I trust that I may still be useful to the university; and if agreeable

to the corporation I should like to continue to be Curator of the

Herbarium. With sincere regard, I am your obedient servant,

ASA GRAY.

BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, January 1, 1873.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, January 14, 1873.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I am much and long in your debt,--all the more by

your agreeable letter of the 16th ult....

Let me note points in your letter. Your volume of “Mélanges,” etc., has

not yet come to hand,--but it is sure to come in time through the

Smithsonian Institution, and will be received with welcome. I will see

to the reproduction of the article on the Dominant Language of the

Twentieth Century,--English of course. I am glad you will make a full

index of the “Prodromus” quoad Genera. I wish it had been species, also!

Glaciers in California! Why, there is a fair remnant of one now, on the

north side of Shasta,--and more in the southern part of the Sierra; and

as to glacial marks, the geologists note them abundantly.

I am glad you saw much of Mr. Adams at Vallon. Madame A. is the more of

a talker, is she not? Or, perhaps she does not speak French. Adams is

vice-president of our American Academy; and is, I hope, presiding this

evening at a meeting which I myself am not well enough to attend. I hope

he will become president, for I mean to retire in May....

Dr. Parry passed last summer in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where

Madame and I visited him, in his cabin; and we ascended Gray’s Peak

together (14,400 feet). Torrey, old as he is, was there later, but did

not get up the twin Torrey’s Peak, though his daughter did surmount

Gray’s Peak....

Now about myself. In what time I can save I am assisting Brewer in the

“Flora of California,” and shall do for him the Monopetalæ, and finish

next summer, if my health does not fail.

Moreover, this is my last year of university work. I finish in July, and

then resign, and give my remaining time to the “Flora of North America.”

Although it is so arranged, it is not yet to be announced. It is

difficult to drop at once the many things I have charge of, and the

vast correspondence all over the country, which has been very useful to

me, and others, but which takes a deal of time. But I am making a fairly

good beginning. Mrs. Gray delights with me in the prospect of release

from many a care, and of devoting myself without distraction to the work

I have always liked best.

I really hope it is not too late to do something (a few lines from you

upon this subject might, _entre nous_, be useful to me).

TO ----.

CAMBRIDGE, May 18, 1873.

... I cannot object to your maintaining the hypothesis that each and

every existing plant and animal form has been directly created (or

mediately created, if you see a difference) out of the soil, pure

hypothesis though it be, and one which “from the nature of the case can

never be directly proved.” It is natural that you should hold to such

hypothesis as long as you believe it to be possibly tenable.

But what I may ask you very seriously to consider is, whether you are

prepared to bear the responsibility you assume in maintaining and

teaching that no hypothesis of the derivation of existing “specific”

forms from previous ones more or less like them can logically be

theistic and religious. How far any such hypothesis may be probable or

tenable in view of the evidence is not the question raised, but a far

more momentous one.

Consider what the “younger men who learn of you” will be likely to think

when they come to discard, as the best informed ones probably will after

a while, your scientific views on this subject; but still, perchance,

confide in your dictum that the doctrine of the derivative origin of one

species from another cannot logically stop short of “blank materialism,

destructive both of science and religion, and even ... to morals and

social organization.”

There will be “a heavy penalty to pay,” but there are two sides to the

question as to who is to pay a part of it. What I said in the last

paragraph of the Dubuque address “we need not here consider”[92] is,

nevertheless, worthy of consideration.

The time is not very distant, I imagine, when those who have protested

against such reckless statements will be thought to have done some

service to religion as well as to science.

I trust that the foundations of theism and of the Christian religion

rest upon firmer foundations than the so-called “immutability of

species.”

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, June 12, 1873.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I must be in your eyes a disgracefully negligent

correspondent and an ungrateful friend. I think, however, that I must

have acknowledged the arrival of your volume which I received, I think,

in March,--more likely late in February. The attempt at a perusal of it

was when, on the 12th March, I went on to New York to pay the last

duties to my venerable and good friend and associate, Dr. Torrey. I read

a good part of the volume on the railway journeys, and planned a review

of several of the articles. Then, a month later, I broke away from my

laborious life here, and made a visit to my old friend Professor Henry,

at Washington. I even went as much farther south, to Wilmington, North

Carolina, where I met the spring in all its beauty, a month in advance

of our tardy north. I collected a lot of live Dionæas, etc. I returned

to a great accession of university work, my assistant being obliged to

leave me on the 1st of May.

To return to your volume: I called Professor Henry’s attention to it, as

one which would all through interest him much, if ever he finds time to

read it. He will translate the article on the Language of the Twentieth

Century for his Report, and perhaps others.

At a time when I was already overloaded, the death of dear Torrey has

thrown some cares and extra work upon me. I have to carry through the

press a report of his upon the plants collected in west North America,

in Wilkes’s Expedition, which was drawn up, but never really finished,

twelve years ago, and was called for just during Torrey’s last sickness,

and to his annoyance, which I felt bound to relieve as well as I could.

Then, six weeks or more ago, died my next oldest friend and companion,

Sullivant, making a sad spring and giving me a needed warning to make

haste. He again leaves two unfinished works which I must see to, though

Lesquereux will, I trust, edit them. Of one, indeed, he was to be joint

author. The other, a second volume of the beautiful “Icones Muscorum,”

is ready as to the plates, but not at all so, I learn, for the

letterpress.

For myself, as I think I have already told you, this summer completing

thirty-one years of professorial work in the university, I am relieved

from further duties of instruction,--and of my salary. I shall not

experience the full relief until the very close of summer. For, in the

interest of this department of the university, and to leave it in proper

working condition, I have undertaken a course of what we call university

lectures,--meaning lectures intended the rather for others than members

of the university,--and have opened the botanical laboratory to pupils,

mainly teachers in schools, for the summer.[93] Considerable time must

be given to them, but, after a few weeks, I hope to throw it mainly upon

my assistant, Professor Goodale.

Professor Goodale, under appointment as assistant professor of vegetable

physiology, will take the whole work of instruction in botany off my

hands; but if a former assistant and pupil, Dr. Farlow, now with De

Bary, proves capable of it, as I hope, he will, I trust, take up the

work in systematic botany. His fancy, however, is for Cryptogamia.

Mr. Sereno Watson is the only one here to do work in systematic botany,

but he will not teach. He and I are endeavoring to help out Professor

Brewer in the “Flora of California,” which, to be done at all, must be

pushed through at once. I have promised to do the Gamopetalæ, which come

in the field I am striving to cover for the “Flora of North America.”

That work I hope now to give myself to.

I ought to have taken this step several years ago; but I could not

afford it, and it is only now that I have been able to bring the

department here into the position in which I feel justified in resigning

the care of it. I retain the charge of the herbarium, and I continue my

residence in the house which is connected with it.

Dr. Torrey’s herbarium and library were made over to Columbia College,

and will be kept up, although no professor will be appointed at present.

Mr. Sullivant’s bryological collections and library are to come here.

I send you by mail a copy of my biographical notices of Torrey and

Sullivant; both from “American Academy Council Report of Proceedings,”

and both printed in advance, in “Silliman’s Journal,” where you will see

them.

By the way, I have resigned the chair of the American Academy, after ten

years’ occupation, and it is taken by Mr. Adams, whom you know. The

third class (classical and historical) takes its turn.

TO W. M. CANBY.

CAMBRIDGE, June 30, 1873.

MY DEAR CANBY,--My Dionæas grow finely, and are the delight of my heart.

Drosera longifolia, also cultivated, is almost as good a fly-catcher.

Now and then I see a little exudation inside base of hood of Sarracenia

flava, which answers to what my Southern correspondent pointed out; but

is not very marked....

CAMBRIDGE, July 7.

... I have also seen here that water is secreted in the pitcher of Sarr.

flava before the lid is open.

But I have also seen some time ago, when the weather got rather warm,

very minute globules like finest dew on the erect part of the lid, near

base, inside. And, lately, during the very warm days, I found in some

this increased, and the droplets running together into a clammy

exudation. But I want to see more of it. I shall watch, as I get a

chance, and the weather gets hot. Look at yours. See if there is

anything of the sort in S. purpurea; I think not.

I have not the book yet. But I somehow understand that this exudation on

the lid is mentioned in the English translation of Le Maout and

Decaisne’s “General Treatise of Botany!” The French has it not. Very

likely it has been found out by Darwin, who finds out everything!

... _Conundrum?_ Why does the Dionæa trap close only part way, so as to

cross the bristles of edge only, at first, and afterwards close fully?

Darwin has hit it. I wonder you or I never thought of it.

A. G.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, October 27, 1873.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--If I were a better correspondent, I should have

long ago thanked you for your interesting and welcome letter of August

11, from Samaden. I was in the Engadine when last in Switzerland, and

got near the top of Piz Langarde, when a storm drove me back.

Your announcement leads me to expect soon the new (and alas, last!)

volume of the “Prodromus.” Well, it must give you a huge sense of relief

to have it off your hands; something like the relief I now feel at the

termination, at the close of thirty-one years, of my professorial

duties, upon which you felicitate me. On account of a summer course of

instruction, which I felt bound to initiate for my successor, I did not

really close my labors until the end of July. Since then I have been

able to work at systematic botany very steadily. We took, my wife and I,

a holiday of a fortnight, in which we visited friends on the Hudson

River and its tributaries, at the close of September, just as the

foliage was beginning to display the bright autumnal tints, which this

year have been unusually gorgeous, and have not yet disappeared,

although the leaves are now falling fast. The sight is most enjoyable to

me in the earlier autumn, when the verdure still prevails and makes a

setting for the red, yellow, and russet.

I am now deep in the Compositæ for the “California Flora” of my friend

Brewer, and so am trying Bentham’s work. It generally holds

good,--wonderfully so, considering its extent, and the comparatively

short time he took for it.

Your agreeable volume of “Miscellanies” is now in the hands of your old

friend and my neighbor, Jules Marcou; who asked to borrow it, having

been unable to purchase a copy. It is reported out of print. I think I

sent you a light article I wrote for the “Nation” last summer,--I

believe in June,--in which I gave an abstract of your essay on the

Dominant Language of the Twentieth Century. It has attracted

considerable attention. I see that those who have studied the subject

think that the increase of population in North America is not to go on

at the rate it has been going; that the check is already apparent.

