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Syriac Christianity in the Middle
East and India
 Pro Oriente Studies in the Syriac Tradition

Series Editor

Dietmar W. Winkler

Pro Oriente (Austria), founded in 1964 by the late Cardinal Franz

König, focuses on the relationships between the Roman Catholic
Church and the Eastern Christian Churches, and helps the various
churches of the Syriac tradition to preserve their unique heritage
which is of importance for the whole of Christianity.
Syriac Christianity in the Middle
East and India

Contributions and Challenges

Edited by
Dietmar W. Winkler

9
34 2013
Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
www.gorgiaspress.com
Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the
prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.

2013 ‫ܝܐ‬

9
ISBN 978-1-4632-0247-7
With kind support of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts
and Culture.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Syriac christianity in the Middle East and India

: contributions and challenges / edited by
Dietmar Winkler.
pages cm. -- (Pro oriente studies in
the Syriac tradition ; 2)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4632-0247-7
1. Syrian churches--Middle East. 2. Syrian
churches--India. 3. Syrian churches--United
States. 4. Syriac Christians--Middle East. 5.
Syriac Christians--India. 6. Syriac
Christians--United States. I. Winkler, Dietmar
W.
BX101.S975 2013
281’.63--dc23

2013045202
Printed in the United States of America
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preambles............................................................................................... vii
Cardinal Walter Kasper ............................................................... viii
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn .................................................... ix
Pro Oriente President Johann Marte............................................ x
Syriac Churches: Contributions and Challenges — Editor’s
Note ......................................................................................... xi
Dietmar W. Winkler
Part I: The Cultural, Social and Educational Contributions
of Syriac Christianity.................................................................... 1
Cultural, social and educational contributions of Syriac
Christianity in South India ............................................................. 3
Baby Varghese
Christianity in Iraq and its contribution to society............................ 23
Herman Teule
Part II: The Challenges of Syriac Christianity: Religious
Freedom and Pluralism ............................................................ 43
Religious freedom, education, pluralism and the personal status
of Syriac Christianity in India ...................................................... 45
Philip Nelpuraparambil
Religious freedom, education, pluralism and personal status of
Syriac Christianity in Syria and Turkey....................................... 63
Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim
The contribution of Syriac Christians to Islamo-Christian co-
existence in Lebanon .................................................................... 73
Mar Paul Matar

v
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part III: The Emigration of Syriac Christians ............................ 87

The emigration of Syriac Christians moving from India: motives
and impact ...................................................................................... 89
Mar Kuriakose Theophilose
Christianity in the Middle East: some historical remarks and
preliminary demographic figures...............................................107
Dietmar W. Winkler
The emigration of Syriac Christians from the Middle East:
motives and impact .....................................................................127
Martin Tamcke
Part IV: Perspectives after Pope Benedict’s visit to the
Holy Land ...................................................................................141
Pope Benedict XVI in the Holy Land in 2009: a Pastor and a
Man of Peace, of Unity and of Dialogue .................................143
Frans Bouwen
Part V: Appendices............................................................................151
Third meeting of the Pro Oriente Forum Syriacum .......................153
Second Pro Oriente Colloquium Syriacum Final Report .................157
Second Pro Oriente Colloquium Syriacum — Invited
Participants ...................................................................................167

vi
 CARDINAL WALTER KASPER

It gives me pleasure to extend a cordial greeting to the publication

of the second PRO ORIENTE Colloquium Syriacum, held in Vienna
from 4th to 6th November 2009.
The present book reflects on the important theme of Syriac
Christianity in the Middle East and India Today and in particular on the
way in which Christians have had an important influence on the
cultural, social and educational development in this geographical
context. It also concentrates on the challenges. Recent develop-
ments in the Middle East highlight the urgency of religious free-
dom and pluralism. Pope Benedict XVI visited the Holy Land to
promote peace, and PRO ORIENTE rightly looks also at the out-
comes of this visit in terms of the perspectives for peace, dialogue
and security. Finally, it is very important to focus also on the im-
mense problem of emigration, which has seen the dramatic reduc-
tion in the number of Christians all over the Middle East. We must
reflect together on the motives and the impact of emigration for
the future of Christianity in the Middle East. It is my deep hope
that study on this issue may also touch on the ecumenical dimen-
sion of this problem, and may contribute to a deepening of the
ecumenical dialogue.
I thank the PRO ORIENTE Foundation for its steadfast and
generous effort to bring together eminent representatives of all the
Churches of the Syriac tradition. These meetings have considerably
contributed and continue to contribute to the promotion of Chris-
tian unity in a region for which all Christians should feel greater
interest and affection.

