I have laid in a good stock of health and strength for the labors of the winter—which I am like to need, for I have a great deal to do. Another year, if our lives are spared, I trust you will make me a visit here. I have just given notice that I shall wish to take possession of the Botanic Garden house (now rented to one of the professors) next autumn, where, if I can get a room or two furnished, I shall have a place to entertain you. Affectionate regards to mother and all the family.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, February 17.

My time of trial draws near. A week from Tuesday I begin. There has been a pretty brisk application for tickets. But I have yet very much to do. My two last lectures are not even blocked out upon paper. Many pictures are yet to be made, and I shall have a busy time indeed until they are all delivered. The end will be deliverance indeed. Yet strange as it may seem, my spirits are rather on the rise; though I will not answer for them for ten days longer.

I have written an introductory which, with a few more touches, I shall be satisfied with. And some of my lectures which have least illustrations—such as that on food and nutrition—are pretty carefully written out. I have contrived a diagram illustrating the cycle of relations of three kingdoms, which I think is capital (as it is quite original), and which I long to show you. If I had three mouths more, I am convinced I could put my materials into the form of a capital course of lectures.

Zuccarini wrote me a year ago—when he sent the Japanese plants that we looked over together—that the Japanese species utterly confounded the difference between Rhododendron and Azalea; decandrous species having deciduous leaves, etc. If they must come together (and De Candolle seems doubtful) it would be a pity you did not follow that plan, as you early adopted it.

Then after all, in such case, are the Azaleas, as they will ever be called in cultivation, to make the section Azalea, or is A. procumbens to take that name?...

I wish you could see my Lowell anatomical illustrations. The pity is, that I shall hardly use them in this course, now that my introductory lecture only brings me down to them. (but I shall have them spread to look at), and I can only give to the subject about twenty minutes of my second lecture.

But it is very late indeed. Adieu.

Yours cordially,
A. Gray.

March 1, 1844.

Well, you have heard what I had to say about my introductory lecture. I was satisfied. I said plainly what I intended to say and delivered it not very well indeed, but well enough to satisfy me that I could do well with practice. This evening I have made a second trial, and a more trying one by far. I have a cold and am a little hoarse, which was a good thing, for as to voice I filled the house. As I was full of illustrations, quite as much as would cover the whole side of a barn, I determined to try the experiment of lecturing by the general guidance of my notes only (which indeed were but partly written out). So with the long pole in hand to point at the pictures I set at work, and talked away for an hour and ten minutes.

I felt like a person who can hardly swim, thrown into the river, fairly in for it, and had to kick and strike to keep my head above water. The results are these. I was by no means satisfied, and thought I had made almost a failure. I left out many important points, I repeated myself a little now and then, and,—the usual result of extemporizing,—I did not get through, but was obliged to break off in the midst of the best of it. But, in spite of some difficulties of expression, and bad sentences, the whole was probably more spirited in appearance than if I had followed my notes. And the audience generally seemed more moved by it than by the first.

I consider it thus far successful; that under unfavorable circumstances, for I had no time to look over my notes beforehand, I made a desperate lunge, and yet avoided a real failure. It will place me so much at ease that I can hereafter, with or without notes, look fairly at my audience without wincing. So I shall do better hereafter....

I send you my notes (on Vacciniums) as far as written before I left for the South last summer; and with all Boott’s memoranda as material. It would be crazy for me now to attempt to make any memoranda, or even to make the corrections that the new data require. Conclusions formed in hurly-burly are good for nothing; and I cannot, and must not, think of anything but my task. The two last of my lectures are not even arranged yet.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge, 1st March, 1844.

My dear Friend,—I was very much gratified at receiving your kind letter of January 16; and I was quite startled at the lapse of time, I assure you, when you reminded me that five years had elapsed since we were running about the streets of London together. Since that time you have seen the world, indeed, or some very out-of-the-way parts of it; and you now stand in a perfectly unrivaled position as a botanist, as to advantages, etc., with the finest collections and libraries of the world within your reach; and if you do not accomplish something worth the while, you ought not to bear the name of Hooker.

I thank you most cordially for all the news you kindly give me respecting the family, and wish to return my best thanks for being remembered to one and all. Your good old grandfather holds out so well that really I sometimes think I may yet take him again by the hand; for I long to make another visit to England. Perhaps I may in two or three years. But I hope ere that to see you here, where you may depend upon a most hearty reception; and the Greenes (who send remembrances) join me strenuously in begging you will make us a visit. After Sir William and Lady Hooker (seniores priores), whom we cannot expect to see under present circumstances, there is nobody in England I could so much wish to see as yourself.

Had I time, I should fill this sheet with gossip about my occupations, plans, and prospects. Of these hereafter, for I hope our correspondence will not end here. But I am now exceedingly pressed for time, having just commenced my course of public lectures in Boston on physiological botany. Indeed I have the second lecture to give this evening, and much preparation yet to make for it. But I must tell you that in August next I am to take possession of the house which belongs to our little Botanic Garden,—a quiet pleasant place, where I am to set up a bachelor establishment, have room enough for my herbarium, which I shall arrange à la Hooker, and a bed and a plate for a friend. So, if you wish to take an autumnal excursion, step on board the steamer and so drop in upon me some morning, where you may depend upon—in a humble way—as cordial a reception as I once received in Scotland.

Sullivant, who is a good, spirited fellow, is delighted at the thought of receiving a set of your cryptogamic collections. As to your generous proposal to send another to some public collection in this country, we will see. I will write something about it in due time.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, 25th March, [1844].