A week or two ago appeared in the “Nation” an article (sent to you last

week by post), in which I had occasion to notice some other parts of

your volume, at considerable length. I have also been tempted to give

some account of your essay on Natural Selection as applied to man; but I

find it would take me too much out of my own line, and absorb time which

I cannot spare. Indeed, I have only looked over that essay, and am not

qualified to abstract, still less to criticise it. The longest article

of the volume, which gives the title, I have not given as much attention

to as I ought, probably, or I should perhaps value it more highly. But

it seems to me that membership in scientific academies--the three you

take not excepted--is so largely affected by circumstance, irrespective

of talent and of the value of work done, that one cannot very

confidently base general conclusions upon the data. Yet I have no great

confidence in my opinion. Anyway, the article is full of interesting

matters....

What do you and Dr. Müller say to Bornet’s memoir, on the nature of

lichens? His exposition is so clear that, if he is an honest and good

investigator,--as I cannot well doubt,--his conclusions carry

conviction.

My sheet fills, and leaves now barely room for Mrs. Gray’s messages of

kindest remembrances to yourself and to Madame De Candolle, in which I

beg to join. Long may you flourish, and much good work yet do. For one

thing, pray print the list of botanical names!

Ever yours,

A. GRAY.

November 26.

... I am going this morning to witness the nuptials of my colleague and

friend Professor Sargent and a charming young lady of Boston; and, on

the chance of their having a day in Geneva, I wish to introduce the

happy couple to you and Madame De Candolle. They will tell you much of

me, and of the satisfying and I trust useful sort of life I an now

leading. Some evidence of renewed botanical activity in the form of a

couple of botanical papers just issued here, too bulky to send well by

post, I will cause to reach you by way of Paris.

Professor Sargent is given to horticulture and arboriculture. He not

only takes charge of the university Botanic Garden, but also of a recent

and noble foundation for an arboretum, from which much may in due time

be expected.

It is most pleasant and hopeful when, as in the present instance, a

young man of means and best social position chooses to devote his time

and energies to practical scientific ends, rather than to business or

pleasure. You are more accustomed to that at Geneva than we are here in

America.

I know that, before this can reach you, I shall have occasion to write

to you, and to announce the reception of the last volume of the

“Prodromus,” now on the way to me. So I have only to add that I am

always

Very sincerely yours,

ASA GRAY.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

May 12, 1874.

... I sent to Hooker to forward to you two articles in the “Nation,” on

Insectivorous Plants, written to reclaim your work from Bennett, who

began to appropriate it, etc., etc.

It is already leading to discovery. A physician in Carolina, a good

observer, already writes me that in S. variolaris, the best of

Sarracenias, he thinks he finds the watery liquid anæsthetic (??) and

the sweet secretion not. But he says there is a line of sweet, a trail,

running from the sweet rim down the edge of the wing outside nearly to

the ground, which lures up ants (with which Wyman tells me the pitchers

are crowded), just like the train of Indian corn which hunters scatter

along the ground to lure wild turkeys into the trap! Does not that beat

all!

Also my articles here resulted in the discovery related in the paper

inclosed. The take-off of Thomson’s germs from another planet is good.

June 16.

... The gratification I feel in learning (by yours of the 3d) that you

are pleased must, I am sure, exceed any satisfaction of yours in regard

to my subdued and quiet article in “Nature.”[94] Lockyer, to my great

surprise, applied to me for it, and of course I could not refuse. I

think it will generally be regarded by scientific people as just and

moderate.

Odd that you should not have recognized my hand from the first in the

“Insectivorous Plants,” written, in fact, to vindicate your rights. The

papers called forth a second hoax, as elaborate as the first, and much

better done. I have no idea who wrote them.

You must, meanwhile, have received the article in the “Nation,”

reviewing Dr. Hodge’s “What is Darwinism?” You see what uphill work I

have in making a theist of you, “of good and respectable standing.”

Do hurry up the book about Drosera, etc. My plants of Sarracenia

variolaris, having lost their spring growth in transmission, have not

yet made any that is satisfactory. So I begged Dr. Mellichamp, who had

sent me leaves with gorge sanded over at the sweet-secretion part, to

send some for the trail. He wrote me it was too late in the season; they

were all drying up. But this morning, with the inclosed postal card,

came several with the sand sticking fairly well to the glutinous line,

and I send you one of them. I wish I could send you Mellichamp’s long

letters, about the two sorts of larvæ, that appropriate, one the upper,

one the lower part of the pitcher.

My wife (who sends her love to you and yours) is much amused by your

backgammon reminiscence. For the year past we have a way of getting on

most peacefully. I sit by her side and play solitaire with two packs of

cards, she looks on and helps, and when we don’t succeed there is nobody

to “flare up” against but luck.

Ever yours,

A. GRAY.

P. S.--I think I never sent you my felicitations upon your election as

Foreign Honorary Member of American Academy Arts and Sciences.

We are proud to number you among the seventy-five (too many). And, I may

tell you, only two negative votes were cast, one by an Academician who

made a speech on the occasion, to which nobody vouchsafed a word of

reply.

A. G.

CAMBRIDGE, June 19, 1874.

MY DEAR DARWIN,--Your second letter reached me last evening, and this

morning came from the publishers some copies of the number of “Nature.”

You seem as pleased and are as ingenuous as a maiden when she first

finds out that she has an admirer!

Now I am a little vexed, as I am apt to be when I let anything be

printed without reading the proof myself. Some one has doctored one

sentence, and made it say the contrary to what I wrote, and to what is

true; I make the reclamation on a separate sheet: and also another,

which may be typographical, but which I am confident I could not have

written; I surely wrote “_to_ many,” not “_in_ many.”

My claim for you about teleology I have made several times, in

“Silliman’s Journal,”[95] and elsewhere. It is a matter on which I have

a good deal insisted.

Yours affectionately,

ASA GRAY.

P. S.--My _point_ (which is _blunted_) was to show how very near Brown

came to “hitting the nail on the head” without hitting it, striking wild

instead!

A. G.

TO W. M. CANBY.

July 6, 1874.

I am glad if you have Darlingtonia in a state to examine. I have some

young leaves growing, which show nothing yet. Mellichamp will send me a

paper, which I will read at Hartford next month. Won’t you post up

Darlingtonia also--getting what you can from Lemmon. He has not written

to me about it. My young fish-tails show no exudation yet; and they are

colored like the rest of the leaf.

Ever yours,

A. GRAY.

BOTANIC GARDEN, July 8, 1874.

DEAR CANBY,--Yours of 7th instant received. I thought you had live

Darlingtonia. Of ours the old plant has died after starting three new

offsets. But the growing leaves are small. If it goes on I may do

something. Thus far I have detected no water in the tubes, nor any

sticky secretion. But I shall slit one soon. Make notes for Hartford.

You have not guessed the conundrum, though you have made a step in

distinguishing the two different movements. I’ll tell you. It is to

strain out the small flies. Do you take? Or want details? I send you

Darwin’s late letters,--one came this evening. We have lost all those

Pinguiculas.

Can we get any from Wilmington now? Are there any near Dr. Mellichamp?

You may forward Darwin’s last letter to him and set him to

observing,--collecting and preserving leaves with insects stuck fast,

and margin turned over. See if ours turn over the edge!

How does D. find out they digest?

July 14.

When Dionæa is irritated by a small fly, he has plenty of time to escape

through the meshes, and the leaf soon opens, ready for better luck next

time. Think what a waste if the leaf had to go through all the process

of secretion, etc., taking so much time, all for a little gnat. It would

not pay. Yet it would have to do it except for this arrangement to let

the little flies escape. But when a bigger one is caught he is sure for

a good dinner.

That is real Darwin. I just wonder you and never thought of it. But _he_

did.

Pretty good,--the solar protector! So Fendler is near you. Remember me

to the good fellow.

I wish he had let Cosmical Science alone! But now he never will, and is

a gone goose.

Ever yours,

A. GRAY.

Dr. Gray, being sent away for a cough, made a journey to Apalachicola,

Florida, going by Washington, Augusta and Tallahassee, of which and his

successful search for Torreya he wrote a lively account for the

“American Agriculturist,” republished in his “Scientific Papers,”

selected by C. S. Sargent.

He was especially interested in seeing Torreya, a fine tree named for

his friend Dr. Torrey, which is only known in one or two localities in

Florida, on the banks of the Apalachicola River; and with some trouble

he found it growing, and had the satisfaction of hoping that it was

valued enough to be preserved. There is a second Torreya growing in

Japan, a third Torreya in California, and a fourth in China. “But,” as

Dr. Gray says, “any species of very restricted range may be said to hold

its existence by a precarious tenure. The known range of this species is

not more than a dozen miles in length along these bluffs, although Dr.

Chapman has heard of its growing farther south, where the bluff trends

away from the river.”

He went to Stone Mountain in Georgia, a curiously bare, immense mass of

stone, one side too steep to climb, but having in clefts some rare

plants growing. From Chattanooga he made an excursion up Lookout

Mountain, interesting from its reminiscences of “Sherman’s March,” and

also the habitat of some rare plants he was so fortunate as to find.

TO WILLIAM M. CANBY.

BOTANIC GARDEN, March 13, 1875.

MY DEAR CANBY,--I do not get on, and shall not in this melting snow and

bad season.

I yield to advice, and Mrs. Gray and I are going South,--I do not know

where, but somewhere, taking my vacation now instead of in summer. I

want to find now--and reach comfortably--what we have here at the first

of June.

You know somewhat of the South; I think I should like best to get to

Apalachicola and St. John’s River and see Torreya. But it seems far off.

I want to recruit, and to be good for something, which at present I am

not!

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,

WASHINGTON, April 25, 1875.

MY DEAR CANBY,--Well, we have got back again, so far; and here, I think,

we shall stick for a few days. Had we anticipated so much cold and

backwardness, we should have stayed south longer.

Apalachicola was heavenly. But at Macon, coming north, we struck the

cold wave; came on by Atlanta (Stone Mountain), Chattanooga (roots of

Silene rotundifolia), and thence via Lynchburg straight here. I found

Torreya, and had a good time with it. Lots of detail to tell you....

I am lazy in traveling, or I would have written you. Then I have been

pretty busy, too, and have done several hard days’ work, causing much

but healthy fatigue.

CAMBRIDGE, May 8.

We are at home, with delightful memories of you and yours.

