Note 185 — LETTERS ON SCIENCE.

The letter from Forbes to Mr. Ruskin (dated December 2, 1864) was presumably elicited by the allusions to Forbes in Mr. Ruskin’s letter to the Reader of November 26, 1874 (see ante, pp. 259 and 263). “Advancing years and permanently depressed state of health,” ran the letter, “have taken the edge off the bitterness which the injustice I have experienced caused me during many years. But ... the old fire revives within me when I see any one willing and courageous, like you, to remember an old friend, and to show that you do so.”—The second letter speaks of the writer’s “boyish enthusiasm” for Agassiz, an expression to which Mr. Ruskin appends this note: “The italics are mine. I think this incidental and naïve proof of the way in which Forbes had spoken of Agassiz to his class, of the greatest value and beautiful interest.—J. R.”