I think I should be an unhappy, discontented, unthankful person not to be gratified with the success of my lectures. But it is not likely to turn my head. Everything proceeds quietly and soberly. I purposely directed no tickets to be sent to a paper that often reports lectures, as I did not wish it done. There has not been a line in the papers about the matter, except the very considerate notice about the beginning, which I sent you. My last week’s lectures are called much the best. The first, on the anatomy and physiology of leaves, and exhalation and its consequences, occupied an hour and twenty minutes. My last, on food of plants, vegetable digestion, and the relations of plants to mineral and animal kingdoms,—in which I did my very best, and which required and secured the most intense attention on the part of the audience for a hundred minutes,—was received with an intelligent enthusiasm which did the audience credit. For it would be mere affectation for me to pretend not to know—as I well do—that it is one of the best scientific lectures that have ever been delivered in Boston. I have none left to compare with it. I have only four more to give, during which I dare say the interest will fall off; which will not disappoint or mortify me. From your truly kind remarks and warnings I suppose you look upon my success in this undertaking as extremely hazardous to my best interests. Now this duty came to me unsolicited and unexpected. I accepted it because I thought it was my duty to do so. Then I was of course bound to make every consistent effort to insure success. While viewing it at a distance, I felt much anxiety. But before I commenced, this entirely disappeared, and I have gone on just as coolly as you might do with your chemical course. I am thankful that (owing chiefly to the nature and novelty of the subject) I have done my work creditably. The little éclat which attends it, I am not so foolish as to care anything for, pro or con. It is entirely ephemeral. It may gratify my friends; but it does me no good, and I trust no harm. The general result may benefit the science of this part of the country. It will probably tend to advance my interests, as I certainly wish it may, the object of my ambition being high and honorable, as well as moderate....

Though I feel that I often—always—fail to do my whole duty, yet I do not feel, nor believe, that a perfectly consistent Christian course would expose me to persecution; nor that obloquy is a test of Christian character. These are to be borne like other evils, when they are incurred in the course of one’s duty; but surely they are not to be sought, nor viewed as a test. Under the circumstances under which we are placed, would our unexpectedly meeting with obloquy be any test to us that we were doing right? Would it not lead us to suspect we had been at least unwise? Such men as Payson or Edwards, though they may often have been pitied, I suspect, were never persecuted. But, while I think you take a one-sided view and assume, an unscriptural test, in your own case, I thank you most sincerely for your kind admonition to me, and will try to profit by it. My sheet is fairly full.

I need not say how delighted I should be to see you here; but you must not come till the spring has fairly commenced, at least. The weather is excessively unpleasant, the roads almost impassable; it snows every three or four days, and not a speck of green is yet to be seen. A month later it will be comfortable here. I fear I shall not have a place to receive you before autumn, as a house is yet to be built for Dr. Walker. But I should still like to have a visit from you in the course of the summer.

Dr. Gray was always deeply interested in the religious thought of the day; reticent in regard to his own religious feelings and sensitive about any exhibition of them, he was ready at any time to discuss problems of theology and ecclesiasticism. His temper was naturally conservative, and he held by the habits of thought which had been early formed; but he was open to conviction, and by the process of his own thought broke through narrow bounds and rejoiced in all true progress in religion, both for himself and others. In the matter of scriptural authority, for example, he was in accord with Soame Jenyns, taking the ground quoted here:

“The Scriptures,” says that writer, in his “Internal Evidences of Christianity,” “are not revelations from God, but the history of them. The revelations themselves are derived from God, but the history of them is the production of man. If the records of this revelation are supposed to be the revelation itself, the least defect discovered in them must be fatal to the whole. What has led many to overlook this distinction is that common phrase that the Scriptures are the Word of God; and in one sense they certainly are; that is, they are the sacred repository of all the revelations, dispensations, promises, and precepts which God has vouchsafed to communicate to mankind; but by this expression we are not to understand that every part of this voluminous collection of historical, poetical, prophetical, theological, and moral writing which we call the Bible was dictated by the immediate influence of Divine inspiration.”

He held this ground strongly when the general view of the Bible was narrower than of late years. As the years went on he grew broader and sweeter, feeling wider sympathy with all true, devout religious belief.

He was a constant church-goer, everywhere. When traveling he always made Sunday a resting-day if possible, and would go quietly off in the morning to find some place of service, in English if he could. He enjoyed the Episcopal service, though early habit and training had made him a Presbyterian; but, as he wrote in an early letter, “In fact I have no more fondness for high Calvinistic theology than for German neology.... But I have no penchant for melancholy, sober as I sometimes look, but turn always, like the leaves, my face to the sun.”

He was a teacher in Sunday-schools in New York (the lady with whom he boarded has still a lively remembrance of his enthusiastic study of German that he might teach his class of German boys better), and also in his early years of Cambridge life, until the heavy load of work he was carrying made the Sunday more imperative as a day of rest. It was his rule to rest on Sunday. Rest for him was change of intellectual occupation, and he read all of the day he was not out at church; more especially on the philosophical questions, whether general or scientific, which next to botany were his chief interest. Books on these subjects were the few he bought outside of works on botany; as he said, he could only afford botanical books and had no money or room for general literature. He read the leading magazines, and occasionally biographies and travels, and if he had friends staying with him, Sunday was the day for talk and discussion. A friend writes such a lively reminiscence of one of these Sunday discussions, on a stormy winter day which shut all in the house, that it seems worth giving as a vivid description of him.