Cardinal Walter Kasper

President emeritus
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Vatican

viii
 CARDINAL CHRISTOPH SCHÖNBORN

PRO ORIENTE, this venerable institution, founded the bonds of

fraternity and friendship with the Christians in the East. For us, it is
a privilege to serve unity among Christians, because it is a friend-
ship in Jesus, which he granted among his followers. Those who
are friends want to know each other better.
The foundation of PRO ORIENTE is to the merit of Cardinal
Franz König (1905–2004) in a time when the Iron Curtain separat-
ed Christianity in a divided world. The concept for this institution
came to Cardinal König in 1960, when he had a terrible car acci-
dent on the way to the burial of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in
Varazdin in the former Yugoslavia. The Cardinal found himself in
the hospital with severe injuries. In his clinical room, there was on-
ly a picture of Josip Broz Tito, no Christian presence, no cross. He
resolved to do something to overcome the Iron Curtain and the
Wall, beginning his work with contacts behind the Iron Curtain and
with Eastern and Oriental Christians. When the Second Vatican
Council inspired Christian unity, he felt that Vienna had a vocation
to strengthen the bonds with Eastern Christians.
PRO ORIENTE came into existence in 1964 and has done a
great work. Of course, official dialogues take place between Rome
and the sister Churches, but sometimes it is easier to meet aside
from Rome, in a neutral place. Vienna is qualified and called for
this. We feel sympathy and great proximity to all Churches of East-
ern tradition, especially those who are in difficulties, which are al-
most all Churches in the Middle East. May the Holy Spirit guide us
on the way toward unity!

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

Archbishop of Vienna
President of the board of trustees of PRO ORIENTE

ix
 PRO ORIENTE PRESIDENT JOHANN MARTE

In the mid-90s, PRO ORIENTE decided to invite all churches of

Syriac tradition to Vienna. Until then they were more or less isolat-
ed from one another in the middle of the “ocean of Islam” (Ca-
tholicos Aram I.). In the course of our Syriac Dialogue, the partici-
pants were delighted to discover that they had not lost the com-
mon roots of their spiritual-cultural heritage over the centuries.
At that time, PRO ORIENTE made arrangements for an ecu-
menical “Syriac Commission”. It dealt with the life, faith and rites
of all Syriac Churches, which have been culpably neglected in the
West. In 2006 we expanded the Commission to a “Forum Syri-
acum”. Issues like the encounter between these churches and Islam
— which resulted in the first volume of the present series — as
well as the challenges of emigration and diaspora are on the agenda
of the regular academic PRO ORIENTE colloquia.
The Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan Mar Gregorios Youhanna
Ibrahim from Aleppo has been one of the main promoters of our
dialogue. His kidnapping on the 22 nd April 2013 together with the
Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yazigi came as a real shock.
His church has already been tremendously affected by the civil war
in Syria. Our highly valued friend has been a courageous bridge-
builder. He is essential for our work and a real spiritual leader.
I would like to thank all those who have contributed in the
last decades to the mutual exchange — the contribution to a better
understanding and the friendship between the Churches — espe-
cially Univ. Prof. Dietmar W. Winkler, who has been the driving
force behind PRO ORIENTE for many years now.

Johann Marte
President
PRO ORIENTE Foundation

x
 SYRIAC CHURCHES: CONTRIBUTIONS AND
CHALLENGES — EDITOR’S NOTE

DIETMAR W. WINKLER
SALZBURG / AUSTRIA

PRO ORIENTE’s work with Christianity of the Middle East and

India goes back to the days of the II Vatican Council (1962–65).
Two weeks before the third session of the Second Vatican Council
came to an end with the passage of the Decree on Ecumenism
(Unitatis Redintegratio) in 1964, the then Archbishop of Vienna, Car-
dinal Franz König (1905–2004), following the advice of some Aus-
trian intellectuals, decided to found PRO ORIENTE. The Founda-
tion — an institution of the Catholic Archdioceses of Vienna and
not an official tool of the Roman Catholic Church or the Vatican
— intends to contribute to ecumenical dialogues on an unofficial
level. This approach laid the ground for the official dialogue with
the Byzantine Orthodox Church and contributed substantially to
official agreements with the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The idea
has been that PRO ORIENTE’s work, because it is “unofficial”,
makes it possible for Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox theologians
to confer frankly with their Roman Catholic colleagues. Hence im-
portant historical and theological research on the common heritage
of the Churches of East and West has taken place — as well as
personal encounters — in order to support official relations.
Since the 1990s PRO ORIENTE has worked together with the
Churches of Syriac tradition. From 1994 to 2005 six non-official
consultations focusing on Christological questions and sacramental
theology were held. In 2007 a new series of Colloquia Syriaca start-
ed with topics of common concerns. The results of the first collo-
quium on “Syriac Churches encountering Islam” in Salzburg, Aus-
xi
 EDITOR’S NOTE