I think I hinted to you that I found two Crassulaceæ on Stone Mountain,

both annual.

One, most abundant on the lower slopes, is glaucous-green, and has

bright white flowers. The pods show it to be a true Sedum. I send a

small specimen. Note the blunt pods and short style. This--as shown by a

bit of fruit in my herbarium--is Sedum pusillum, Michx.!

The other is dull purple in general hue, smaller, grows only well up the

mountain, abounds in a small form on the very top, and is rather later;

but I make out the dehiscence, and it is Diamorpha pusilla, Nutt.!

The specimens you sent to me are this, larger and later than any I got.

But, as you directed me to the base of the mountain for Diamorpha, you

must have got this too. Your specimens have full-grown fruit. Look at

them and see if the larger ones have not the regular dehiscence down the

side of Sedum, and let me know.

May 12, 1875.

Thanks for your letter and the Sedum.

Now for another find. The moment I set eyes on the Arenaria of Stone

Mountain, I said, Ho! here is A. brevifolia, Nuttall, of which I had

only a single stalk in herbarium. Comparing now, I was right, and

Nuttall says his specimen is from Tatnall County (which is strange, that

being in southeast Georgia). The question remains, Is it only a

low-country form of Arenaria glabra?

Your specimen--with fruit--and M. A. Curtis’s[96] from the mountains of

Carolina, being in the same state, compare pretty well. I should unite

them, only the seeds are different, Stone Mountain plant half the size,

and shape rather different. But please rattle me out some real ripe

seeds of your plant, for further comparison.

At Stone Mountain I looked rather for small specimens to match with A.

brevifolia. I send you a bit.

I have sent the Sedum and Diamorpha yesterday to Paris, to compare and

see if both are in Herbarium Michaux.

I am proud of my little discovery!

Ever yours,

ASA GRAY.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

CAMBRIDGE, June 22, 1875.

I must indulge, on its rising, the impulse to communicate with you,

which a letter from Miss P. to my wife, just received, has awakened.

If I go on as I have been going, we shall come to know nothing of each

other....

She will have told you of our loss in the death of Mrs. Loring. I never

knew a woman fuller of charity, humility, and good works.

If there were time for a gossiping letter I or Mrs. Gray would give you

some account of a trip which we made to Florida this spring. An annoying

cough, and a chronic catarrh,--the consequence of a trying winter,

acting upon old susceptibilities,--distressed my friends more than it

did me. So, yielding to their solicitations, off we went, about the

middle of March, to Washington, visiting old friends; to Augusta and

Savannah, Georgia; and thence Apalachicola, a now almost deserted, but

once flourishing town, on the Gulf of Mexico. We met the spring in

Georgia; in Florida we were in early summer, about like our own middle

June.

The botanizing was delicious, very many nice things which I had never

seen growing before; our quarters comfortable, and the fare

exceptionally excellent. East Florida, which has large hotels, was full

of invalids and pleasure travelers, making a crowd not to our liking. I

had special botanical objects leading me to west Florida, an

out-of-the-world region, where we had everything to ourselves. We were

late for the oranges, gleaning the last half dozen from the trees of our

friends. My throat is so sensitive that I dare say we shall need to go

again next March, and earlier than before. So, if you will arrange to

join us, I can promise you a pleasant time, and a real rest.

October 11, 1875.

What a capital article it is which your friend Lord Blachford has

published in the “Contemporary” for September, on Huxley’s Automata

hypothesis!

It is long since I have read anything which pleased me more.

Do you know who is P. C. W., in Article 6, of the same number? He makes

one suggestion of some value, that I some day want to follow up.

I am grinding away at my work in the usual manner. We are just in the

glory of the glowing autumnal foliage, and making ready for winter. If

health holds out, here we expect to remain, at least till spring....

TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.[97]

BOTANIC GARDEN, July 1, 1875.

DEAR MR. WRIGHT,--Thanks for your letter. It may be that the time has

come in which a collection of my popular articles on Darwinism, etc.,

would be useful.[98] Your thinking so would go far to make me believe

it. But then, you are one of the moderate number of people who have

carefully read them, and one of the few who well understand and

appreciate them,--because you have given the subject an attentive

consideration,--and who are awake to the harm that comes from

theologians and ministers denouncing a view that scientific men are more

and more receiving as probably true. I should like to know how Professor

Park regards the proposition.

I will say that while I am not unwilling to collect them for reprinting,

in case they are called for, it would not quite do for me, in the

position I occupy (I mean as a man of science), to republish them in a

collected form, without entering anew and further into some of the

pending questions; to do which would seriously interrupt the legitimate

work which I have in hand, and to which I am deeply pledged. I suppose I

could add, and should be disposed to add, a note or two,--especially one

upon teleology from a Darwinian point of view,--a subject upon which

there is something still to be said, though I do not see the way to say

it conclusively. You will probably do it better than I ever can.

At present, I think I should let them alone, unless there comes what you

ministers recognize as a call for them, and such a call I should defer

to.

If such as Professor Park and yourself were to ask it, I would see if a

publisher could be got to take them up. But you don’t know how I dislike

to have my name bruited about.

Dr. Peabody was very glad of the relief you gave him on Sunday week, and

like myself was greatly pleased with your thoughtful discourse.

August 14, 1875.

... The important thing to do, is to develop aright evolutionary

teleology, and to present the argument for design from these exquisite

adaptations in such a way as to make it tell on both sides; with

Christian men, that they may be satisfied with, and perchance may learn

to admire, Divine works effected step by step, if need be, in a system

of nature; and the antitheistic people, to show that without the

implication of a superintending wisdom nothing is made out, and nothing

credible.

Now for a month or two, I am pressed by daily technical work to the

extreme, and get no chance to turn these matters over in my mind.

I don’t want to handle this argument in such a way that it can be

gainsaid, nor without touching the very point. May I ask you to help me?

You see how the question stands. How shall we best handle it?...

September 14, 1875.

... I have been crowded and much absorbed with my part of the California

botany; get put back, by new collections, and have had the printer on my

heels, which is not pleasant.

I have to drive with all my might, and am not yet clear, though I trust

the worst is past. I get so fagged that when I sit down to Darwin’s

“Insectivorous Plants,” by way of relaxation, of an evening, I fall

asleep over it. And so have not finished that book yet, as it cannot be

read with the eyes shut. I put off thought of all but my daily work till

my task is done.

I thought I might have got up to see you, but I cannot now.

I see in the last “Nation” an article, which was evidently to have been

continued, by Chauncey Wright, in which he points out clearly the

essential difference between Darwinism, which is scientific, and

Spencerism, which is “philosophical.” Save the mark!

Poor Wright,--your namesake--died suddenly of apoplexy, Sunday morning.

He was a stanch Millite, and very acute and clear-headed.

September 15.

... A minister out in Illinois has written me, taking me seriously to

task for altering my opinion after the age of forty-five, and for

abetting disorder, by supporting theories that disturb the harmony of

opinion that ought to prevail among scientific men.

He is one of those people who think that if you shut your eyes hard, it

will answer every purpose; indeed, from the ease with which he confutes

Darwinism, I suppose he finds no call even to shut his eyes.

November 10.

... Species, as I have said (in “Silliman’s Journal” articles) are not

facts or things, but judgments, and, of course, fallible judgments; how

fallible the working naturalist knows and feels more than any one else.

That the pages of a Flora or Fauna should give the idea of fixity and

clear limitation which does not well or wholly represent the reality, is

natural enough; is, indeed, inevitable. The object in these works is to

set forth the differences, and put them in the strongest and clearest

light, so that the forms may be readily discriminated. The nearer two

forms are alike, the more pains the naturalist takes to set forth the

differences, while the likeness “goes without saying,” and is therefore

overlooked by the outsider, though it may have been almost an even

chance that the describer merged the two in one.

The thoughtful and experienced naturalist does not get a wrong

impression from all this, but the outsider almost certainly will.

A. G.

January 14, 1876.

DEAR MR. WRIGHT,--Thanks for your line of the 8th.

By this week’s “Nation,”[99] you see that, long as the talk is, I have

not yet touched the critical question, nor have I yet got an opportunity

to apply myself to it. But I hope to do so soon.

Meanwhile, the number of the “Westminster Review,” which you called my

attention to, has passed through my hands in our book club, and I shall

soon have it in my hands again. It makes a very strong presentation, and

the question is, how its points are to be met on purely scientific

grounds. If I can meet them fairly, and reëstablish the evidence of

design on the basis it ought to stand upon, I shall be satisfied and

happy. Anyway, it is a help to me to have this able presentation brought

before me....

May 21.

...I have here and there seen references to St. Augustine as maintaining

views of indirect creation, such as now would be termed, or might be

termed, evolutionary. Can you conveniently put me in the way of

understanding his ideas? It is matter for you to work up in your article

on Calvinism and Evolution....

December 20.

... Do you see No. 1 of the new agnostic weekly, “Evolution,” and its

review of “Darwiniana”? It insists that such a world as ours is too full

of imperfections to have had any intellectual originator....

TO JOHN H. REDFIELD.

July 1, 1876.

DEAR REDFIELD,--I doubt if you know that the late John Stuart Mill, the

philosopher, was a keen botanist. His herbarium, rich in European plants

and with a good many Indian, etc. (small specimens from Royle, etc.),

was given by his stepdaughter to Kew. But Hooker asked leave, after

taking a certain amount, to present the rest to me, with leave to choose

where all I did not care to have incorporated in the herbarium here

should go to. I think it should go to a public herbarium, and as I think

the Academy’s is not supplied well with European species of at all

recent date, or recent collecting, perhaps it should go to you....

TO MRS. GRAY.

June 11, 1876.

... To get my train yesterday I had to leave the house at one. Dom Pedro

till sixteen minutes of that, with Eliot, A. Agassiz, and two

Brazilians. They came to the house, the door being open, and I received

them in the library.... Sargent was with me to take him off my hands

when I had to go. We treated him as we should any gentleman, though I

believe I once addressed him as Your Majesty when flourishing the

poison-bottle under his nose. He is a large, square-built, good-looking

man of about my age, I think. Never did I have more questions to answer

in ten minutes, nor questions more direct and to the point. Taken into

the herbarium, he recognized what it was, complimented me by saying that

my name was a well-known one (I suppose Agassiz had put him up to that),

and I returned by saying that, in at least one case, we were members of

the same botanical society.