“Dr. Gray is more associated with the study and the room next it, but I recall him there (in the parlor) also, especially in the visit of which you wrote, made when Mr. John Carey was with you. He and the doctor held one Sunday a long discussion on the Ten Commandments as binding upon Christians. Mr. Carey argued that their only claim upon our obedience consisted in their having been re-ordained (indorsed as it were) by the church,—whether that meant the Holy Catholic or simply the Anglican Church was not decided, as I remember. Dr. Gray combated this extreme church view warmly and cleverly. Both were pugnacious amiably, as in their botanical fights. Both were excited, and the doctor showed his excitement in his characteristically self-forgetful way, by moving or jumping nervously about the room, sitting on the floor, lying down flat, but laughing and sending sparks out of his eyes, and plying his arguments and making his witty thrusts all the while. I enjoyed it very much, scarcely observing the odd positions any more than the doctor did. I had seen him so conduct himself before.”

It may be added to this that Dr. Gray was noticeable throughout his life for his alertness. In the street he was usually on a half run, for he never allowed himself quite time enough to reach his destination leisurely. When traveling by coach and climbing a hill he would sometimes alarm his fellow-travellers by suddenly disappearing through a window in his eagerness to secure some plant he had spied; his haste would not suffer him to open a door. As his motions were quick, so that he seemed always ready for a spring, so he found instant relaxation by throwing himself flat on the floor when tired, to rest, like a child.

His physical characteristics expressed something of his mental qualities. He was quick and impetuous in temper, but his excitement was short-lived, and his prevailing spirit was one of apparently inexhaustible good-nature. He was the cheeriest of household companions; rarely was he depressed, only indeed when greatly fagged with some tremendous pressure of work or some worrying trouble difficult to settle; he was exceedingly hopeful, and always carried with him a happy assurance that everything was going on well in his absence; withal, he was fearless in all adventure, never willing to allow there had been any danger when it had passed! He was fond of arguing, but no partisan, so that however earnest and dogmatic be might seem, the moment the discussion was over there was no trace of bitterness or vexation left. He was a clear and close reasoner himself, and thus impatient of defective reasoning or a confused statement in others. He was quick, too, in turning his opponents’ weapons against them; sometimes he would escape from a dilemma in a merry, plausible form, but in serious argument he always insisted upon downright sincerity.

TO W. J. HOOKER.

April 1, 1844.

I finish my course of Lowell lectures this week, which have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations. I have restricted myself to physiological botany only,—taken up only great leading views,—used very large paintings for illustrations, six to eight feet high, which the great size of the room required, and then have given to sound scientific views a general popular interest.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, May 24, 1844.

I have been using Dr. Wyman’s microscope of late, and it works well. By the way, I have been studying fertilization a little, and have got out pollen-tubes of great length; have followed them down the style, have seen them in the cavity of the ovary, and close to the orifice of the ovule.

My first views were in Asarum Canadense and A. arifolium, where I can very well see the pollen-tubes with even my three-line doublet! I have seen them finely in Menyanthes; and in the ovary in Chelidonium!

I am lecturing[135] in a popular and general way entirely on physiological botany, and offering no encouragement to any to pursue systematic botany this year. My great point is to make physiological botany appear as it should be,—the principal branch in general education. Next year I hope to take up the other branch.

I am using the Lowell illustrations (though too large for my room), and am having no additional ones made for the college. For simple things I depend much upon the blackboard. I have given two lectures on the longevity of trees, and have a third yet to give, or at least half of another....

The plants from the mountains have some done well, others poorly. Buckleyas had a hard time of it. Many are dead; none I think will flower this season, as they only put out from the root. Diphylleia, Saxifraga Careyana, a new one like it, also S. erosa, etc., are now in flower. Astilbe is in bud, also Vaccinium ursinum. One Carex Fraseri flowered. Hamiltonia only starts from the root.

In 1844, finding he needed more room for his rapidly increasing herbarium, Dr. Gray applied for the use of the Botanic Garden house, which since the death of Dr. Peck had been occupied for a while as a boarding-house, and later by Dr. and Mrs. Walker. He moved into it in September, and there remained until the end of his life. He had a great attachment for the house, as the only one in which he had resided for any length of time; and it saw the gradual growth of his herbarium, needing before many years the addition of a wing to give more room, until, having overrun all possible places for its accommodation, it was removed in 1864 into the fireproof building which now holds it.

The garden was laid out by Dr. Peck in 1808, and the house built for him was finished in 1810. Mr. Nuttall, the botanist and ornithologist, who boarded in it while giving instruction in botany, left some curious traces behind him. He was very shy of intercourse with his fellows, and having for his study the southeast room, and the one above for his bedroom, put in a trap-door in the floor of an upper connecting closet, and so by a ladder could pass between his rooms without the chance of being met in the passage or on the stairs. A flap hinged and buttoned in the door between the lower closet and the kitchen allowed his meals to be set in on a tray without the chance of his being seen. A window he cut down into an outer door, and with a small gate in the board fence surrounding the garden, of which he alone had the key, he could pass in and out safe from encountering any human being.

The garden, though small, was planned with much skill, and when Dr. Gray first lived on the place was much more filled up in the centre with trees and shrubs, so that since one was unable to see from one path to another, it seemed much larger than when more open. Dr. Peck, who had visited Europe and learned much of botanical gardens there, when complimented on his success in laying it out, said that “he felt he had been at work on a pocket-handkerchief!” Dr. Gray, as his letters show, fell earnestly at work to restock the garden, and from his various journeys, his correspondents, and the many seeds and roots which were coming in from the Western explorations soon made it a valuable spot for exchange. It is interesting to note how many plants, now the common stock of all gardens, were first grown and flowered here. One bed for many years always went by the familiar name of “Texas,” as being the place where the new Texan seeds were grown. The fund for endowment was very small, and added greatly to the care of its oversight, because of the effort to keep within the income. For two years after Dr. Gray was living in the Garden house, he gave up two bed-rooms to the greenhouse plants, and so saved the Garden the expense of fuel for that period! One of his first deeds was to abolish the fee and make admission to the Garden free. It was the first—and remained for more than sixty years the only—public botanic garden in the country.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Tuesday evening, October 1, 1844.

