part in sums of $500 each. The $10,000 is obviously secure, for
subscribers of $100 each, yet to be appealed to, may be relied on for a
good part of the lacking sum. But it begins to be clearly seen that
$12,000 are needed for the capital of the fund, and this, at the present
rate, it will take some time to secure.
Your own offer of a small subscription, I can truly say, not only
gratified me in the highest degree, as an expression of an interest in
our affair which I had no reason to expect, but has already been of
use,--has really been as good for us as any contribution you ought to
make. For I took the liberty to read that portion of your letter to
three or four friends, and their interest in the matter was sensibly
quickened and exalted by this evidence of the lively interest in the
matter taken by a country parson, far away in England! So pray consider
that you have already helped us on, and we are truly grateful to you for
your generous proffer. There is, indeed, a strong temptation to accept
your kind offer in the fact that, in the present state of exchanges,
owing to our paper currency not on a specie basis (one of the sad
consequences of our civil war), every pound sterling in England, in
normal times worth only from $4.90 to $5.00, is worth nearly or quite
$8.00, so that a contribution of £5 sterling really now counts here for
about forty dollars!! So you see how hard it is for me to discourage
your kind intentions. But I really feel that the sum which I specified,
as the condition of my own gift to our university, is really quite sure,
though slower in coming than we had hoped.
As to the building for the herbarium, I have only to state it goes on
famously. It is considerably enlarged in plan from what was at first
contemplated, and a favorable early spring has allowed of more progress
than could have been expected at this season.
The generous donor of the building not only adopted at once the larger
plans as soon as suggested, but himself proposed improvements and
additions.
The building, the foundations of which are already laid, in the most
substantial manner, is 32 by 57 feet, and is connected with my private
study in the house I reside in by a neat conservatory 18 feet long,
which takes the place of the simple wooden corridor at first intended.
The whole will cost Mr. Thayer, the donor, by the contracts, more than
$11,000, and is likely, by extras, to reach the round sum of $12,000.
And all will be done before the summer is over, we trust.
See how the expression of your interest to me has led me on, to the
neglect of everything else I want to write about.... I wish to say
something about the troubles in your Old World, which, with all its age
and wisdom, falls into “difficulties” hardly less grave than ours. I
hope poor brave Denmark will not be crushed out of existence. There are
English questions which we regard with much attention, ecclesiastical
and social questions, on which I would fain know what you think. But I
cannot write longer now.
Only as to our war, I beg you to believe that we (the earnest thoughtful
people and most around us, according to their measure) have acted and
are acting from the highest sense of duty,--duty to our beloved country
and to humanity; and we keep the full conviction that great and
permanent good is to result. Much of the good we see already, and more
comes near to realization every day. So we work and trust, and suffer
cheerfully. We only wish our views and motives were better appreciated
in general in the country and by the people whose good opinion we most
value. But even the lack of that appreciation, which is far from
universal, is likely to do us good. I am always sure of your thoughtful
good wishes for us. But I must break off.
Ever yours most sincerely,
ASA GRAY.
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
CAMBRIDGE, May 30, 1864.
MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--I have let your very kind letter of 28th January
lie on my desk a long time, always expecting to write soon, but, having
been extremely busy with various administrative matters and college work
since it reached me, the convenient moment for writing to you has not
arrived till now. I inclose a note to my young friend and late
colleague, Professor Eliot, which I beg you to send to the poste
restante on arrival. I learn from his friends here that he may be
expected to be in Geneva about the time this reaches you.
In my note I ask him to call upon you, as a friend of mine. He will of
course be unwilling to make any demands upon your time or attention.
But I should like him to see you, and perhaps he might through you pay
his respects to the _savans_ in his line, notably to De la Rive. Having
wife, etc., with him, and little time, his visit will be transient.
Eliot is a chemist and physicist, a man of much promise, we think, and a
most gentlemanly man. He is a very trusty friend of mine. He has passed
the autumn and winter in Paris, studying hard, and will soon return
here, bringing the latest news of you. He and his lady companions are
just such people as we should like you to know America by.
I should say to you, moreover, that I gave to another colleague of mine,
Professor Cooke, a note to you. He is a chemist and mineralogist, is
full of research and zeal, a most estimable man.