tria are published as Volume 1 in this series (Pro Oriente Studies in

Syriac Tradition, Gorgias Press).1
Upon its meeting in July 2008 in Aleppo (Syria), at the invita-
tion of the Syrian orthodox Metropolitan Mor Gregorios Y. Ibra-
him, the PRO ORIENTE Forum Syriacum, which is the steering com-
mittee of these scholarly ecumenical conferences, decided to organ-
ize the Second Colloquium Syriacum on “Syriac Christianity in the
Middle East and India today: Contributions and Challenges”.2 By
elaborating the contribution of Christianity to the Societies in the
Middle East and in India, the Forum Syriacum planned to strengthen
the presence, the service, and the witness of Syriac Christians in the
Middle East, India and around the world. The present second vol-
ume of the “PRO ORIENTE Studies in Syriac Tradition” reflects the
contributions as well as the intense and dynamic discussions of the
Second PRO ORIENTE Colloquium Syriacum.
In its first part the volume acknowledges the contributions of
Syriac Christians in the fields of culture, education and civil society
throughout the history in the Middle East and India. This is done
by the articles of Baby Varghese for India and Herman Teule for
Iraq.
In its second part the volume focuses on the challenges of living
and professing the Christian faith as a minority in a multi-religious
and pluralistic society and gives special attention to religious free-
dom and personal status. It deals with the experience of Christian-
Muslim co-existence in the context of the present states of the
Middle East, and with the experience of Christian-Hindu co-
existence in India. This is subject of the papers written by Philip
Nelpuraparambil, Mor Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, and Mar Paul
Matar.
In its last part, with articles by Mar Kuriakose Theophilose,
Dietmar W. Winkler, and Martin Tamcke, the book elaborates the
vital problem of continuous emigration of Christians from India and

1 Cf. Dietmar W. Winkler (ed.), Syriac Churches Encountering Islam: Past

Experiences and Future Perspectives. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2010.

2 Cf. the Appendix of the present volume with the Communiqué of

the Aleppo Meeting in 2008.

xii
 DIETMAR W. WINKLER

the Middle East, which is particularly for the latter a serious prob-
lem and challenge.
To support Christianity in the Middle East and the dialogue of
the Churches among themselves and with Judaism and Islam, Pope
Benedict XVI visited the Holy Land in 2009. Frans Bowen gives a
profound analysis of the visit and the perspectives after the Pope’s
visit in the last part of the book.
For their preambles I would like to express my gratitude to
Eminences Cardinal Walter Kasper and Cardinal Christoph
Schönborn as well as to PRO ORIENTE President Johann Marte.
Thanks to the vigorous management support by Marion Wittine
the Colloquium worked like a charm.

Dietmar W. Winkler
Research Director of the Pro Oriente Studies in Syriac Tradition
Salzburg/Austria, October 2013

xiii
PART I: THE CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND
EDUCATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF
SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY

1
 CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
CONTRIBUTIONS OF SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY IN
SOUTH INDIA

BABY VARGHESE
KOTTAYAM / INDIA

The South India State of Kerala owes much to the Syrian Chris-
tians, both Catholics and Orthodox, for its social, cultural, educa-
tional and economic development, in its modern history. Their
contributions during the pre-Portuguese period are not known.
Many have attempted to reconstruct the history of this period on
the basis of documents of later origin and assumptions. I shall limit
this study to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for which we
have better documentary evidence.

THE BEGINNING OF MODERN EDUCATION

In August 1809, a meeting of the representatives of the Syrian par-
ishes (non-Catholics) was held in Kandanadu (near Cochin), and
the representatives resolved to start two schools — one in the
North and one in the South — to instruct the children and the
deacons in the doctrines of the Church. Pulikottil Joseph Ramban
(later Joseph Mar Dionysius) was behind this resolution. Mean-
while, in 1810, Colonel John Munro was appointed as the British
Resident in Travancore and Cochin. Munro offered full support to
the project and thanks to his influence, land and necessary funds

3
 SYRIAC CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH INDIA

were provided by the Queen of Travancore.1 In 1815, modern edu-

cation was started at the Seminary founded by Joseph Mar Diony-
sius. After his demise in November 1816, Anglican missionaries
assumed the direction of the Seminary (or “Syrian College” as it
was called in Anglican sources). In 1817, teaching of the English
language was started (for the first time in South India), and soon a
Jewish man from Cochin was invited to teach Hebrew and a Hindu
(Nair) to teach the Malayalam language. More than half of the stu-
dents were Deacons and Seminarians of the Malankara Orthodox
Church. A printing press and a medical dispensary were also
opened at the Seminary. Under Joseph Mar Dionysius, the Syriac
Bible was translated into Malayalam by several native priests of the
Malankara Orthodox Church. This marks the beginning of modern
history of the Malayalam language and printing in Kerala. The Eng-
lish missionaries were not satisfied with this translation, and want-
ed to have the full credit of introducing the Bible in Malayalam.
The entire New Testament in Malayalam was published in 1829
and the whole Bible in 1841.2
Catholic missionaries had already started “seminaries” for the
training of the clergy as early as the sixteenth century, and the Jesu-
its founded Seminaries in Kodungalloor and Vaipin (Cochin). But
the ‘Syrian College in Kottayam’ was for the training of all, irre-
spective of caste and religion. Thus for the first time in Kerala, ed-
ucation was opened to all — including the poor and the lower
caste. The English missionaries took the initiative to start elemen-
tary schools in parishes. Those who successfully completed these
schools were sent to Grammar Schools and then to the Syrian Col-
lege in Kottayam. In 1821, there were approximately 35 elementary
schools in Kerala (Kottayam, Aleppey, Cochin, Mavelikara and
Trichur). The first Grammar School was founded in 1821 in
Kottayam with ten students and by 1826 their number had in-
creased to seventy.

1 Cf. Baby Varghese, “The C.M.S. Missionaries and the Malankara

Church (1815–1840)”, in: The Harp 20 (2006) 399–446.

