in despair at the scattering of his passengers to grab what they could in the short halts, as they became inspired by seeing Dr. Gray rush as the engine slowed, to catch all within reach. Then when in motion again the specimens were brought from all sides to see what they were. And the preparing and drying went on to the wonder of some and the interest of all.