You know, perhaps, that I have made over (or am to make over) all my
herbarium and library to our university, in consideration of a fireproof
building made to receive them, and a fund, of moderate extent, raised
for the permanent support.... During the summer or early autumn, my
collections will be transferred to this their permanent home, to my
great relief.
It is probable that I shall continue to spend upon these collections all
my available means, and I hope they will be of use in the future, as
well as safe, which they are not in my wooden house. My own donation is
reckoned in money value at about $20,000.
Charles Wright is expected home from Cuba soon, when there will be a new
and interesting distribution of his phænogamous plants.
We trust that our civil war is in its last year, that is, if we are
victorious, as we hope to be. In that case your American stocks will be
all right again. Nearly all the little I possess is cheerfully put into
United States government stocks, where I am well content it should be.
Small countries, which you prefer, would do very well if all were small,
but the few large, like England and France, will domineer unpleasantly
over the smaller. Just look now at poor Denmark, which has the
misfortune to be small, and so is made to suffer! All Scandinavia had
best combine, and build up a strong nation. Natural selection is hard
upon the weak! However it may be in Europe, you must excuse us for
endeavoring to prevent, while we may, even at great cost, the
establishment of a European system on this side of the Atlantic; so we
must not fail to put down the Confederacy. We shall, after that, in a
quiet way, make the French emperor very uncomfortable in Mexico; but we
hope that country may yet be a strong power, but not a French power.
Enough of politics! And believe me to be, with affectionate regard,
Ever yours,
ASA GRAY.
CAMBRIDGE, January 30, 1865.
MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE: ... This very day, I have received your envoi by
post of the neat little article on leaves of Fagus, which I had seen in
English dress, and the copy of Heer’s address. Many thanks to you. I
have received also, and thank you much for it, the “Prodromus,” XIV., I.
I have this evening read over Heer’s address. It is, as you say,
capital. It interests me in its proof of the antiquity of the present
flora; and I admit that he very neatly puts the case between his view of
the production of our species out of the older ones, and that of Darwin.
Here it still rests: Darwin has the great advantage of
[Illustration: DR. ASA GRAY IN HIS STUDY]
being able to assign a vera causa. Heer has the disadvantage of having
no known cause to assign; but he shows that things do not appear to have
proceeded as Darwin’s theory requires. It does seem as if there were
times of peculiar change as well as of great stability. But were this
time of change and that of stability simultaneous for the species of a
flora? And does Heer allow enough for the species which now occur under
many forms,--show great polymorphism. I continually meet with these in
the North American flora; in which the dying out of some forms, and
their replacing by others, which may well take place in time, would, in
effect, just give a change like that to be accounted for. But I cannot
say that these varieties come in insensibly, very likely not.
Now, to speak of myself. My summer was much frittered away; the
superintending of the new building for my herbarium just preventing any
serious study. The autumn was devoted to the removal and rearrangement
of plants and books, and to assisting Charles Wright in the collation
and distribution into sets of his collections in Cuba for the last three
years past; very full and interesting collections, and requiring much
care and labor, on account of this distribution being a continuation of
former distributions. I laid out into the sets every specimen with my
own hands, Mr. Wright adding the tickets and numbers. It was an immense
labor, and was finished only at the close of the last day of the
year....
I mean to prepare for “Silliman’s Journal” a brief and simple notice of
the edifice for my herbarium, so I will not speak further of it here;
further than to say that I am well satisfied, only I sadly need a
curator!
And now, I turn to your letter of September 29, and ask your pardon for
having so long neglected it. Your letters, your reflections upon social
and political, as well as upon scientific questions, are always very
interesting and instructive to me. I regret that I can render so little
return in kind....
As to our national troubles, the prospect brightens that we shall end
the rebellion and slavery before long. God grant it.
Believe me to be, as ever, my dear De Candolle, very faithfully yours,
A. GRAY.
TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.
February 14, 1865.
... Wright is here, distributing and finishing up his North Pacific
Expedition Collection; ... will return to Cuba in a month or two, to
take a year or two more there, revisit some old parts and explore some
new; then I urge Hayti, but Wright seems rather loth.
Rothrock--from northwestern Pennsylvania--is a bright lively pupil of
mine for last three or four years, when not serving his country in the
army, where he has done good service as private in infantry, and as
captain in Pennsylvania cavalry, etc. He had to leave his thesis partly
unfinished. But the real credit of all belongs to him. His father is M.
D., and he is now studying medicine, attending lectures at Philadelphia.