“How many species of plants have you specimens of?” About 65,000.

“How do you arrange them?” Cases opened, and I began to show him.

“Please let me see some plant.”

I pulled out the genus cover first at hand, which happened to be

European Saxifrages; opened. He took up a sheet.

“Saxifraga irrigua, European. I do not want to see plants of Europe. Let

me see an American plant.”

I took another cover and showed Saxifraga peltata of California.

“Have you Sage-brush?” Yes.

“Let me see Sage-brush.”

I took him across the room to the Artemisias, and showed him, first, the

one he saw so much of en route to California; second, the northern one

to which Lewis and Clark gave the name at first.

“How do you prevent insects from destroying them?” They are all

poisoned.

“What do you poison with?” Corrosive sublimate dissolved in alcohol.

“How do you use it?”

Here I ran off and brought back the poison-bottle, and applied the

liquid to a specimen under the imperial nose.

I then ran off to set down the bottle in a safe place on the middle

table, when he followed me up and asked:

“How strong do you make the solution?”

I gave him the answer as well as I could, when he turned to one of his

suite:--

“Please write that down.”

And it was done accordingly. In the library I had displayed, enough to

attract the eye, the bound volumes of “Flora Brasiliensis,” which he

glanced at, and asked:--

“Have you the work on the botany of the vicinity of Rio Janeiro?”

I answered, Yes, thanks to Mr. Agassiz,--to whom the emperor had given

it.

But he seemed uneasy until he saw it, and I put two of the folio volumes

into his hands, which seemed to satisfy him.

Then, as he was passing on to the lecture-room, I slipped off. At head

of Common, in Boston, I met C., who told me Dom Pedro was down at his

museum at 7½ A.M. C. was not going to Hunnewell’s....

I amused them with the account of the conversation with the emperor.

The rhododendrons, and azaleas too, most splendid. Nothing like it at

Philadelphia. The best as well as the most he ever had....

TO R. W. CHURCH.

August 3, 1876.

It is very good of you to write to me. I was about to drop you a line by

the next post, when yours of the 21st came in.

My special object was to tell you that I have just had addressed to you,

through the New York publishers, a little book, made up of scattered

papers on Darwinian topics, which some of my friends thought it might be

useful to collect. I somewhat mistrust their judgment, but have yielded

to their request. There is nothing new in the volume, except a short

essay on the hypothetical duration of species, and a rather long one at

the end, upon teleology as affected by evolution, which I should be glad

to have you read, and should like to know whether you think it hits the

mark.

I have no idea who P. C. W. and the Westminster Reviewer may be, but I

suspect they are one and the same. If you should know, please inform

me.... Yes, it has been warm enough, and it was unceasingly so for

twelve days. Mrs. Gray rushed to the seashore at Beverly; but I mainly

stayed at home, kept out of the sun all I could, and rather enjoyed the

heat than otherwise. But at the end I broke down; came all at once upon

the novel sensation of being an old man. And so we hastened up and

concluded an arrangement which had been left loosely and vaguely under

consideration, viz., to revisit for myself, and to introduce Mrs. Gray

to, the higher Alleghanies in Virginia, Carolina, and Tennessee, where I

used to roam and botanize more than thirty years ago. We expect to set

out in two or three weeks. It is not Switzerland, but it is a region of

mountains, dells, and rills, and forests, which I have been longing to

revisit. Oh, that you could be with us! Two botanists will join us at

Philadelphia, and perhaps a third.

Among the very few copies of my “Darwiniana” which I have sent to

England is one to the editor of the “Spectator,” whose ideas fit in with

mine well, as I judge from reading the paper regularly. Do you know him?

He is a very broad churchman.

I am just beginning to print a portion of my new “Flora of North

America.” There can be no going to Europe for me till this volume or

half volume is off my hands.

* * * * *

Dr. Gray enjoyed greatly the journey through the North Carolina

mountains, and the traveling and accommodations were almost as rough as

in the journeys thirty-three and thirty-five years before. The people,

still cut off from the lower lands by roads that were mostly only used

for horses, and where one traveled sometimes two or three days without

meeting a wheeled vehicle, were very plain and primitive in their ways,

and one had to depend at times on their hospitality for accommodations.

But the scenery is striking and beautiful, and the forest unsurpassed

for the magnificence of its grand trees, rich in variety and beauty. The

party went first to New River Springs, then to the French Broad Hot

Springs, and round by a rough journey to Asheville, then far away from

railroads, where they were joined by Dr. and Mrs. Engelmann, and

continued through the mountains to Cesar’s Head, whence they made their

way by railroad through South Carolina and Georgia to Jonesboro; from

Jonesboro going up Roan Mountain, a camping-out excursion.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

December 5, 1876.

... Curious that one species should take pains to close fertilize some

flowers, the other to cross all....

Now I want to beg of you to consider about a name for this kind of

thing, on which, as a good judge, you could consult Bentham, or indeed,

Hooker, if he can give it attention.

This matter will need to come into generic or specific characters, and

therefore wants a terse and unambiguous mode of expression in a single

word.

My old expression thirty or so years ago, “diœciodimorphous,” you

reasonably objected to, implying separation of sexes (which, though, it

need not do).

Yours of “dimorphous” should be, as the lawyers say, void for vagueness,

there being plenty of other kinds of dimorphism in flowers.

Hildebrand’s, of “heterostylous,” the difference being in other things

as well as style, and, I think, possible sometimes not in the style. The

term will not work well in characters, whether in Latin or English. I

have proposed, accordingly, in a little article not yet published, to

use the term “heterogone,” in other form “heterogonous,” in Latin

“Flores heterogoni,” with the counterpart “homogone,” “homogonous,”

“Flores homogoni.”

This means, you see, explicitly, diverse genitalia, and the [Greek:

gonê] is used as in the common botanical term “perigonium.”

TO R. W. CHURCH.

February 5, 1877.

Your friend Lord Blachford is an unrivaled expositor. I have just been

reading, with extreme satisfaction, his article on the Reality of Duty.

That naturally brought you to mind, and I vowed I would no longer be so

negligent, but would acknowledge and thank you for your letter of August

last, and for Professor Mozley’s sermons. They are excellent indeed, and

it is saddening to have a man of such insight laid aside by illness, of

a sort which probably does not diminish his desire, but destroys his

power, to work....

I think Mrs. Gray has given some account of our summer vacation. I long

to revisit those mountains when the Rhododendrons and Kalmias are in

bloom, and to have your company.

We are just home, Mrs. Gray and I, from a fortnight with our friends at

Washington,--a pleasant holiday, which of late I have always had at this

season, the time of the annual meeting of the regents of the Smithsonian

Institution, of which I am one of the lay (i. e., non-congressional)

members. It makes a break in the monotony of our winter, which is far

milder there than in New England, and the society at Washington is very

pleasant. More and more men of mark, and intelligence, and cultivation

reside there, at least for the winter months. We left on the day when

the contested electoral count began, under the arrangement so happily

and hopefully adopted. There is no excitement, and, outside of

partisanship, little care which way it is determined, but much that it

shall be legitimately determined by evidence, argument, and a decisive

judgment.

I am deep in routine botanical work, and with a printer not far behind

me, I can think of little else.

TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

CAMBRIDGE, April 6, 1877.

DEAR MR. WRIGHT,--What can I ever have said or written which President

Fairchild takes to mean that I have the preposterous idea that “changes

of environment take place in distinct and definite lines”! He may well

ask if “this is not contrary to all evidence.” Even the conception that

variation takes place in definite, or at least not in indefinite, lines

is an idea which is rather thrown out as tenable, and as inferable from

a good many facts, than as anything to swear by. I think so, yet, I am

sorry to say, it is no part of Darwinism, pure and simple.

Now, in my turn, what does President F. mean by his “mere fact” “species

exist”? That seems to me no fact at all, but an inference. Individuals

exist; species are inferred from the relations the individuals are

observed to sustain to each other. That species are distinct, in the

sense of none blending, is what working naturalists would like to have

somebody settle for them in many a troublesome case. That they always

have been as much so as they are now is the question under

consideration....

May 24.

... Now we can’t go to see you, sorry to say. The reason is, that I am

working against time. Hooker is coming over, and we are going in summer

to the Rocky Mountains together, according to an old promise of mine. To

do it I ought to complete the printing of the part of my “Flora” which I

am upon, else I shall suffer in various ways, and there is great danger

that I fail.

... Do you notice--I know it will please you--how Kingsley caught at my

essay, which was reprinted in England long ago; see his memoirs.

1877.

I would say to President Fairchild something like this:

Where only one individual out of a thousand or a million can survive to

maturity and propagation, clearly only the very best adapted to the

environment will so survive; and in somewhat different environments,

only those best adapted respectively to the two, three, or more

different environments. The intermediates, i. e., those least

particularly adapted to the two or three different emergencies, surely

have least chance.

Now our species of plants and animals are the comparatively few

surviving lines of a great number of lines which have come down through

long and various periods of great tribulation, in the literal sense of

the word; they have been ground over and over, first on this trial, then

on that, leaving, as it seems to me, no chance of the survival, side by

side, of all sorts and shades of intermediate forms. Hence, under this,

and the general law of heredity, the practical distinction of species

and genera appears to be a natural result.

That low, and even the lowest, forms of life should survive and abound

all down the ages, and be the most widely diffused over the earth, seems

also the most natural result, being simple adaptations to simplest

conditions of air and water, so nearly the same the world over. These

are still far most numerous in individuals, and have, so to say, the

surest hold on life. When we think of the vast void below which the

“improvement” out of their sphere of these would leave, and the

increased risks which complicated structure (in machines or beings) has

to run, we shall not wonder that the simple still numerically

predominate.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

CAMBRIDGE, June 10, 1877.

MY DEAR MR. DARWIN,--Except when you are to be aided in your work I

decline to give letters of introduction to you, knowing how you are

occupied and how infirm your health at any time may be. So please take

this note to mean just this. The happy couple who bear it would be

delighted to call some day, if you say so, and pay their respects to

you, and I will tell you why I am disposed to promote their wishes.