I am about half fixed at the Garden, and shall probably sleep there to-morrow night. Were it not that my woman-kind has disappointed me, we should dine there to-morrow....

Dr. Wyman[136] wishes much to accompany Frémont if he goes on another journey, entirely at his own expense, if need be. As his object is entirely zoölogy, he will not interfere with Frémont’s botanical plans, while the results would redound to Frémont’s advantage. He is a most amiable, quiet, and truly gentlemanly fellow, retiring to a fault, but full of nerve, and surely is to be the great man of this country in the highest branches of zoölogy and comparative anatomy. I therefore very strenuously solicit your influence at court in his behalf.

I am glad that Frémont takes so much personal interest in his botanical collections. He will do all the more. I should like to see his plants, especially the Compositæ and Rosaceæ. As to Coniferæ he should have the Taxodium sempervirens, so imperfectly known, and probably a new genus. Look quick at it, for it is probably in Coulter’s collection which Harvey is working at....

Cordially yours,
A. Gray.

February 12, 1845.

My first lecture is to-day finished, and has this evening been read to Mr. Albro.[137] Half of it is devoted to a serving up of “Vestiges of Creation” (which Boott says is written by Sir Richard Vivian), showing that the objectionable conclusions rest upon gratuitous and unwarranted inferences from established or probable facts. Peirce is examining Mulder,[138] that we may fairly get at his point of view. His conclusions as to equivocal generation are non-constat from his own premises. On the whole series of subjects Peirce—who is much pleased with the way I have put the case in my introductory—and myself think of concocting a joint article, though my time will prevent me from working out some of the subsidiary points just now.

I assure you I am quite well and hearty, just in capital working mood. As to the lectures, I must work hard all the way through, but do not feel any misgivings. My house is hot enough, I assure you; no trouble on that score. As to spontaneous generation, the experiment of Schultz[139] is nearly or quite a test, and goes against it. Love to all.

Ever yours,
A. Gray.

The next letter contains the first allusion to Isaac Sprague, so long associated with Dr. Gray as illustrator of his works. Isaac Sprague was born in Hingham in 1811. He early showed a faculty for observation, and a gift for painting birds and flowers from nature. His talent was discovered, and he was invited by Audubon in 1843 to join his expedition to Missouri, and to assist in making drawings and sketches. President, then Professor, Felton, having met him in Hingham, and knowing Dr. Gray was looking for some one for his scientific drawings, recommended Mr. Sprague, and he began with the illustrations for the Lowell lectures and the new edition of the “Botanical Text-Book.” Dr. Gray was delighted with his gift for beauty, his accuracy, his quick appreciation of structure and his skill in making dissections. Mr. Sprague was from that time the chief, and mostly only, illustrator for his books, both educational and purely scientific.

Dr. Gray is said to have stated that Mr. Sprague had but one rival,—Riocreux; and he considered that draughtsman’s classical drawings inferior to Mr. Sprague’s.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, March 8, [1845?]

... I finish Lichens this afternoon; and have next two lectures on Fungi and spontaneous generation to give. I interweave a good deal of matter, such as, on Ferns, the part they played in the early times of the world, à la Brongniart. Mosses, filling up lakes and pools; Sphagnum, Peat. Lichens, first agents in clothing rocks with soil. I have noble illustrations of rust in wheat, ergot, etc., and Sprague is now hard at work on smut, à la Bauer.

You remember the letter I sent you from Prestele of “Ebenezer, near Buffalo,” and which you still hold. Well, he has sent me for inspection a most superb set of drawings, both of cultivated and of some native plants, exceedingly well done. Also specimens of his work in cutting on stone, which he does admirably. He did the work in Bischoff’s “Terminology,” which perhaps you remember, two quarto volumes. What a pity he did not have the State-Flora plates to execute!

If Dr. Beck and yourself go on with your plan, he is your man to engrave the plates on stone. Our Illicium is now in full flower; but I cannot spare Sprague a moment to draw it yet; unless, indeed, it is quite certain you will want it this year, when I would try. He must work hard for me two weeks longer....

My cutting up of “Vestiges of Creation” was a fine blow, and told. Peirce, who you know was rather inclined to favor Rogers a while ago, is now sound and strong. We think of sending a critical analysis of the first part of Mulder, as our joint work (if he finds time to put in form the physiological deductions I give him), to the meeting of geologists and naturalists at New Haven next month.

Mulder is very ingenious; but we can blow up the whole line of his arguments, and show that it all amounts to nothing; that he has not in this advanced our knowledge a particle; and that his generalizations are unsound. Why did you not have a part of my article reprinted in New York? That would be the best reply to all his stuff.

The printing of my book will be through next week.

March 30.

I am now half through, and have got almost done with Fungi. The audience take so much to the “Cryptogamic matters,” especially the afternoon audience, which is as a whole the most intelligent and refined, that I let them run on, and they will occupy the whole course, except three lectures. I gave one lecture, generally thought nearly the best, on the large Fungi, mushrooms, truffles, morels, puff-balls, with some good general matters. To-day I have taken the small ones, moulds, mildews, rust, and smut in wheat, with superb illustrations. Ergot is still left over, along with the diseases in potatoes, the plant of fermentation, the Botrytis that kills silk-worms, with some recapitulatory matters on spontaneous generation, which must be cooked up for Friday. Then comes Algæ; the large proper ones (Lecture 8), of which a fine series of illustrations is now nearly done.