But botany is in him, and will probably come out....
There, I believe this is about all. J. A. Lowell has made a nice present
of costly botanical books, of which more anon.
[March 18.]
... Rothrock is going with Kinnicut this week, to Northwestern America,
Norton’s Sound, etc., to explore on telegraph route close along the
Arctic Circle. Any pines there you want?...
March 29.
... No, Mrs. Gray did not go to inauguration ball. But she has had a
good time. Her brother, the general, took her from Fortress Monroe,
where she went, up to the front and close to rebel lines; where she had
the honor of having a rebel shell thrown at her!
I expect her home again to-morrow.
No, I don’t get a curator, and I want one sadly. Yet it is as well
Fendler did not come, as it might have been difficult for me to pay him.
He, however, is just the man I want here, to take charge of herbarium
and garden....
TO W. J. HOOKER.
CAMBRIDGE, April 24, 1865.
Mr. Wright is about to return to Cuba, to have one year more of
exploration there, and especially to visit Turquino, the highest
mountain of the island, and some other parts which are still promising.
He will now be able--as he is always most ready--to attend to the
gathering of seeds of palms, or other seeds, or things you may want at
Kew. He has now some good and kind friends in the country, and deserves
them, for he is one of the most hearty, single-minded, and disinterested
persons I ever knew, as well as an admirable collector; but being rather
rough in exterior, he does not like to come into contact with official
people, unless properly accredited. But if armed with official
instructions to British consuls, etc., and so having the means of very
promptly turning over, without bother or uncertainty, whatever he may
collect for you, I have no doubt you may turn him to excellent account.
Perhaps, however, he will not long remain in Cuba; for there is a
prospect of getting him attached (nominally, without any emolument) to
the United States consulate-general at Hayti, so that he may explore the
botany of that island, as he has done that of Cuba. But I doubt if he
will keep in the field many years more, or do such hard work as he has
done in former years. I wish him to explore Hayti, however, and then
associate himself with Grisebach in the production of a Flora Antillana,
or at least a Flora Cubensis, if Grisebach inclines to work longer at
West Indian botany, after having finished the critical enumeration of
Cuban plants (founded mainly on Wright’s collections) which he is now
occupied with....
It seems like old times to be writing to you. We have the less occasion
for direct correspondence of late years, owing to my having such a
capital correspondent, as well as a capital friend, in Joseph. I know
not how I could get on without him. I look with great satisfaction upon
his splendid scientific career, and feel that you must take great pride
in it. I rejoice to hear that you are so well and hearty, and at work
with vigor, comfort, and success upon the “Synopsis Filicum.”
Dr. Brewer[59] sends his regards. He goes this week to New Haven (Yale
College), to attend to the opening of his work as professor of
agriculture. I was running over his collections, naming and
characterizing the new things, and laying out a set for you of all you
could wish. But since spring opened, my college work has been so
pressing that all else has been interrupted, perhaps will be in abeyance
till near midsummer.
I must not fail to tell you that our good friend Dr. Torrey sailed
yesterday for California! via the Isthmus, to return three or four
months hence, perhaps overland.
He is a much trusted officer of government, as assayer of the United
States assay office at New York, and the secretary of the treasury,
knowing that he needs some respite and change, has arranged this trip
for him, upon business of the department, by no means of an onerous
character.
He has long wished to set eyes upon California, and I am glad he has
such a pleasant opportunity of doing so.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
May 1, 1865.
I have long wished to communicate with you, but it is long since I have
written any but pressing letters; a large and ever-increasing scientific
correspondence and various business matters absorbing all my leisure and
powers, as the times and events also absorb our thoughts. You can
imagine how deeply we have felt, rejoiced, and suffered during the last
month or so.
Well, “treason has done its worst,” and rebellion, as an organized
power, is essentially brought to an end. Slavery is done away, and we
have now the task of establishing a new and better order of things at
the South, of replacing barbarous by civilized and free institutions. A
heavy task, no doubt; but the good Providence that has so wonderfully
shaped our ways and sustained us thus far, we humbly and confidently
rely on to carry our dear country through all its trials.