2 Cf. Baby Varghese, “Syriac Bible in India”, in: The Harp 14 (2001)

63–80.

4
 BABY VARGHESE

Another significant contribution of the English missionaries

was the establishment of schools for the training of girls. In the
1820s, Miss Baker, an English lady, started High Schools for girls in
Kottayam and Aleppey. The education was absolutely free. In the
boarding houses attached to the schools, food, books and clothes
were provided free of cost. The education was open to Christians
as well as to Hindus. Following the example of the missionaries,
the Government of Travancore also established schools, where
admission was limited to boys and girls from the higher castes.
The Catholics were rather late to enter the field of education.
Following the example of the English missionaries, the Catholics
entered the scene. In 1865, Fr. Kuriakose Chavara, the founder of
the Carmelite Order (C.M.I.) and the Vicar General of the Syro-
Malabar Church, sent a circular to all the parishes directing that
schools be established in every parish, even warning of censure
should his instruction be disregarded. Henceforward, the Syro-
Malabar Church regarded education mission as a religious duty.
In 1836, the English missionaries and the Malankara Church
put an end to their cooperation in the field of education. The mis-
sionaries left the Syrian College (the present Orthodox Theological
Seminary) and started the C.M.S. College in Kottayam. In its 170
years of existence, C.M.S. College has trained several thousands of
students from various caste and religions, who have served Indian
society in various fields. The most noted among them is the late
Mr. K. R. Narayan, the former president of India.

CHRISTIANS AND THE MALAYALAM LANGUAGE AND

LITERATURE
The contributions of Christians to the language and literature of
Kerala before the nineteenth century is not very significant. Until
the thirteenth century, Malabar was under the influence of Old
Tamil (Chenthamil). From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries,
Sanskrit dominated the native literature. However, we have a few
Christian songs belonging to this period, which were handed down
orally and were written down in the nineteenth century. But mod-
ern Malayalam prose developed under Christian influence in the
nineteenth century. In fact it was the European missionaries who
used for the first time, the language of the ordinary people as a lit-

5
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nights, well filled with sights of Old World things hardly touched by the
later ages; and there is the grandest of cathedrals; and yet the interior of that
of Seville is rather more satisfying. These three, Burgos, Toledo, Seville, I
should place in this ascending order, or bracketing the latter two.
A journey overnight brought us at sunrise into Andalusia, at Cordova,
which we passed (to take on the way from Granada), and so to Seville for
breakfast, three happy, sunny, busy days there, and then to Malaga, two
days, and then on to this place, which we reached after dark, and are now
enjoying our second day in.
There are two hotels up here, under the Alhambra walls, and we are at
one of them. Yesterday the road which rises to the crown of the hill was
crowded with people of the town below, going up to the cemetery with
flowers and lamps and candles and drapery, to ornament the tombs and
graves of relatives, which here is done on All Saints’ Day, and we saw the
curious sight by day and walked up again in the evening, when all was
alight, and in a chapel a sort of requiem service performing. We will not
describe the Alhambra. I fancied I should think the work finical; but you are
carried away by it. But of most interest was our visit to the Cathedral of
Granada this morning and to the Capilla Real, to see all the relics and
contemporary memorials of Ferdinand and Isabella, their effigies, sword,
sceptre, etc., their noble tombs, more rich and beautiful, I think, than those
of the Constable and his wife at Burgos, and then to descend into the vault
and see their rude iron coffins, which have not been desecrated nor
molested, and also those of Philip I. and his poor wife Joanna. (Let us tell
you, some day, of a modern Spanish picture, at Madrid, of her and her
husband’s coffin, which she wearily had carried with her.) All this, and what
we see here on the spot of the Moorish life, and what we saw at the
cathedral, gives a vivid reality that nothing else can.
And here my sheet is full and my gossip must be cut short, with short
space to add the kindest remembrances and love which my wife joins in
sending to you and yours and daughters.