Lecture 9. Then the low, minute forms and Confervæ come, and gory dew, red snow, superbly illustrated, ending with diatoms, transitions to corallines through sponge, etc., and the locomotive spores of Confervæ, Zoösporæ.

Lecture 10. Whole subject of spontaneous movements and sensibility in flowering plants, the life of plants, etc. (treated in a somewhat original way), and the real differences between plants and animals.

Lecture 11. The principles of classification. Individuals, species, their permanence, genera, orders, etc.

Lecture 12. Historical development. The Linnæan system, the natural. This ends so as to give me a fine place to begin at next year....

I shall soon be able to spare Sprague to draw the Illicium, if it still holds on. But I cannot spare him just yet. He has still to copy the red-snow bank from Ross, eighteen feet long!—finish two pieces of algæ, etc., etc.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

April 5, 1845.

I anxiously wait for the notices of the life and writings of your lamented father, which you so kindly offer. I agree with you that that of Daubeny[140] gives the best view of the philosophy of his science; and yet there are points of view that he has not touched upon. You, of course, know better than any one else what were your father’s philosophical views in natural history, his modes of thinking and working; and if, when you send me the above-mentioned documents, you would also feel at liberty to place such confidence in me as to give me your own views and suggestions upon the subject, and especially upon the points that other writers appear to have overlooked, I should be able to produce, in the “North American Review,” a much more important article and a worthier tribute to the memory of one so revered on this side of the Atlantic as well as in Europe. May I hope you will favor me in this respect?

Many thanks for the botanical news. I long to be delivered from the pressure of the engagements that have consumed so much of my time for the last year or two, and finish the “Flora of North America.”

I remain, ever, my dear friend, faithfully yours,

A. Gray.

TO JOHN TORREY.

August, 1845.

The new post-office law is an excellent thing, as it enables us to exchange our missives frequently, to send little pieces of news, and ask and answer questions without waiting for time and matter to fill up a formal letter.

I must tell you a little change made in my sanctum here. You are to imagine me writing at a sort of bureau-escritoire (standing under Robert Brown’s picture), which I fortunately picked up the other day for $10. It is of old dark wood a century old, and contains below four drawers, while the upper part, which opens into a fine writing-table, has eight pigeon-holes, six drawers, and a little special lock-up with several drawers and pigeon-holes more. You know I like any quantity of these stowaway places. I have sent upstairs the table which stood in its place, and brought down the round one, so that I have more room than before.

TO W. J. HOOKER.

October 14, 1845.

Your excellent father lived to a truly patriarchal age. Mine, who has been in failing health for some time, I learn to-day is suddenly and extremely sick, and I set out for my birthplace immediately, in hopes yet to see him once more.

His father died October 13, before he reached Sauquoit. He had made his son a visit in Cambridge after he was established at the Garden house, more especially to consult a physician for his failing health.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, November 15, 1845.

My visit to Oakes[141] I was chiefly to this intent. You know that I have been waiting and waiting for Oakes to give, not his New England “Flora” (which I fear he will always leave unfinished), but a predromus of it, for my use and for New England. The consequence of waiting is that Wood[142] is just taking the market, against my “Botanical Text-Book,” mostly by means of his “Flora.” Letters from Hitchcock—and elsewhere—all point to the probability that they will have to use his book (of which, by the way, he is preparing a second edition, which he cannot but improve), and ask me to prevent it by appending a brief description of New England or Northern plants to my “Botanical Text-Book.” A plan has occurred to me by which this might be done, were it not that I will not tread on the heels of anything that Oakes (who has devoted a life of labor to this end) will actually do.

As something must be done at once, I have proposed to Oakes to make myself the necessary conspectuses of orders, analyses, etc.; to join the proposed thing on, or to dove-tail it into, the “Text-Book;” and also to furnish the generic characters, and he is to write the specific characters and all that for New England plants. I give him as limit 250 pages brevier type, 12mo (say 300), and insist upon having the greater part of the copy on the 1st March, and that it shall be published on the 1st April. That I may cover the ground of Wood, and introduce it into New York, I propose, if you think it right and proper, to add the characters of the (about 150) New York plants not found in New England, distinguishing that by a †.

Oakes promises to do it. But our understanding is explicit that if he cannot get through with it in time, he is soon to let me know, and to furnish me with New England matters, when I am to do, not exactly this, but a more compendious manual of the botany of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, that is, the Northern States proper. It will be imperfect and hasty, but it will prevent Wood from fixing himself so that he cannot be driven out.

I propose to have a sufficient number of copies of this (in whatever form it may appear) bound up with the “Botanical Text-Book” to meet the demands of the one-book system in New England and New York, and to afford it at a price reduced to a minimum, so that nothing is to be made out of it, at least out of the first edition.

How does this all strike you? I am convinced that something must be done, and I will see if we can’t have a very popular, and at the same time a pretty good book.

George[143] sends his warm regards.

21st November, 1845.

I have driven Oakes so absolutely into a corner that I think he will work for once. The man’s preparations and materials are enormous! and for his sake I hope he will. If he does not, I shall know in time,—that is, as soon as I can use the knowledge,—and then the plan may take such form as may be deemed best. I should then wish to make it more absolutely a supplement of “Botanical Text-Book;” but only for the proper North. In the way in which it would then be done, with Persoonish[144] compactness and brevity, I doubt if you would care to engage in it. As soon as we can get out the proper Botany of the United States, I should wish it to supersede this to a great extent. In my hands, I would sell it so cheaply as to make very little, except as it promotes the sale of the “Botanical Text-Book.” I would sell the “Text-Book” with it for $2, or less even. The great object is to keep the ground clear by running an uncompromising opposition against the threatening interlopers.