Mr. Burgess[100] was a favorite pupil of mine, and is a young naturalist

of much promise; not in my department, however, but in entomology. He

takes particularly to the anatomy of insects, draws capitally, and shows

talent for research, which we trust will bring forth good fruit. I

cannot blame him if his modesty and caution have kept him back from

publication as yet, but he has time before him, and even a sight of you

will be a stimulus to his ambition as well as something to remember in

after years. I need not say that he takes to Evolution; all young

naturalists of any good do. He has just married the daughter of my dear

old friend, the late Mr. Sullivant, who did for muscology in this

country more than one man is likely ever to do again. The young lady is

very dear to your good friend Mrs. Gray and to me; and, as you have more

than once made a remark complimentary to American ladies, and as you

are such an excellent judge, I must even give you the opportunity of

extending your range of instances.

But please do not give our young friends the opportunity of calling upon

you, unless it quite suits you.

By the time this reaches you, Dr. Hooker will be on the way to us, we

expect, and we are looking to have a great run together over the Rocky

Mountains, and perhaps across the Continent. Wherever we may be, you may

believe me,

Always yours cordially,

ASA GRAY.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, June 4, 1877.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE: ... I meant to have a good portion of my

“Synoptical Flora of North America” to send you this summer; but it will

not be quite ready at the time I expected, and I am now likely not to

have this summer for writing, but rather for observation over a

considerable range of country. Dr. Hooker, it seems now almost certain,

is coming over in a month from now. Dr. Hayden has invited him and me to

join his expedition of exploration this year, or rather to make a survey

of much of his ground in the Rocky Mountains; and it is possible we may

even reach California. I am rather old for this work, but judging from

last year, I may well endure and enjoy it. Would that you could join us!

We are in essential accord as to subgenus and its nomenclature. Your

letter to Cogniaux discusses and decides--as I had done for myself--the

questions propounded. You will see I follow it out consistently in my

part of botany of California, while Watson was at sea in his, and would

hardly be convinced by my arguments. But he tells me he is convinced by

yours.

October 19.

... Our journey of ten and a half weeks, with Hooker, was a most

enjoyable one, every way prosperous, but laborious. Colorado to the

borders of New Mexico, a little of Utah and the Wahsatch mountains, and

extensive traveling in California, as far south as Monterey, and north

to Mt. Shasta. On return, I had Hooker’s copious collections to name up.

I made only small and special collections, and most busy we were kept

till, on the 6th inst., I put Hooker on the steamer, which, as telegraph

tells us, only yesterday reached Queenstown, so he will be landing at

Liverpool to-day,--a full fortnight from Boston to London. I am now busy

enough with bringing up arrears of correspondence and affairs, and

studying some collections which will not wait. Only by the end of this

month shall I get to resume my regular, but long, interrupted work. Mrs.

Gray accompanied us, and enjoyed it much, enduring well the occasional

camp life and such hardship as there was. You should come over, and we

will repeat the journey, but only three years hence. Much as I should

enjoy it, I cannot spare the time sooner.

I found myself quite equal to younger people in mountain climbing....

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

CAMBRIDGE, July 4, 1877.

DEAR OLD E.,--Never mind if you are seventy; Hooker is sixty, and I am

between, and we are lively yet.

Perhaps we young fellows may knock about rather faster than you like,

wanting to do much in a little time. But then, you need not do so much

in Colorado as we; take the easy part.... I shall be sorry if you fail

us.

We must twine in Cuscuta, as we twine in the rest of the book. For real

accuracy we must finally come to the terms I propose, entropic and

antitropic. We can’t get watch-hands into a good form for the

description of order, genus, etc.

Be sure I’ll keep you posted. Should like to go to Iron Mountain.

WAITING ON RAILROAD FROM CAÑON CITY

TO PUEBLO, July 21, 1877.

... If this flowering Euphorbia is the one you asked for I have made

good specimens. The round-leaved one is on the hills, and is not yet

out; is not the one, I am sure.

We had yesterday a good day (with Brandegee)[101] at the Arkansas Cañon;

it is grand, surely.

To-day Hooker and the Stracheys drive across and down Wet Mountain

Valley to La Veta (two long days), while we, Mrs. Gray, Dr. Hayden, and

I, return by railroad to Pueblo, and thence to La Veta, by sunset

to-day. To-morrow up to a camp on La Veta Pass of Sangre de Christo

Mountains, which Captain Stevenson is preparing.

Our English friends begin already to feel in a hurry, and for a wonder I

am the hold-back member of the party....

SALT LAKE, August 8.

I have yours of the 30th July, and I return inclosure. Write hereafter

to the Palace Hotel, San Francisco.

I trust, and expect, that the strike days are over, and that you will

severely punish the ringleaders.[102] Glad you have had nice weather;

but you have no air like that of Colorado and Utah....

Well, much as we miss and want you, yet we should have hurried you too

much. We want to go over a good deal of ground cursorily, rather than a

little thoroughly and leisurely.

I do not write you about the oaks at Cañon City, because we had nothing

new to say. We agree with you in the complete running together of the

oaks down to Undulata. There is one very large-leaved state, looking

very different; but it is mostly on fast-growing shoots, and no doubt is

a state of the “Q. alba, var.” of Torrey. “Alba” indeed! But we did not

find the entire-leaved form at the cañon, and Brandegee said it occurred

only at the mouth of the cañon, and near the city.

From Cañon City we--Mrs. Gray, Hayden, and I--went in one day south to

La Veta by rail, and the next day, toward evening, up to La Veta Pass,

10,300 feet, and over and 300 feet or so lower, where we camped, nice

tents having been provided by Fort Lyon en route, and other furnishings

from Fort Garland. Abies concolor abounded, though there was more of A.

Menziesii (Picea pungens) and Pinus contorta, and a good amount of P.

aristata and P. flexilis. The A. Menziesii at that elevation is less

prickly, sometimes almost as soft as A. Douglasii to the touch, and

cones inclined to be shorter. The result is, we think we can trace A.

Engelmanni into A. Menziesii. What say you to that?

Botanizing up there and in Sangre de Christo Pass good, but only

moderate; nothing new, and no great variety. We enjoyed camp life very

well; but after three days broke up, and went over to Fort Garland, and

thence, while the ladies and General Strachey went off to a Mexican

village, we had a two days’ trip up the Sierra Blanca. Alpine plants the

same as on Gray’s Peak, but scanty, owing to more southern latitude and

greater dryness. A longer time and a searching of the interior of this

very rough range might, and doubtless would, furnish much we did not

see.

Returning from Fort Garland to the railroad, we went back to Colorado

Springs and drove up to Manitou. Next day, we went up Ute

Pass--nothing--and looked about. Next day, to Garden of the Gods, to

General Palmer’s to early dinner, and thence to railroad and to Denver.

Next day, Denver. Next by railroad through Clear Creek Cañon and to

Georgetown, or within a mile, and thence up to Kelso’s Cabin, now a

well-kept house, to sleep. Next day, Gray’s Peak, and I crossed over to

the top of Torrey’s. Next day, after morning botanizing, came down to

Georgetown and visited Empire City and the Pecks. Next day, Sunday, a

restful morning, and then by rail back to Denver in the afternoon and

evening. Monday, off at half past seven to Cheyenne, and after dinner

took railroad to Ogden, and came up here last evening. To-day, a broken

day, sight-seeing, etc. To-morrow, we, or some of us, are going south to

American Fork Cañon; up that and over the pass into Cottonwood Cañon;

down that, and back here, in time to go on that afternoon to Ogden and

thence west to Reno, thence Virginia City, Carson, etc., and the Groves,

Yosemite, etc. We shall see, and I will let you know.

Mrs. Gray is out with the party, to see things, and Brigham Young. _I

will not._ She would be sending love to Mrs. Engelmann and you, if here.

She is very well, and enjoying this travel hugely. I am strong, and ever

yours,

ASA GRAY.

YOSEMITE, CAL., August 21, 1877.

... So long without touching a pen I can hardly form letters. Did I

write to you from Utah? We left direct route at Reno, went to Carson

City, with détour to Virginia City,--queer place; first got hold of

Pinus monophylla, but there no fruit.

Hired conveyance to take us from Carson right across the Sierra Nevada

via Silver Mountain to Calaveras Big Trees,--a good way for studying the

tree vegetation, and other, only all other is mainly destroyed by

drought and sheep, and the ground is powdered dust. As we struck Pinus

ponderosa we were struck with more tapering shape of tree and longer

leaves than that of Colorado, so different, and soon, as we rose, by the

immense size of cone, ovate, six inches long, very heavy. The big-cone

ponderosa has less bright green and rather longer leaves, and cones

looking quite different from the ordinary Californian ponderosa, which

grows intermixed, except at the higher levels, and has long but narrow

cones. Losing the big one as we descended to Calaveras, we come on it

again in the Sierra here, when we get up to seven thousand to eight

thousand feet. Here it passes for P. Jaffreyi or Jeffreyi. Is it so? Is

it distinct? On bare side of Silver Mountain we found P. monophylla with

cones, both maturing and this year’s....

CHICO, September 5, 1877.

... Thanks for your letter to San Francisco. We are keeping lively; are

on the way to Shasta.

What if we were to return via St. Louis: will you insure us against

malaria and fever? Want to talk Coniferæ with you....

CAMBRIDGE, September 24, 1877.

We are just back via Niagara; Hooker and I via New York, and the former

having the Sunday with Eaton at New Haven. All well and happy to get

home after a prosperous and, as you may imagine, laborious journey of

ten and a half weeks. The trip to Shasta involved long stagecoach

journeys, but they were most interesting. Returning to Sacramento we

went on to Truckee, where Lemmon[103] joined us by appointment. We gave

one day to Mount Stanford and one to Tahoe, then took the overland train

as it came on at midnight, and thence had no stationary bed till we

reached Niagara. And we live to tell the story!

I want to tell you what we are led to think about Firs and Spruces. I

will give in this my own opinions, which lie yet open, but are likely to

settle down, except you convince me to the contrary on some points.

Hooker comes to the same conclusions or nearly, but I will keep to my

own only in this letter, and ask what you think of them, off-hand. Your

reply will come to hand before Sir Joseph sails....

Some day you must have a picture of our camp on La Veta Pass. I wish

there could have been one of the Shasta camp of the Bidwells.

TO CHARLES DARWIN.

CAMBRIDGE, September 27, 1877.