TO J. D. HOOKER.
 Hôtel St. Romain, Paris,November 14, 1880.
Here we are back at Paris (since twenty hours), and, this being Sunday,
having discharged my religious duty and ventilated my patriotism by going
in the morning to the American Chapel I am going to discharge upon you a
missive which may be of some size,—is sure to be so if I open all my mind.
Whence did I write you last? Malaga, I fancy, where I received a letter from
you ... which tells us of the conflagration of Charlie’s dog and cat, and the
narrow escape of the owner, of horrid weather, while we have had only one
rainy day, and that no great impediment (though I did have to examine the
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A good day was occupied in going to Cordova, and the next morning did
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Afternoon began the long journey which there was no escaping, northeast to
Valencia: a dull place made duller by rain. Next afternoon to Tarragona, and
a most charming day in that interesting old town and its environs, the
evening taking us on to Barcelona, of less interest. The next day’s travel,
long and delightful, was all by daylight, except the last hour. It took us
along either beautiful or picturesque country, much of the way with the
Mediterranean on one side and the Pyrenees on the other, out of Spain and
as far as Narbonne. A day’s excursion was given to Carcassonne; perfect,
and stranded on the shore of time, an excellent example of a Middle Age
fortified city, cathedral and all; Visigoth walls and towers on Roman
foundations, extended and modernized by the father of St. Louis, and the
finishing touches by St. Louis himself.
Here endeth the epistle. The rest is simply getting back to Paris. I had
counted on returning by way of Nîmes, Clermont-Ferrand, and a little
détour to see the cathedral of Bourges. But the winds from the mountains
made Narbonne and Carcassonne cold, the few trains from Nîmes were
unseasonable, my wife declared she had so many cathedrals mixed up in her
head that she could not endure another, and so, leaving Narbonne in early
morning, we reached Cette ten minutes after the express train for Paris had
left, and we came on in omnibus train in unbroken journey, through
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and via Lyons to Paris. And here we are.
Two months of play, delicious play, are up: we landed two months ago
to-morrow. We have had our share, and I have now an appetite for work. I
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Much depends on what you can see your way to. The traditional “three
courses” seem to be before us, each with its advantages and disadvantages;
and we are so balanced that we shall be likely to incline as you push the
scale....
Course 3. Bear the English winter, if we can’t avoid it, on the principle
that “what can’t be cured must be endured.” And with your good fires and
snugness it is not so bad. Secure our lodgings, and we will come over to
you about the first of the coming month; and I get a solid piece of work
done.
If I can utilize the long evenings nothing can be better. Then in March or
early April, when England is apt to be raw and rough, but Italy is smiling,
we will rush to meet the spring, and return to England when that, too, is
delightful and its days long and sunny. Note also, that even an Italian winter
may be chilly and damp, and when it is so, there is no seeing galleries and
churches without teeth-chattering and cold-taking, and it is not easy to get
warm lodgings and decent fires. This course 3 would suit me best of all; for
then we, lingering longer than you might be able to take time for, should
return to England via Vienna and Berlin, which Mrs. Gray has never seen,
and in the latter I have Willdenow’s herbarium to potter over.
Now, my dear old friend, perpend my words (if you can read them; I
write on an awkward bit of table), and then have your say.
Hôtel St. Romain, November 21, 1880.
The correspondence of late has naturally been conducted by our
respective better halves. I have at length (after giving Cosson two or three
days to name up his American and Mexican plants) got fairly at work at the
Jardin des Plantes, and have found (mainly in the herbarium Jussieu) the
originals of several of Lamarck’s asters, which gives me happiness. They
take every pains to accommodate and assist one at the herbarium. I see old
Decaisne at his house; he is not strong.
I think we shall need two weeks more here, and we hope for better
weather than we have yet had. Colds one always takes at Paris, and Mrs.
Gray now has her share. It took a long while to be clear of the one presented
to me on our arrival here in October. But in the south of Spain my throat
was as clear as a whistle. We are not bad just now, and are hopeful.
 I was perfectly sincere in writing that I should prefer returning to Kew
for two or three months and to reserve Italy for the early spring. I shall get
more work out of it so. At the same time I was confident that it would suit
you best, and I am glad that you jump at it. It may enable us to get off the
fag end (and best part) of Hayden’s report, if ever he sends over the portion
in type. I am surprised that it has not before this come to hand.

TO MISS A. A. GRAY.

Hôtel St. Romain, Paris, December 3, 1880.

My dear A.,—I cannot tell you how much I was touched by your letter of
the 18th of November, following the round-robin, the letter of Mrs. J. and
that of Charley. And what could have possessed my brothers and sisters,
and nieces, and “their cousins and your aunts” to club together a
contribution on the occasion, as if nobody in the family had ever got to have
a seventieth birthday, or ever expected to! Well, it was indeed truly good
and thoughtful of you all, and it gratified me beyond measure. As you were
the organ of the family, upon the occasion, let me ask you to be the medium
for conveying to one and all my acknowledgments and most hearty thanks
for their words and deeds and kind thoughts of me at this interesting time.
And now what I am to do with the presents that have poured in, that is,
what am I to present to myself in your name, and keep as a souvenir,—that
is the question which is exercising my mind. It must be something personal
to myself, and I am not much given to personal adornment, and have few
personal wants beyond daily food and clothing, of which I always say that
“the old is better.” But I have got an idea,—which I will not put on paper
yet, because I may change my mind and not carry it out. You shall see in
time.
“Aunt J.” and I are having a nice time here in Paris, in spite of the short
and dark days. But we have been very, very busy, each in our way, and now
and then busy in company, as we have been to-day. And then at evening we
come back to our little room, and have the nicest little dinner together in the
little salle-à-manger of our little nice hotel; or rarely we go out, but never to
fare better; and we have been invited to three dinner parties, each notable
and enjoyable in its way. And now I have to-morrow one more day of
botanical work, and then we expect to go back on Monday to Kew, and to
the lodgings which we occupied a dozen years ago. You can write to your
aunty directly there: Mrs. Shepherd’s, “Charlton House,” Kew. Don’t
suppose that because it has a name, the house is a grand one. Not a bit of it.
But in England, houses, like babies, have names given them when they are
little.
Good-by. With dear love to all, along with thanks, I am
Your affectionate
Asa Gray.

TO MESSRS. REDFIELD AND CANBY.

Kew, December 12, 1880.