My lectures are to commence January 13th.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge, 31st December, 1845.

I was much pleased to receive your pleasant letter of the 29th October last, and I read with interest the account of the debate on the occasion of the election by the Edinburgh Town Council. Such defeats can do you no harm. I suppose you are now going on with the “Flora Antarctica.” I need not say that I should be very glad to see the Antarctic plants of the Wilkes Expedition in your hands. The botanist who accompanied the expedition is no doubt perfectly incompetent to the task, so greatly so that probably he has but a remote idea how incompetent he is. I have not seen him nor the plants. Certainly I would not touch them (any but the Oregon and Californian) if they were offered to me, which they are not likely to be. I consider myself totally incompetent to do such a work without making it a special study for some years, and going abroad to study the collections accumulated in Europe. Of course if they are worked up at all in this country, they will be done disgracefully. I publicly expressed my opinion on the subject in “Silliman’s Journal.” But I have long been convinced that nothing can be done. The whole business has been in the hands till now of Senator——, the most obstinate, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, impracticable ignoramus that could well be found.... If to this you add an utter ignorance of those principles of comity and the spirit of interchange that prevail among naturalists, and a total want of comprehension of what is to be done in the scientific works in question, and you will see that nothing is to be expected from such sources. They have thrown every obstacle they could in the way of their naturalists—Dana and Pickering, for instance—so much so that Pickering, though a patient man, once threw up his position in disgust, I have heard, but, by some concessions made to him, was finally persuaded to retain it.

Some of the scientific reports will soon be published, Dana on the Corals, etc., which will, I suppose, be very creditable to him. When any of the volumes appear I am somewhat inclined to call public attention to some of this gross mismanagement and incompetency in these wrong-headed managers, in a review. I thank you very much for all the botanical news you give, and hope you will still favor me now and then with other such epistles.

I have never worked so hard as for the last four years, nor accomplished so much. Still it will not show for much in your eyes, and I receive many an exhortation like yours to go on with the “Flora.” But a world of work that could only be done by myself, the pressure of the duties of my new position, and the necessity of taking, indeed of creating, and maintaining a stand that should make my department felt and appreciated, has indeed sadly interrupted the work which I am of all others most desirous to complete. I have already a great deal of matter in a state of forwardness, and another year (Deo favente) will, I trust, give you a better account of me. My last course of public lectures in Boston commences in a fortnight, and will be over towards the close of February. You will admit that there is some temptation to a person who has so many uses for money, when I tell you that I received twelve hundred dollars for the delivery of twelve lectures, and that there are strong reasons beyond what the institution that employs me may justly demand, that I should do my best. This, however, will soon be over, and the “Flora” shall be pushed with vigor.... I greatly long to revisit England and to see you all once more. Nothing would delight me more; and there is a world of work I want to do in the collections of England and the Continent. Indeed you may look to see me one of these days, for I cannot long be satisfied or quiet without such a visit; though I shall hardly dare to show my face till the “Flora” is finished. How glad I shall be to see you in your quarters at Kew, and renew my acquaintance with all the family, of whom I retain so many pleasant memories. With kind regards to all, believe me,

Ever your affectionate friend, A. Gray.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Cambridge, January 26, 1846.

Your favor of the 22d I found this evening on my return from my afternoon’s lecture. I am very tired and cannot write much this evening. Four of my lectures[145] are off. You will be glad to know that they have gone off very well—the three first admirably; indeed I was surprised myself at the fluency, ease, and “enlargement” which was given me. The fourth, both last evening and this afternoon, was poorer—interesting details, but scrappy, and less comfort in speaking. Splendid illustrations up though.... The pictures were worth something, if the lecture was not. I shall spur myself up hard for those four to come, which are fully illustrated, in fact a complete embarras de richesses. Then come the four geographical lectures, which if Sprague gets the illustrations ready will be very interesting, I think. I must work them off well, for at least two of our seven members of corporation are constant hearers.

... There is a formidable amount of work of various sorts that should be accomplished (Deo favente) before the July vacation.... The contemplated expedition is a land one, from Lake Superior by North Pass to upper Oregon, down to Lewis River; up that, and then over to the Gila River in California. I know of no botanist to go. Can you find one? Sprague cannot be spared, and will not leave his wife and family for so long.

... Some of our Congressmen must feel a little ashamed that England is so cool and quiet in spite of all their bluster. Capital for peace that the Peel ministry is still in. We owe much gratitude to the new Lord Grey....

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

Cambridge, April 8, 1846.

What is Lindheimer about? Why is not his last year’s collection yet with you? We have just got things going, and we can sell fifty sets right off of his further collections, and he can go on and realize a handsome sum of money, if he will only work now! And he will connect his name forever with the Texan Flora!

I am at the “Flora” again and hope to do great things this year,—shall work hard and constantly.

Besides, by the aid of my young and excellent artist Sprague’s drawings, and Prestele to engrave cheaply and neatly on stone, I am going to commence a Genera Illustrata of the United States, like T. Nees von Esenbeck’s “Genera Germanica Iconibus Illustrata.”—the plates to be equally good, and quite cheap too. The first volume, one hundred plates, going on regularly from Ranunculaceæ, will be preparing this summer, and will be out in the fall....

May 30.

Have done something at the “Flora;” shall do much work this season after July 4th, when college duties are over. Drawings for “Genera” are getting on well.