MY DEAR DARWIN,--Returning from our ten and a half weeks of travel,

which has been every way prospered and pleasant, I find your book.[104]

I can now barely thank you for it, and for the great compliment of the

dedication. I must not open it till Hooker leaves me, a week hence, the

work we have to do before we part being so great and pressing. Then I

shall turn to it, with enjoyment, and as soon as I can find time I must

notice or review it.

Hooker sends his love; is very glad Cohn has taken up your son’s

experiments on Dipsacus, which reminds me to send my best thanks to him

for the copy addressed to me. For perusal, even for a glance, that, too,

must wait till we have worked up the collections and observations we

have made in our journey to the Pacific.

Let me add, being sure of your sympathy, that our poor dog Max

peacefully breathed his last to-day, after a happy life of twelve or

thirteen years. We are glad he lived till we returned, and greeted us

with his absorbing and touching affection. In a few days came a partial

paralysis, some convulsions, and then a quiet and seemingly painless

ending. He is immortalized in your book on Expression, and will live in

the memory of his attached master and mistress.

Max was a black and tan terrier, not remarkable in any way for beauty or

intelligence, but interesting from his warm affection and the power it

had in developing his intelligence. To be near and to please his beloved

master was enough for him. Anything his master did was right and to be

submitted to. Max had conscience, but it did not restrain him from

showing his vexation when left at home, by throwing Dr. Gray’s hat and

gloves, etc., on the floor; but his shame and penitence always betrayed

him. It seemed as if the joy of his master’s return had killed him.

Dr. Gray’s next pet was a very small puppy; so small that for the first

few months Dr. Gray would drop him into his pocket when calling on

certain friends. He was said to be a Japanese terrier, and grew to be a

great beauty, with long, white, curling hair (with some black markings)

to the tips of his ears and toes, and a tail like a plume, curling over

his back, all so fluffy he was given the name of Puff. Dr. Gray always

called him a “little pagan dog,” because, he said, his conscience was so

unequally developed. But though willful and obstinate, with great

self-sufficiency, he was very attractive. It was a piece of his mischief

as a puppy that called out the following letter from his master to Rev.

G. F. Wright.

TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

CAMBRIDGE, December 11, 1878.

REV. SIR,--Will you be so good as to accept a puppy’s penitent apologies

for his naughtiness, and a new pair of rubbers in place of those which I

wickedly destroyed, because it was “my nature to” at the time you last

visited my master. I wish you to know that I am as sorry for it as I am

capable of being, that I have been punished as well as scolded, and

that the cost of the rubbers has been stopped out of my allowance.

So no more at present from your disobedient,

JAP. PUFF.

Dr. Gray’s last dog was a beautiful spaniel, and had the same devoted

love for him. He was very courteous and polite, and gentle and

affectionate. He needed a great deal of outdoor exercise, and was so

disconsolate and miserable at his master’s illness, that he was sent to

kind friends, where he still keeps a warm and loving greeting for his

old mistress.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

CAMBRIDGE, December 26, 1877.

Did I dispatch a line to you on or about October 1st,--one which would

have crossed your last to me? If I did not, it shows how a continual and

fixed intention works a sense of performance.

I took with me, on our travels, your letter of June 20, expecting to

write you from the Rocky Mountains or some far-away Pacific region. But

never were such busy people as Hooker and I the whole time. In fact, I

was bound to make Hooker see just as much as possible within our limited

time, and it seemed on the whole best for us to see very much in

glimpses and snatches rather than far less more leisurely and

thoroughly. He will have told you of our over nine thousand miles of

travel together, and of how he liked it. I think Mrs. Gray and I enjoyed

it most, and that we have a particular fancy for hurry-skurry

journeying. We should like to do it all over, and more. But especially

we should like to see California, in green attire. Not that we are not

interested and taken with the sere aspect of these western regions in

summer, which we fancy more than Hooker does. In fact, the greenness of

England is so congenial to him that he took more delight in our eastern

States, which he had mere glimpses of, than in all the wide western

region, though of course there was more to learn in these.

How I wish you could have been of the party! We dream of doing some

parts again, and of going both farther south and north, three years

hence. You and Sir Joseph would not then be too old. But I can hardly

expect then to be, as last summer, one of the most active and frisky

members of the party.

Moreover, the cost in time is more than one counts on. From the middle

of July to the end of September, one may, once in a way, fairly devote

to holidaying. But then, after a week or two of work with Hooker over

our notes and collections, I had to bring up long arrears, which I

should have kept in hand if I had stayed at home, and so I have only now

of late come to take up my regular work where I left it in July.

If you do not hear enough of our summer’s doings from Hooker,--and I

know he must be busy indeed,--we must get Mrs. Gray to write a

narrative; not that she is not also a busy soul.

All this time you have had anxious events to occupy your minds, and

these are not yet over. But at home you are happy in the recovering

health of your daughter after so long suffering.

We had our usual Christmas gathering last evening, and the house is only

now set to rights again. Your old friends Miss P. and K. L. were with

us, and we spoke of you. The latter told us that Miss S. proposes to

come to us from the West Indies, I suppose in early summer, and glad we

shall be to see her.

You never sent me your Middle Ages book; the publishers’ fault, no

doubt, which I beg you will urge them to make up for....

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

RIGHT

May 20, 1878.

... That enlarged photograph[105] is for you, to be left for your St.

Louis Academy of Sciences, if it ever gets a home, or for the Hortus

Botanicus Missouriensis, as you elect. Glad you value it.

I am at new edition of the “Structural Botany,” as a bit of ad interim

work.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, June 9, 1878.

MY DEAR COLLEAGUE: ... A copy of the second part of the “Synoptical

Flora of North America” should soon reach you, for I was assured at

Washington that they were sent at once, and would go to you without

delay.

If the “Revue Scientifique de Genève” takes book notices, I shall be

pleased if you will notice this publication of mine. I send it to you,

and to Boissier; also to Maximowicz of St. Petersburg, but to no one

else on the Continent. It is put on sale with Trübner & Company, London,

and T. O. Weigel, Leipsic. I have defrayed the whole cost out of my own

purse, to the tune of $2,050. No publisher would take it, and assume

the expense, so I have to carry it myself and botanists must buy it, if

they want it. I hope many botanists and libraries will do so; for I must

get the outlay back again, or a good part of it, before I go on. Hence,

notices in the scientific journals and elsewhere may be serviceable to

me.

I will not speak of or count the time and hard labor I have bestowed on

the work.

My last visit to Washington was a sad one, to attend the funeral of my

dear old friend Professor Joseph Henry, to whom we are all greatly

indebted. When I saw him in January, at the annual meeting of the

regents of the Smithsonian Institution, it was too evident that he would

not much longer be with us.

* * * * *

As may be remembered, Dr. Gray, when in Paris in 1839, found in

Michaux’s herbarium a plant which he describes as new, giving it the

name of Shortia galacifolia, in honor of his old friend Dr. Short of

Louisville, Ky. One great object of his later journeys to the southern

Alleghanies was the search for this plant. No botanist had succeeded in

rediscovering it, and many doubted if Dr. Gray had not been mistaken,

though he found among Japanese plants, sent from St. Petersburg, one of

the same genus, with a rude Japanese woodcut. It was therefore a great

triumph when it was accidentally discovered by an herb-collector, Mr.

Hyams, in North Carolina. The next journey to the mountains, in 1879,

was planned to search for it especially.

An account of the rediscovery and a description of the plant is given in

“American Journal of Science,” iii., xvi., pp. 483, 1878. Mr. Sargent

repeats the story in “Garden and Forest,” December 19, 1888, and tells

how in 1886 he followed Michaux’s steps up the Keowee River, in the

mountains of South Carolina, farther south than the search had been

before, and was rewarded by finding the plant in abundance. Professor W.

W. Bailey, of Providence, then sent a note to “Garden and Forest,” to

say that to Mr. J. W. Congdon, then of Providence, belongs the credit of

having sent the first news of the discovery of the plant to Dr. Gray,

and tells of Dr. Gray’s answer: “If you think you have Shortia send it

on.” It was sent. Then came from Dr. Gray the characteristic postal, “It

is so. Now let me sing my nunc dimittis!”

TO W. M. CANBY.

CAMBRIDGE, October 21, 1878.

DEAR CANBY,--Thanks; glad you can come. You will be notified, if the

case comes on.

If you will come here I can show what will delight your eyes, and cure

you effectually of that skeptical spirit you used to have about Shortia

galacifolia. It is before me, with corolla and all, from North Carolina!

Think of that! My long faith rewarded at last!

Yours ever,

A. GRAY.

P. S.--No other botanist has the news.

October 28, 1878.

... I wrote to Hyams how much immortality he lost, or rather postponed,

for his son, by not sending me that specimen eighteen months ago, so

that it would go into “Flora,” but that I should make his name famous in

“Silliman’s Journal,” pro tem.

I took the latter end of his letter to be a cancel of his request to

return the specimen. Told him that in May either you or I or both would

be down, call for his boy, and be taken to the spot!

I have no objection to give him money for this specimen, if he wants it.

But I would not advise that he advertise it. But if he can find plenty

of roots, he might legitimately put them on sale, and get a good price.

Why should he not?

I did not say, before, that this discovery has given me a hundred times

the satisfaction that the election into the Institute did. That caused

no particular elation. This has been a great satisfaction.

November 5, 1878.

... I send a brief notice to “Silliman’s Journal.” And I am finishing an

account of the matter, which I will send to Paris, to Decaisne, for the

“Académie des Sciences,” as a “Correspondent” ought.

I have declined to risk the specimen by mail, till we get more, which is

not so certain.

November 9, 1878.

... He (Hyams) sent me some loose flowers, to help out.

I have sent manuscript to Paris, and shall send back Decaisne’s old

drawing, and drawing of flower and details, now making by Sprague to be

reproduced in the “Annales des Sciences Naturelles,” since this ought to

please the French.

You can go to see and get specimens, even if I do not. Yet I will go

if--at the time--I can.

April 5, 1879.

On April 1 (ominous day) began Compositæ....

TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

April 1, 1878.

... I like an article to begin or end with an aphorism, or some sort of

snapper. I think you may end your next article with a condensed

expression like this: Not vitality but personality is the witness for

immortality!

October 24, 1878.

... Yes, I read with interest and approval your article on Hypothesis.

I am pressed with work now all this week. I would send you the proofs of

Newcomb’s article,[106] but you will get it in the “Independent” almost

as soon.