My dear Brethren, Redfield and Canby,—I think I had a letter from each of
you, and that you had some response from me of some sort (and one or two
papers, etc., have come from Redfield), but that was so far back in memory
when we were staying in Kew before, that it seems to belong to that early
phase in my existence when I was living on the other side of the ocean; and
that seems as widely distant in time as the ocean is wide in space! It is only
by the almanac that we know that we left Cambridge less than three and a
half months ago.
I have not done very much for botany in all that time; but Mrs. Gray and
I have laid in a stock of health and vigor, corporeally, and have filled our
heads with such interesting memories! This and such constant changes of
scene have produced the illusion I refer to, through which, as through a
haze, I dimly discern last summer. But out of that haze your bright and
kindly faces look undimmed.
Did I tell you (I think I did) of the pleasant fortnight here in September,
when guests at Hooker’s; when for botany I worked up Oxytropis; when De
Candolle and wife were here, and Bentham—serene old man—dined with
us almost every day; of our crossing one bright day to Paris, and all that?...
Thence, abandoning, from lateness of the season, the plan of returning
through Auvergne, we came on quick via Nîmes, Lyons, etc., to Paris.
There Mrs. Gray and I passed three very busy and very charming weeks;
also doing some good botanical work, and having a good time with
Decaisne and the other botanists at the garden, with Dr. Cosson and M.
Lavallée.[115] Then, as the Hookers could not carry out their promise of
joining us and going together to Italy now, we agreed to defer that till early
spring, and back we came here for work. We are settled in our old lodgings
on Kew Green, where we feel quite at home, and are near the Hookers and
the herbarium; and here I am to polish off the Asteroideæ,—some very
rough surfaces in Aster yet to grind down. We should be pleased to hear
from you.
It was at Cordova that I spelled out in Spanish the welcome news that
the Republicans had carried the election, and grandly.
And now, with Mrs. Gray’s love joined to mine to your good wives and
children, I am
Cordially yours,
Asa Gray.
Dr. Gray settled down at Kew for hard work, but as the days were very
short, and of course the herbarium was closed at dusk, he had long
evenings. There were many pleasant dinners, among others at Mr. John
Ball’s, where he met Robert Browning; and a charming visit to Lord Ducie
at Tortworth, where he was much interested in the fine and rare trees, and
had an afternoon’s visit to see Berkeley Castle, one of the oldest, if not the
oldest, of inhabited castles in England. He paid another interesting visit to
Cambridge, to Professor Babington, where he had not been since his visit in
1851, and where among others he met again Dr. Thompson, then Master of
Trinity, who had so kindly received him in 1851. Mr. Lowell was then
minister to England, and there were pleasant meetings with him.
In early March he crossed to Paris, were he was joined by Sir Joseph and
Lady Hooker for a journey by Mt. Cenis to Italy, going as far south as
Castellamare and to Amalfi and Pæstum, and returning; short stays in
Rome, Florence, and so to Venice, where the party divided, Dr. Gray going
to Geneva.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

Kew, December 26, 1880.

... I am making slow progress with the Asters. The original types of all
the older species I shall certainly make out; but the limitation of the species
presents great, if not insuperable difficulties.
I have read nearly all of Darwin’s “Power of Movement in Plants.” It is a
veritable research, with the details all recorded; and so it is dull reading. I
think it will give the impression to most readers that the terms
“geotropism,” “epinasty,” is “hyponasty,” etc., contain more of explanation
than in fact they do. Yet now and then a remark should prevent this, as on
page 569, and notably on page 545, at the close of the chapter, intimating,—
I suppose with reason—that the term “gravity” or “gravitation” is quite
misapplied.
I have just taken up Wallace’s “Island Life,” and find the earlier chapters
most clear and excellent, but without novelty. The idea of the persistence of
continents is most commonplace in America since Dana’s address in (I
think) 1845, and I should have thought Wallace would have known of the
entire prevalence of that view, at least in the western world.
Rely on me, dear De Candolle, to keep you au courant with all that
concerns your friends here, among which always remember your devoted,
Asa Gray.

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

Kew, February 19, 1881.