One word now on another point. We must have a collector for plants living and dry to go to Santa Fé, with the Government Expedition. If I were not so tied up, I would go myself. Have you not some good fellow you can send? We could probably get him attached somehow so as to have the protection of the army, and if need be I could raise here two hundred dollars as an outfit. He could make it worth the while. He could collect sixty sets of five hundred plants (besides seeds and Cacti) very soon, which, named by us, would go off at once at ten dollars per hundred. Somebody must go into this unexplored field! Let me know if you think anything can be done, and I will set to work. The great thing is a proper man.

July 15.

I duly received your favor of June 25th; am delighted that you found a man to send to Santa Fé. I approve your mode of carrying out the plan, and will not be slow to aid in it. I wrote at once to Sullivant, telling him to forward fifty dollars for Fendler,[146]—to take his pay in Mosses and Hepaticæ, and to give instructions about collecting these, his great favorites. Before this reaches you, I am sure you will hear from him. He is a capital fellow, and Fendler must be taught to collect Mosses for him.

Then came your letter of July 3d. All right. I immediately wrote to Marcy, the Secretary of War, and to Colonel Abert, the head of the Topographical Engineer Corps; asked for protection and transportation; told the secretary to send anything he might be disposed to do to you at St. Louis. I then inclosed your letter to Mr. Lowell, and have just received it back again, with his letter, which I inclose to you! Is it not handsome?... Now Fendler has money enough to begin with. As soon as he is in the field, and shown by his first collections that he is deserving, I can get as much more money advanced for him, from other parties. If he only makes as good and handsome specimens as Lindheimer, all will be well. His collections should commence when he crosses the Arkansas; his first envoi should be the plants between that and Santa Fé, and be sent this fall, with seeds, cacti, and bulbs, the former of every kind he can get. These must be confined to yourself, Mr. Lowell, and me, till we see what we get by raising them. Other live plants he had better not attempt now.

His next collection must be at and around Santa Fé. But instruct him to get into high mountains, or as high as he can find, whenever he can. The mountains to the north of Santa Fé often rise to the snowline, and are perfectly full of new things. But you can best judge what instructions to give him. We can sell just as many sets of plants as he will make good specimens of. But forty sets is about as many as he ought to make....

It is said that a corps of troops is to be sent up through Texas towards New Spain. Lindheimer ought to go along, and so get high up into the country, where so much is new, and the plants have really “no Latin names.”

October 8th.

By the way, meeting Agassiz last evening, I was pleased to learn that he claimed you as a schoolmate, and spoke of you with lively pleasure. He is a fine, pleasant fellow. We shall take good care of him here.

January 5, 1847.

I am glad so fine a collection is on the way from Lindheimer, and greatly approve his going to the mountains on the Guadaloupe. How high are the mountains? If good, real mountains, and he can get on to them, and into secluded valleys, he will do great things....

We will keep ahead of the Bonn people. By the close of next summer (Deo favente) we may hope to have the botany of Texas pretty well in our hands.

Do you hear from Fendler? Hooker says that region, the mountains especially, is the best ground to explore in North America! There is a high mountain right back of Santa Fé. Fendler must ravish it.

TO JOHN TORREY.

Wednesday, [October, 1846].

A Mr. Baird,[147] of Carlisle, Pa., called on me yesterday, evidently a most keen naturalist (ornithology principally), but a man of more than common grasp. He talked about an evergreen-leaved Vaccinium, which I have no doubt is V. brachycerum, Mx., that I have so long sought in vain!...

13th October, 1846.

I leave Agassiz in New York. He will leave New York Wednesday morning; join me at Princeton, and go on with us to Philadelphia that evening. We shall probably go together to Carlisle, where he has something to do with that capital naturalist, Professor Baird, and I have to get live Vaccinium brachycerum. He will soon return to make ready his lectures here.

Agassiz is an excellent fellow, and I know you will be glad to make his personal acquaintance. I must make my stay, such as it can be, at Princeton, on my return....

9th December, 1846.

Agassiz lectured first last evening; fine audience; he had a cold; was very hoarse, so that he spoke with discomfort to himself, but it went off very well. Though he by no means did himself justice, the audience seemed well pleased, and the persons I spoke with at the time, the most intelligent people, were quite delighted and impressed. He has repeated to-day. I expect to hear him again on Friday....

I have sixteen proofs of “Genera Illustrata.” The engraving is clean and neat, but except a few of the last, they are not done so well as we expect, and do not do justice to the drawings, which, indeed, are almost matchless. Prestele has, in some, altered the arrangement of the analyses on the plate; consequently they must be done over again.

I am clear that Prestele can do what I want, so I have given him further instructions, and have raised his pay to $2.50 each; increasing my own risk thereby. Sprague has discovered some new quiddities about the position of the ovule in Ranunculaceæ. The raphe is dorsal in all of them, with pendulous ovules; also in Nelumbium.

He will go on very slowly; I can’t hurry him. He has not yet taken up Croomia.

You have not told me about Chapman’s queer plant yet!...

Unless Nuttall has arrived, which I do not hear of, it is too late for him till next fall; for his object was to secure three months’ absence out of the present year, and three out of next.[148]

January 24, 1847.

Agassiz has finished his lectures with great eclât—most admirable course—and on Thursday evening last he volunteered an additional one in French, which was fine.

I gave you the explanation you asked for in my last letter, which I still hope you will find. What I then said about the excellent tone of his lectures generally was fully sustained to the last; they have been good lectures on natural theology. The whole spirit was vastly above that of any geological course I ever heard, his refutation of Lamarckian or “Vestiges” views most pointed and repeated. The whole course was planned on a very high ground, and his references to the Creator were so natural and unconstrained as to show that they were never brought in for effect.