Read, mark, and tell me what I should say. I must now lay myself out on

this matter. If you will allow, I want to drop, throw out, praying for

the weather quoad weather.

I shall take my time, but shall be turning the matter in my mind, at the

end of this week and beginning of the next.

Perhaps I may see you on Monday here, unless I am called away.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, January 24, 1879.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I have just returned from Washington, where I had

to read a memorial of our late secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,

Professor Henry,[107] and I have returned somewhat crippled by lumbago.

I took with me your pleasant letter of the 29th December, intending to

write to you from there, but I found no time. The present moment is

opportune, as I cannot well move about as I must do in my ordinary

work....

I have sent for Saporta’s book, and shall study it with interest. Glad I

am that your “Phytographie” is in hand. I wish I had it now before me;

for I have now to write something on the subject for a new edition of my

“Botanical Text-Book,” now in hand.

How well Bentham still writes and works! Notice his essay on

Euphorbiaceæ. You and Bentham have kept orthodox views of nomenclature

at the fore in Europe, and I have seconded them here, so that, except

among cryptogamists, heterodoxy makes no headway.

I have some ideas about the best form for Latin specific characters, as

distinguished from descriptions, as to punctuation, etc., which I wish

to present to you. Perhaps I can best, and soon, do so by sending you

proof-sheets.

The link which connected us with a former generation of botanists is

broken. Jacob Bigelow, the correspondent of Muhlenberg[108] and of J. E.

Smith, as well as your father, died on the 10th inst., at the age of

ninety-two. Up to three or four years ago he preserved all his

faculties. But sight and hearing gradually failed, and for two years he

has been merely alive; at length the candle burned out.

The genus Bigelovia, which your father founded on one species, is now

one of the most characteristic North American genera, of many species,

chiefly west of the Mississippi.

J. W. Robbins,[109] also of Massachusetts, one of the best and oldest

local botanists, died the day before, aged seventy-seven.

Engelmann (two or three years older than I am) and myself are now the

oldest botanists of the country, I believe.

While I live I am always your devoted,

ASA GRAY.

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

CAMBRIDGE, May 22, 1879.

... We go on a trip south to the mountains of Carolina with Canby,

Redfield, and this time Sargent.

It was to have been done whenever Shortia blossomed. But that stole a

march on us by flowering in April. So now we time it for the

Rhododendrons, and will see Shortia out of blossom, and we hope to find

new stations. Then I want to look up Darbya, of which only the male is

known. Curtis seems to have got it, without flowers, near Lincolnton.

Then we are to explore the east side of the Blue Ridge, from the base of

Black Mountain to Grandfather, and then cross to the Roan, on which is

now the Cloudland Hotel.

Oh dear! now that the time draws near, I wish I could stay at home and

finish Parry and Palmer’s[110] Mexican Compositæ, which abound with new

or interesting species!...

I send you by mail a copy of my new “Text-Book.” You see I relegate to

other hands the anatomy, physiology, and cryptogamia,--glad to be rid of

them. I send, too, one of the few copies of the Shortia paper. The

translator into French in several places missed my meaning. And the

explanation of the plate is a botch. I numbered only the floral parts I

now furnished, expecting the materials from Herbier Paris to make

another plate. Decaisne crowded all on one plate, and numbered to suit

himself, and then printed my explanation unaltered. The numbers do not

match at all....

TO WILLIAM M. CANBY.

April 25, 1879.

... About scheme: it is rather my notion to go via Statesville to

Newton, explore down one fork of Catawba, till we find Darbya, or find

Curtis’s locality, and back by the other; two days. But perhaps, to save

time, you would prefer to keep on the railroad from Statesville to

Lincolnton (where, by the way, Magnolia macrophylla grows), pick up

Darbya, and then come up to us at Statesville or Marion. Then we will

see locality of Shortia.

Then, my notion is to get some good searches along the flanks of the

mountains, from Swananoa Gap to Linville Falls (find Shortia for

ourselves, etc.), and even up to Deep Gap, which you see is pretty well

north. Then make Cowles tote us to Bakersville, and then end on Roan

Mountain.

There I and my wife would like to stay several days; and you, if it must

be, could leave us and get home.

But I am not particular, if you prefer a southern trip; down to Jackson

County, etc., and get Vasey’s new Rhododendron,--only a day south of

where we went before.

Sargent, our director, wants to go, and go in September, so that he can

get live things. Perhaps he will join us.

My wife’s desiderata are simply these: To see both Rhododendrons in

flower, and to get some rough wagon-rides. It seems not difficult to

satisfy her simple desires. Moreover, what do you say to our brothers

and our nieces, with their aunt? The nieces are trumps of girls for

traveling companions, and their father worthy of them. They are enticed

by our accounts of Rhododendrons and the nice rough times, and the

chance of sleeping in their spectacles, and Roan Mountain, where they

would like to stay a week! Perhaps even, we would show them New River

Springs with their rocks, etc., on the way homeward.

If they join us, it will probably be after we have done the Shortia and

Darbya business.

Is there yet any chance of Redfield? Now you look up routes, etc., and

give me your ideas. I wish we had your “heavenly weather.”

CAMBRIDGE, July 7, 1879.

MY DEAR CANBY,--Verses seem to be the order of the day. So here goes:--

With Misses L. the saying runs,

“However good a man be,

The most that can be said of him

Is, He ’s as nice as Can-be.”

... You will want to know how Mrs. Gray and I got on. Finely, with two

hard days at the close....

First day, we got round, retracing our old route, to Blaylocks, a hard

place.

2d. Traveled all day up the north fork of Toe, through scenery which

delighted Mrs. Gray greatly, to head of a fork thereof in Yellow

Mountains, and thence over to Cranberry Fork, almost under the shadow of

the Roan, or of that prolongation of it which we went to; nice food and

lodgings and the luxury of a separate room.

3d. Down Cranberry Creek and up Elk, over Elk Mountain (got Cedronella

cordata. Want any?), from which climbed to a good view, down to Valle

Crucis, and over to Boone, to sleep; a long day.

4th. Drove fourteen miles, partly on Blue Ridge, to Gap Creek, at noon.

Nice house. Very nice wife and children.

5th. Mrs. Gray rested. Cowles and I went up Blue Ridge, saw a fine

waterfall on the eastern side.

6th. Took in Mrs. Cowles, baby, and bright little girl. Drove fourteen

miles to Jefferson, picnic dinner on the way; stopped with an uncle and

aunt of Mrs. C. I and some Jeffersonians went up Negro Mountain;

collected Saxifraga Careyana at the original locality; took a view of

where Aconitum reclinatum must be, went for it, found it, some specimens

barely in bud, more in flower,[111] made specimens for you and for

Redfield, took roots.

7th. Cowles and family to wait and visit, while we took their wagon to

Marion, forty-five miles, too much for a day. (Good souls the Cowles!)

But when we had got on six miles, met a wagon from Marion, the men in

which proposed an exchange, which we (for the Cowles’s sake) gladly

consented to. Were to cross the Iron Mountain that day, if time held out

(which it did), and stop at a McCarthy’s at the foot, twelve miles from

Marion. Reaching the place just at dusk, the driver insisted that this

nice house was not the place, but a mile or two farther on. So we tired

people drove on by moonlight, three miles further, to find he was

mistaken, and no lodgings to be had, except possibly a mile further.

Came to a house, routed a man and wife out of bed, found a great fire

still on the hearth, no decent chance to sleep. Concluded the only way

then was to push on the eight miles more, so as to get the train the

next morning at 6.35. Got with difficulty a little corn for the horses,

brought out Mrs. Gray’s tea-kettle, made tea, ate the remains of our

dinner, and thus refreshed, jogged on; reached Marion at one A.M., slept

till half past five, rose, took train at 6.50. And Mrs. Gray still

lives! Were waiting hungrily for our breakfast at Wyethville, when,

three miles from it, a slight double thud, a down-brake signal, the last

breath of the engine, a stop. To our vast surprise, on looking out,

engine, and three cars, and first section of high bridge were missing,

and were débris in the abyss. No such accident could have been managed

with less shock to the nerves. And as to the result, had it been after

breakfast and passengers smoking in the second-class car, there would

have been a greater fatality (glad to say, I don’t smoke)....

There were weak ladies and hungry and sick children on board. I

clambered down the embankment with that blessed tea-kettle, to a poor

house, got a fire made, and hot water. Another traveler going farther

got a pot of coffee, nice bread and butter and cold boiled ham. And so

we fared till omnibuses came for us. At Wyethville a good hotel; got

word at length to Shriver;[112] and after a late dinner, an extra train

came down, took us to Lynchburg; reached Washington before 8 A.M.

I will send you good specimen of original Saxifraga Careyana, from Negro

Mountain. Send me a good large one from Roan. I will compare them soon.

TO GEORGE BENTHAM.

CAMBRIDGE, July 4, 1879.

Your last letter has gone to Engelmann, as I notified you; those of May

29 and June 4 overtook me in the mountains of North Carolina, where Mrs.

Gray and I were recuperating, but I was kept on the move from morn to

night. I could not thence write you on the matters treated of, nor is

there anything left to say....

Nature sometimes does what you hit me for suggesting, that is, “take

away the essential character,” and we have to put up with it, and allow

that we may have overrated the character.

But, when all is done, I will try on your view without prejudice, and

adopt it if possible.

About Ceratophyllum: I never followed up that early paper, of 1837,

because I soon saw that I was very wrong in supposing that the ovules of

Cabomba and Nelumbium were like that of Ceratophyllum, and I concluded

that my whole idea was baseless. I have not looked at the matter since,

but I shall be much surprised if you find that my youthful idea is

worthy of resuscitation.

We have come back from the cool mountains of the South to really hot

weather at the North.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, July 15, 1879.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--Your pleasant letter of the 3d June reached me on

Roan Mountain, in a comfortable little house, at the elevation of about

6,200 feet above the sea, enjoying glorious views of range after range

of the Alleghany Mountains, and on the grassy plateau Rhododendron

Catawbiense, perhaps more of it than in all the rest of the world, just

coming into blossom. Then the valleys and mountainsides all around,

covered with rich forest, are adorned with Rhododendron maximum, and

Kalmia latifolia in immense abundance and profuse blossoming, of every

hue from deep rose to white, and here and there, among other flowering

shrubs, Azalea calendulacea, of every hue from light yellow to the

deepest flame color. Mrs. Gray was with me, with her brother, two

nieces, and a botanical party consisting of Messrs. Canby, Redfield, and

Sargent. We traversed a pretty large and very wild region, much of which

I had before visited, some thirty-eight years before. We went to the

locality of Shortia galacifolia, discovered by Hyams; but our search for

new stations, or for the old one of Michaux, was in vain. But I have now

a clear idea of the district in which it may be sought. The known

station is probably one to which the plant has been brought down.