I doubt if you will have in England a full conception of the profound
impression which this last atrocious crime has made,[60] filling the
whole land with the deepest and tenderest grief, like that of a personal
bereavement; inexpressibly shocking, but never for a moment bewildering
the country nor deranging the action of the government. The manner in
which both our victories and sorrows have affected the country is most
hopeful, and promises the best results. There is much yet to do and to
suffer, and there is need of wisdom, patience, and sacrifice in the
renovation of our country, and the establishment of free institutions
throughout the South, involving as it does the complete reconstruction
of society there. But under God’s blessing, we expect full success in
due time.
As to myself, I can say little now. I am quite overworked at this
season, but I hope that hereafter a rearrangement of my work in the
university may bring some relief.
I am beginning to enjoy the advantage and comfort of the establishment
of my herbarium, and the building quite meets my expectations. The
collections are fast increasing; faster than I can take care of them,
through the bounty of my scientific correspondents; while Mr. Lowell’s
donation of botanical books is of the value of about £300.
November 16, 1865.
Now do not be startled at a letter from me written the very evening of
the day in which arrived your pleasant favor of the 1st inst. For to-day
I also received the inclosed official letter, which has been lying, I
suppose, for want of your address. And so I send it forward at once.
In fact, the fund raised for the support of the herbarium (nearly
$11,000) has been till very lately retained in the hands of the
gentleman who took charge of raising it, in the form of a good
investment, and is now at length made over to the corporation of the
university in trust. Your £5 I turned in at the time when exchange was
at the highest (i. e., our currency most depreciated), so it figures as
fifty dollars,--quite a sum,--and for it, as for the rest of the
capital, we get, up to 1881, six per cent per annum in gold, if the
United States government lasts. And we now feel confident enough of
that.
Your letters are always very pleasant to us, and that of to-day is very
gratifying.
Yes, we, too, should not have said this was the way in which we would
have had slavery destroyed,--by no means. We wished it by a slow process
which would have cost no life, injured no property, but benefited all as
it went on. But our misguided Southern brethren would have it otherwise,
and so it was. And it is something to be glad of, after all, that it was
done in our day, and we think thoroughly. I take a weekly newspaper, the
“Nation,” which is on the plan of the “Spectator” and the “Saturday
Review,” etc., but we have few good paragraph-writers, and our best
writers will not write. But this paper may interest you, at least in the
letters of its correspondent traveling in the South. I post some
numbers to your address, and I will send some more if you care to see
them. Otherwise the numbers are thrown aside, for I do not keep them.
Even here we have the same sort of liking for Palmerston which the mass
of English have, and no better reason to give for it; and we look with a
sort of fascinated interest upon Gladstone, and expect to see him
premier before long, in a year or two, and we wonder how he will get on
in so critical a position as he will be in. Goldwin Smith I met, but saw
not very much of. He was in very delicate health. Fraser I did not see,
though he was my father-in-law’s guest, and was very much liked by all.
Both had troops of friends. Mrs. Gray and I were in the country when
Fraser was at Mr. Loring’s house on the shore.
The short space left on my sheet must be all devoted to an earnest
exhortation for you to follow your two friends’ example. Come over and
see us, and make our quiet house your home, from which you can travel as
much as you like and see the country in this interesting phase. Pray
think of it seriously. The expense need not be great.
Mrs. Gray, with kindest remembrances, seconds my request, and wishes it
extended to Mrs. Church.
Cordially yours,
ASA GRAY.
TO CHARLES DARWIN.
May 15, 1865.
Your kind letter of the 19th ult. crossed a brief note from me. I am too
much distracted with work at this season to write letters on our
affairs, and if I once begin, I should not know where to stop. You have
always been sympathizing and just, and I appreciate your hearty
congratulations on the success of our just endeavors. You have since had
much more to rejoice over, as well as to sorrow with us. But the noble
manner in which our country has borne itself should give you real
satisfaction. We appreciate, too, the good feeling of England in its
hearty grief at the murder of Lincoln.
Don’t talk about our “hating” you, nor suppose that we want to rob you
of Canada, for which nobody cares.
We think we have been ill-used by you, when you thought us weak and
broken, and when we expected better things. We have learned that we must
be strong to live in peace and comfort with England, otherwise we should
have to eat much dirt. But now that we are on our feet again, all will
go well, and hatred will disappear. Indeed I see little of that.
I must look to the Plantago dimorphism, for, as you say, these plants,
fertilized by the wind, would gain nothing by being dimorphic. No
dimorphic species grows very near here, nor can I now get seeds of P.
Virginica. Perhaps a good look at even dried specimens, under your
hints, may settle the matter.