The points that I. A. Smith has got hold of were a few words at the close of his lecture on the geographical distribution of animals, in which he applied the views he maintains (which are those of Schouw still further extended) to man.

He thinks that animals and plants were originally created in numbers, occupying considerable area, perhaps almost as large as they now occupy. I should mention that he opposes Lyell and others who maintain that very many of the Tertiary species are the same as those now existing. He believes there is not one such, but that there was an entirely new creation at the commencement of the historic era, which is all we want to harmonize geology with Genesis. Now, as to man he maintains distinctly that they are all one species. But he does not believe that the Negro and Malay races descended from the sons of Noah, but had a distinct origin. This, you will see, is merely an extension of his general view. We should not receive it, rejecting it on other than scientific grounds, of which he does not feel the force as we do.

But so far from bringing this against the Bible, he brings the Bible to sustain his views, thus appealing to its authority instead of endeavoring to overthrow it. He shows from it (conclusively) that all the sons of Noah (Ham with the rest) were the fathers of the extant Caucasian races,—races which have remained nearly unaltered from the first, and that if any negroes proceeded from Ham’s descendants, it must have been by a miracle. That is the upshot of the matter. We may reject his conclusions, but we cannot find fault with his spirit, and I shall be glad to know that Dr. I. A. Smith, in the whole course of his public teaching, has displayed a reverence for the Bible equal to that of Agassiz. I have been on the most intimate terms with him: I never heard him express an opinion or a word adverse to the claims of revealed religion. His admirable lectures on embryology contain the most original and fundamental confutation of materialism I ever heard.

I make the “Manual” keep clear of slavery,—New Jersey, Pennsylvania (if little Delaware manumits perhaps I can find a corner for it), Ohio, Indiana or not as the case may be, leave out Illinois, which has too many Mississippi plants, take in Michigan and Wisconsin, at least Lapham’s[149] plants near the Lakes. That makes a very homogeneous florula.

I have made as usual much less progress than I supposed; so now, pressed at the same time with college duties, I have to work very hard indeed. Carey is coming on to help me.... Sheet full.

July 20, 1847.

Did you not know that an application has come from Wilkes through Pickering[150] to Sprague to make some botanical drawings for the Exploring Expedition, which, as I supposed they were to be for your use, I persuaded Sprague to promise to undertake, at ten dollars for each folio drawing with the dissections full.... The price we fixed is as low as Sprague can do them for, to any advantage, even if he had nothing else to do. The price I fixed for the drawings of “Genera,” and which I thought very large, ($6 per plate) does not thus far pay Sprague day wages, he takes so much time and care with them. I can only hope that the experience and facility he is getting will enable him to knock them off faster hereafter. You see therefore that Sprague cannot afford to make the drawings for Emory at the price he made those for Frémont—two dollars apiece. He will do them better; having now such skill in dissections he will display structure finely, but he must not undertake them under six dollars apiece, since they will cost him as much time as do my octavo “Genera” drawings. He might make what you want along this summer and autumn; I am not crowding him.

September 28, 1847.

I had a pleasant visit to Litchfield of three days, including the Sabbath. On the banks of a lake in the neighborhood I stumbled on a species of Cyperus dentatus, which in the “Flora of the Northern States” you credit to Litchfield, Brace.[151] This Mr. Brace, who is an uncle of J.’s, I met for a moment at New Milford, where he now lives. There are three great aunts, most excellent old ladies, who live in a simple and most delightful manner at Litchfield. The youngest, who has been J.’s guardian almost from infancy, returned with us to Boston for a week or two. Their brother, Mr. Pierce, who died only last year, was, it seems, an old friend of yours, through whom they feel almost acquainted with you. He passed a part of his life in New York, was a mineralogist, and I think I have seen his name as a member of the Lyceum. Pray tell me about him.

I found it not easy to make an arrangement in New York for the publication of the “Illustrated Genera,” by which I could get back directly the money I have expended in it. I think, therefore, I shall go on to defray the expenses of the first volume myself, which I think I shall be able to do, and thus manage to get the immediate proceeds myself. As to the “Manual,” I have unwittingly made it so large, in spite of all my endeavors at compression, that I can make nothing to speak of from the first edition, even if it sells right off.

TO J. L. L.

Monday evening, 9 o’clock, 1847.

When I reached home Henry and Agassiz were here. No one else came (as I expected), and Agassiz insisted on returning in the nine o’clock omnibus. Agassiz and Henry enjoy and admire each other so richly, and talk science so glowingly and admiringly, that I think I should not have been at all surprised to see them exchange kisses before they were done. And Agassiz told him he meant to come to Cambridge, and they began to talk of their children, and Agassiz read extracts from letters just received from his wife and his son, who—to Agassiz’s great pride and satisfaction—had just climbed the Fellenberg in the Breisgau, slept on the summit in the open air to see the sun rise in the morning, then descended and walked, I forget how many miles. Pretty well for a lad of eleven.

It is not a year since I told Henry that he should have either Agassiz or Wyman at Washington, but that we must have one of them at Cambridge. Beyond all expectation we have them both!

Henry gave me—I know not what led to it—a full detailed account of his life from early boyhood, which was full of curious interest and suggested much matter for reflection. In the evening we fell to discoursing on philosophical topics, and Henry threw out great and noble thoughts, and as we both fell to conversing with much animation my headache disappeared entirely. There is no man from whom I learn so much as Henry. He calls out your own powers, too, surprisingly....

I have been addling my brain and straining my eyes over a set of ignoble Pond-weeds (alias Potamogeton) trying to find the