I have returned home to a crowd of work....

I wait with great interest your volume on Phytography. You will see that

in my new “Text-Book” we are quite in accord. I agree with you about new

and useless terms, and the execrable taste of the Germans.

I am very strong, and can climb a mountain as well as ever, only I lose

breath except I move slowly in the ascent.

Memory rather fails; otherwise I have at near sixty-nine all my

faculties in fair condition.

It has happened that I have visited Europe every eleven years. According

to that you should see me next year! I cannot promise; but I am always

affectionately yours,

ASA GRAY.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

November 11, 1879.

I forgot to ask if you, or your friend Lord Blachford, knew Arthur James

Balfour, M. P., author of “A Defense of Philosophic Doubt,” published

recently by Macmillan?

It is the most masterly essay I have seen of late years, and I should

like to know who the man is, and what you think of his book.

I have been drawn into promising, in an unguarded moment, to give two

lectures to the theological class of Yale College (our oldest university

after Harvard) some time in the course of the winter, on Science and

Religion; a topic which calls for wise speaking. I am not very hopeful,

but still I have an idea I may do some good. I wish you were in reach,

that we might talk over the subject....

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, January 1, 1880.

MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--Though I have entered on the seventieth year of my

age, I hold out well, and when other cares do not interrupt, I go on

with the “Compositæ,” yet all too slowly. Before I print them I shall

hope to have another inspection of some of the species of the

“Prodromus” in your herbarium; perhaps before this year 1880 is out, yet

it is rather doubtful. I get on slowly, and then Mr. Watson, who will

have the “Flora of California” off his hands as soon as he can get the

manuscript of the “Gramineæ” out of Professor Thurber’s hands, must have

a vacation ramble, probably to Oregon. If he leaves here in the spring,

I must wait his return here in the autumn, or at most cannot leave home

until after midsummer; too late to render myself at Geneva, I suppose.

Much of my time of the last few months has been occupied with the

details of building a small addition to our herbarium building to

contain the botanical library. It is just finished, and the books will

now be moved into it in a few days....

My health is excellent. Let us hope the same for you, and offer my best

wishes for the year 1880.

* * * * *

Dr. Gray delivered in the winter of 1880 two lectures to the theological

school of Yale College, on Natural Science and Religion.

They were long and carefully thought out, and he had great pleasure in

speaking to an audience who followed him so closely, and evidently with

such attentive sympathy.

He also enjoyed very much reading them, before delivery, to his friend

Dr. O. W. Holmes, in Boston.

TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

CAMBRIDGE, January 17, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,--We go Monday night on to Washington, leaving here at five

P.M. My lectures are fixed for February 5 and 6, so that I shall return

from Washington and go on specially to New Haven.

I expect to be at home the last week of the month, but perhaps not on

Monday, and I should wish to see you and read my second lecture, which

is dragging its slow length along!...

CAMBRIDGE, March 11, 1880.

I have this moment received and read from Newman Smyth a flattering

note, and a copy of his article in the “Advance.” A very good one it is,

and his own thoughts are noteworthy and to the point.

President Gilman of the Johns Hopkins sent me a very admiring letter, in

which he urges a student’s edition, on thinner paper and paper covers,

which he wants to subscribe for. I shall send it to the publisher before

long.

April 11, 1880.

I am amused at Professor ----’s substitution of demiurgism for

evolution, reprinted in the “Independent,” and at the coolness with

which the professor proclaims that a hypothesis which he thinks is good

for nothing else may be good to put against evolutionism.

Darwin has sent me advance sheets of his book on Advantage of Crosses

(not moral but floral crosses, and not crosses made of flowers, but

those made by insects and winds for the benefit of flowers), and I see

much in it which you will enjoy. I am too full of work to use it next

week, and if you tell me you will come Monday and take it, I will lend

it to you for that week.

Professor Fisher has sent me an admirable sermon on “The Folly of

Atheism.” Have you seen it?

... I would change a word in paragraph seven. If by proof you mean

demonstration of its truth, I remark that rational explanation of the

phenomena, so far as known, does not prove an hypothesis. Two different

hypotheses may do that; and it may long be impossible to get a crucial

test.

Sincerely yours,

A. GRAY.

Dr. Gray was at work on another part of the “Synoptical Flora.” Asters

had always been his especial study, and a great and puzzling labor, and

these few lines tell of his difficulties.

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

April 17, 1880.

We heard only incidentally of your accident, and were very sorry. Do be

careful. Don’t climb ladders. Leave that to young fellows like me!...

I am half dead with Aster. I got on very fairly till I got into the

thick of the genus, among what I called Dumosi and Salicifolia. Here I

work and work, but make no headway at all. I can’t tell what are species

and how to define any of them, nor what the nomenclature is, i. e., what

are original names.

I will take this group abroad, but it will be just as bad there, unless

I can get some settled ideas before I start. I never was so boggled.

To-morrow I’ll sit down and study your Pinus paper, which I have not

looked at yet, so absorbed have I been....

My old friend John Carey has died, in England, at eighty-three.

Schimper, they say, is dead. They go one by one!

CAMBRIDGE, May 8.

First, thanks for your very lively letter of May 4,--auspicious day,

being my wedding-day, thirty-second anniversary....

Yes, we mean to go abroad right after the meeting of American

Association, say September 4, to finish Aster, etc.; to stay at least a

year.

My wife sends best love to you, your daughter, and son, and I join.

TO JOHN H. REDFIELD.

CAMBRIDGE, April 21, 1880.

DEAR REDFIELD,--If you hear of my breaking down utterly, and being sent

to an asylum, you may lay it to Aster, which is a slow and fatal poison.

Apparently it will take a year or more for me to finish it, with the

greater chance that it finishes me before that time....

April 24.

Thanks for both specimen and sympathy. The former is here safely

returned.

The A. glacialis I must seek in Nuttall’s herbarium, now at the British

Museum.

The principal troubles in Aster are packed away, to try on again, in

London, Paris, and Berlin.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

CAMBRIDGE, May 17, 1880.

MY HONORED AND DEAR FRIEND,--Is it possible (I fear it is) that your

letter to me at the beginning of the winter (telling me who Balfour, M.

P., is) has been all this while unacknowledged? I fear it is even so.

In the mean time much has happened, at least in your old world, on which

interest centres; here not much, but constant and rather humdrum work

for me. We have got through the winter, a mild one, in contrast to

yours, so severe and trying, and our spring opens pleasantly; and Mrs.

Gray and I are well and happy.

You have had a parliamentary election, the result of which we delight

in, though it took us, and seemingly most of you, by surprise. I fancy

you are pleased to see Gladstone again at the helm, and still more at

the collapse of Jingoism,--not a moment too soon.

But let me hasten to tell you that Mrs. Gray and I contemplate crossing

the Atlantic early in September, and of passing at least a full year in

England and on the Continent. A busy year it must be, if my powers hold

out; for I must do a deal of work, and I want to have a little play. I

wish I could be more ready, by the finishing of my general study of the

vast order Compositæ, so that I might know exactly what researches I

must make in London, Paris, Berlin, etc. I have not got on as I

expected; but, as I am to reach seventy if I live to near the end of the

current year, I must no longer postpone my voyage. Indeed, I would leave

at midsummer if I could get away. But the American Association for the

Advancement of Science meets in Boston at the end of August, and has a

day in Cambridge. And it would not do for me, an ex-president, to turn

my back on it, and upon a houseful of friends whom we wish to entertain.

But the moment it is over we shall hope to be off.

I think I must work at Aster, etc., at Kew for a few weeks; and I have a

fancy for a run through the west and south of France and, perhaps,

Spain!

You will be returning from some summer trip about the time we reach

England. Cannot you and Mrs. Church get away from a dark and dull London

November, and go with us to a summer region!

I sent you my Yale Lectures, which had to treat difficult and delicate

matters. I find they have been useful to some on either side.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

CAMBRIDGE, June 8, 1880.

I have left your kind letter of March 11 too long unacknowledged. Now I

have to thank you for a copy of the “Phytographie,” which interests me

exceedingly. I have also to say that my plans for the year are so far

settled that I have engaged passage for Mrs. Gray and myself in a Cunard

steamer from Boston for Liverpool on the 4th of September, the earliest

date on which we could leave home.

But, greatly as you tempt me, and much as I should like to see you

early, we cannot reach Switzerland this autumn....

I should hope we might see you in early summer. So, pray, keep yourself

well and strong till then.

About the “Phytographie:” I shall have much to write, when I read the

book, which as yet I have only glanced at. About dextrorsum and

sinistrorsum: I think it is not quite true that the innovators have not

given any account of the grounds on which they rest. Mine are expressed,

I believe, in two or three notes in “American Journal of Science,” and

are summed up in my “Botanical Text-Book,” last edition, p. 516,

referred to in the glossary and index. I think that the analogy of the

right-handed screw indicates how the world in general regard it, ab

extra. There is a sensible note on the question in the late

Clerk-Maxwell’s “Treatise on Electricity,” vol. 1,--the reference is not

at hand at this moment. It takes, essentially, our (my) view as it seems

to me; but it refers to a similar confusion between the mathematicians

and the physicists.

I wish you had gone on to illustrate more of the words which have been

changed or confused in meaning; for example, “pistillum,” “cyme,” etc.

It is a pity that the terms of nomenclature had not been rearranged by

Roeper[113] so as to conflict less with those of Linnæus and the general

botanical use.

We have had our centennial of the American Academy; a pleasant

reunion....

Mr. Winthrop gave a good public address.

I get only slowly on with the Compositæ; my interruptions and

distractions are many and great. Fortunately I am in perfect health; am

outliving my chronic catarrh. I hope you may do so also!

June 28, 1880.

Yours of the 15th is duly received, with your pleasant remarks on my

lectures.[114] Professor Bourier is very welcome, and will please me by

using any part of them he chooses. I should like to see how they would

read in French.