Chapter VII · TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 1868-1880. (continued 3)

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.

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:—

... 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.