My dear Engelmann,—A few days, or say a week ago, we were gratified
by receiving your pleasant letter of the 31st January. I hasten to reply before
we get afloat again, when writing becomes precarious. Just now Mrs. Gray
and I have our evenings together in our quiet lodgings, that is, whenever we
are not dining out or the like, which is pretty often.
You know of our movements, then, up to our return here. The Spanish
trip was very pleasant and successful, and the three weeks afterward in
Paris both useful and enjoyable. As to botany, it was all given to Aster and
Solidago, at the Jardin des Plantes, and at Cosson’s, who has the herbarium
of Schultz,[116] Bip., which abounds with pickings from many an
herbarium.
We got over here early in December, and here I have worked almost
every week day till now, excepting one short visit down to Gloucestershire,
and a recent trip to Cambridge, where, however, a good piece of three
mornings was devoted to Lindley’s asters. I know the types now of all the
older species of North American aster, Linnæan, Lamarckian, Altonian,
Willdenovian,[117]—excepting one of Lamarck’s, which I could not trace in
the old materials at Paris; and Röper writes me that it is not in herbarium
Lamarck. As to Nees’s asters, most of them are plenty, as named by him
directly or indirectly. But where, on the dispersion of his herbarium, the
Compositæ went to nobody seems to know, though I have tried hard to find
out. Have you any idea? But he made horrid work with the asters, and the
Gardens all along, from the very first, have made confusion worse
confounded. No cultivated specimen, of the older or the present time, is per
se of any authority whatever. I am deeply mortified to tell you that, with
some little exception, all my botanical work for autumn and winter has been
given to Aster (after five or six months at home), and they are not done yet!
Never was there so rascally a genus! I know at length what the types of the
old species are. But how to settle limits of species, I think I never shall
know. There are no characters to go by in the group of Vulgar Asters; the
other groups go very well. I give to them one more day; not so much to
make up my mind how to treat a set or two, as how to lay them aside, with
some memoranda, to try at again on getting home, before beginning to
print. The group now left to puzzle me is of Western Pacific Rocky
Mountain species. The specimens you have collected for me last summer,
when I get them, may help me; or may reduce me to blank despair!

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

Venice, May 1, 1881, Sunday.

As we propose to leave Venice to-morrow, I think I may say that within
ten days you may look to see us in Geneva. The Hookers, with whom we
have journeyed thus far, will proceed more directly home, after a day or two
at the Italian lakes. We propose to follow more leisurely, and, if the road is
fairly practicable, to cross the Simplon, and so to Geneva, where, according
to your suggestion, we will go to the Hôtel des Bergues....
We have now been two months in travel, without respite, and for my part
I am fairly sated. I need the change and rest which a week of botanical
research in your herbarium, and of intercourse with its owner, will afford
me.
We have been as far south as Amalfi and Pæstum. We have attended to
the proper sight-seeing of Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice, and have
gained novelty by seeing also Orvieto, Cortona, and Siena, likewise
Ravenna. We have escaped a disagreeable spring in England, but at the
expense of being everywhere at least a fortnight too early for the various
parts of Italy; and I suppose we shall be all the more sensible of this at the
lakes and in crossing the Alps. But the weather has never been unfavorable,
and we have enjoyed much and worked hard. A week near you in
comparative rest will make an agreeable finale. Our companions have
added much to the enjoyment, and we are sorry to part with them. They
would, I know, send their best regards and remembrances, but at this
moment they are both out; but Mrs. Gray, who is writing by my side,
desires me to add her own to Madame De Candolle and yourself; and I am
always most sincerely yours,
Asa Gray.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Lugano, May 8, 1881.

... Mrs. Gray was able to see little of Padua, beyond the Giotto frescoes
and a look into San Antonio, the interior of which looked richer than ever. I
kept moving; took a turn in the pleasant old Botanic Garden; found
Saccardo;[118] saw two plants of Amorphophallus Rivieri in blossom; was
taken up, by Saccardo’s aid, by Dr. Penzig[119] of Breslau, a gentlemanly
young fellow, and of good promise, who took me in hand at the garden,
university, etc.
Hôtel St. Romain, Paris, May 22, 1881.
If I write you a letter this evening, having nothing else to do till bedtime,
mind, you, who have everything to do, are not bound to do more than to
read it. Mrs. Gray and Lady Hooker seem to manage correspondence very
well, and we may take it easy. But I want to tell you what a pleasant and
restful week we had at Geneva. The De Candolles were delightful. He
comes in from Vallon every day at ten, and stays till half past four, and I
passed much of the time in the herbarium, where I had various old dropped
stitches to take up, which I happily accomplished. As to sociabilities, De
Candolle had made a dinner party for the very day we arrived (Friday),
which I had barely time to get to. I met there Edouard Naville and his wife,
the latter new to me, and a Pourtalès, cousin of our Count Pourtalès, who
died last summer, and who, as a young man, followed Agassiz to the United
States, and was a very important man to Alexander Agassiz. His death was
severely felt by all of us. Naville, who is a capital Egyptologist, we knew in
Egypt twelve years ago, where he was exploring Edfou and monographing
one of its acres of wall sculpture and hieroglyphics, and we met him at De
Candolle’s the next summer. We went out last week to his place at Marigny,
on the north side of the lake, charmingly placed, with a full-length view of
Mont Blanc in front; the lake in the foreground.
Casimir and wife are in England; Lucien off at some baths for
rheumatics. But Lucien’s wife was at De Candolle’s, and is a pleasant lady.
On Sunday De Candolle sent in his coupé, and took Mrs. Gray and me to
dinner en famille at Vallon,—only Madame Lucien and some
grandchildren. Vallon is a very pretty place and the house charming.
Madame De Candolle is lively, even sprightly in her own house, and, I may
as well tell you, is greatly in love with Lady Hooker. We were sent home in
the coupé in great style; as also we were on Friday evening last, when De
Candolle gave us, for parting, a small dinner party,—Professors Wartmann
and Saussure, and the banker Lombard,—Plantamour, the astronomer, being
detained by the stars; his wife came, however. All these Genevese speak
English well, except Madame De Candolle, who gets off a little, and what
with this and their pleasant ways, we were quite at home with them.
Boissier had written to us to come down to Valeyres, but he had expected
us earlier. As he was to be off in less than a week, and Mrs. Gray well used
up, on reaching Geneva, we declined, and begged him to come to Geneva,
which he did on Monday, and stayed well into Tuesday. He took me to his
herbarium, which is large and well kept, and I looked up some old things of
Lagasca’s, which I could find no trace of at Madrid. Barbey I regretted not
to see. He goes with his father-in-law to the Balearic Isles,—goes, indeed,
because he is concerned for Boissier’s health, and well he may be.
Argovian Müller I saw something of; busy and happy in the care of the
garden, the Delessert herbarium, and the professorship in the new
university, built up with the late Duke of Brunswick’s money. The death of
his only son was a great blow to him; but he seems cheerful and is very
busy. De Candolle is working over Cultivated Plants and their origin....
I see I must go home this autumn, and, indeed, that seems best on almost
all accounts. So I should be at Kew soon, and once there I must set myself
to work most diligently, and make the most of what time remains.
I hear nothing as yet of Bentham. I hope he is going on well, and the
Gramineæ nearly finished, and that he will next take up Liliaceæ....
 Aix la Chapelle, June 8, 1881.
... Then we took train on the road down the Moselle (which we had
followed from Metz). From Trèves halfway down to Coblentz the country
had a decidedly American river look; that is, it constantly reminded one of
the Mohawk or the Unadilla,—small rivers of my native State and district,
and with just such rounded wooded hills and smooth, well cultivated slopes,
and wide stretches of meadow and grain fields. Then came the picturesque
portion with precipitous hillsides and crags covered with vines wherever a
bit of soil could be found to hold them, extending down to Coblentz. We
went on by the railroad down the left bank of the Rhine to Cologne, which
we reached late in the afternoon and left at three this P.M.; reached this place
at half past four; and while Mrs. Gray rested, I have explored till our half
past six dinner hour. Trèves was an interesting place, though it need not
detain one long. Cologne we were glad to see again, and were as much
interested in its old Romanesque churches as in its cathedral,[120] which
certainly is much bettered by the completion of the nave and the west front
and towers,—I may say towers and spires,—for they make nearly all the
west front. It does not compare with Reims, so far as façade goes....