I was exceedingly interested with the Lythrum paper (but had no time to
write a notice of it), and I wait expectingly for your Climbing plants.
You are the very prince of investigators. We hope presently to make Mrs.
Wedgewood’s acquaintance.
July 24.
I am reading in snatches your admirable paper on Climbing plants,--as
yet only eighty-eight pages of it, and am watching with great interest
all the climbers I have at hand. What a nice piece of work you have made
of it!
I see you explain and illustrate at length the double turn of a caught
tendril. Is it not enough to say that, with both ends fixed, if it
shortens, say by the contraction of one side, it must by mechanical
necessity turn its coil different ways from a neutral point?
Ere this, Mrs. Wedgewood should be back from Canada, but I have not yet
learned that she is so. She was to let me know, and we would have a day
on the shore, where Mr. Loring lives in summer,--a pretty bit of
country. But it is now too late.
I wish she could have been here on Friday, when we welcomed back our
Harvard men who had been in the war,--over five hundred of them,--and
remembered those who had died for their country. What a day we had!
Jefferson Davis richly deserves to be hanged. We are willing to leave
the case in the hands of the government, who must take the
responsibility. If I were responsible, I would have him tried for
treason (the worst of crimes in a republic), convicted, sentenced to
death; and then I think I should commute the penalty, not out of any
consideration for him, but from policy, and for his more complete
humiliation. The only letters I have received expressing a desire to
hang him are from rebeldom itself,--from Alabama. You see slavery is
dead, dead,--an absolute unanimity as to this. The revolted States will
behave as badly as they can, but they are so thoroughly whipped that
they can’t stir, hand or foot, and we are disbanding all our armies,--a
corporal’s guard is enough to hold South Carolina. Seriously, there are
difficult questions before us, but only one result is possible: the
South must be renovated, and Yankeefied.
Well, take good care of yourself, and let me know that you are again in
comfortable condition.
November 6.
I am very glad to hear from you, and to see half your letter of October
19 in your own handwriting is a good sign. I do hope you may get a
comfortable winter, and bring out your next volume without breaking
down.
I am pleased that you approve my abstract of your Climber paper, but
observe it was only of the first part of your elaborate article. But as
to the praise you speak of, I am sure you pay me back with interest.
I lately sent “Silliman” as much more--a large part, indeed, extracts,
which I could not shorten--on the Tendril-bearing part of your paper.
But Dana sent me the proof, with all my long extracts omitted for want
of room. This reduced my article to incoherence, so I begged all to be
laid over for the January number, when I hope to have room. I
entertained our social scientific club here with your article, and all
were greatly interested.
As to climbing roses, they are the strong summer shoots, growing after
flowering, which I find frequently running their heads into dark corners
of the porch over my door, etc.
That is very curious, but quite what I looked for, that dimorphous
species self-fertilized should act like hybrids (sterile or dwarf,
etc.).
You must publish these facts in some brief article.
“Stephens” (Stevens) was a New Yorker; is dead, years ago; wrote most
amusing and popular travels; in Egypt, as well. Central America was his
first and freshest book, but only amusing, as far as I recollect.
So Palmerston is gone. A fine specimen of a John Bull he was, a very
typical specimen. We Yankees can’t help admiring and liking him, though
not for any good he ever did us. But as for his successor, he is a prig,
a juiceless stick.
Don’t you think Adams pays him back nicely for proposing that they
should sit down and rejoice together over the abolition of slavery? Just
see how the world has moved. Turn back to Russell’s _lecture_ to be read
to Mr. Lincoln on occasion of his proclamation of emancipation!
Good-by, my dear, good fellow, and recover health as fast as ever you
can.
Yours affectionately,
A. GRAY.
TO CHARLES WRIGHT.
CAMBRIDGE, June 28, 1865.
I am not going on so any more. A letter from me you shall have. To be
sure I have had none from you since you sailed, but that is no matter.
College and garden and herbarium work together are enough to drive one
mad; but now the college work begins to hold up, and will soon be over.
And as to herbarium, Fendler has at length promised to come at the end
of the summer and help me--all winter at least, perhaps longer....
Oh, yes! I have yours of “Habana,” May 9th, with your shipboard studies
on the variations of Chapman and Grisebach. Well, sometimes one wrong,
sometimes the other; sometimes a difference as to who the author of a