On reaching Paris in June Dr. Gray met again his old friend Decaisne
and many others, and there was much pleasant hospitality at the hands of
friends new and old. He especially enjoyed a day at Verrières, seeing, in the
old home of M. and Mme. de Vilmorin, the dear friends of thirty years
before, the oldest son Henri with his wife and children, the grandchildren of
M. and Mme. V. of the corresponding ages and number as the family of
young people whom he met in the first visit in 1851.
On returning to Kew, though the time until leaving late in October was
busy with steady work, there were pleasant breaks with visits and
excursions. He had the pleasure of meeting Dean Stanley, first at the
christening of a daughter of Professor Flower’s, and was to have dined with
him, but the dinner was postponed on account of a slight indisposition of
the Dean, which developed into his fatal illness.
There were many pleasant visits and excursions, some delightful stays in
Devonshire and Somersetshire, when pleasant acquaintances were renewed.
He spent a few days again at Down with Mr. Darwin, and in August he went
to York for the meeting of the British Association. He stayed with Mr.
Backhouse, the well-known horticulturist, and saw his wonderful
underground caves of ferns, and his successful alpine garden, and enjoyed
the social as well as the scientific meetings.
At Kew he was surrounded with friends, renewing the close intimacy
with his old and lifelong friend Sir Joseph Hooker; was near his friends at
the Deanery at St. Paul’s and at Broom House; and he rested now and then
with a day’s sight-seeing. The days passed all too quickly until the time
came for breaking up for the return to America. There was a short stay at
Oxford, with Sir Henry Acland, most interesting days, and again at
Manchester at Professor and Mrs. Williamson’s hospitable home, and then
the voyage to America, when he landed early in November.

TO MESSRS. CANBY AND REDFIELD.

Kew, July 15, 1881.

My dear old friends, Canby and Redfield,—How very long it is since you
have heard, at least directly, from your Old World wanderers! How long and
from whence, is more than I can tell. I use now an enforced half hour before
an engagement, and when it is, would you believe it for England? too hot to
go across the Green to use the half hour at the herbarium, where I have
sweltered all the morning, regular Philadelphia heat, and this is the third
day of this the second heated term.
I wrote you from Italy, I think.
... It is hopeless now to try to give any narration of our doings. The
flavor would have all evaporated in the attempt to recall and review the past
spring.
I think you know our routes, from Paris in March to Turin, to Genoa,
Pisa, Rome, Naples, and the country around, Amalfi and Pæstum our most
southern points; then Rome again and a twelve days’ stay, then a run to
Orvieto and Cortona on the route to Florence, a visit to Siena from
Florence, a detour from Bologna to Ravenna, most old-world of towns,
thence to Venice, a week only. And as we left it, the Hookers, whose
furlough was running out, dropped us at Padua, whence, passing Verona,
where we had been before, we had a day at Brescia, thence to Milan, Como
and up the lake, and over to Lugano, and back to Milan. Thence to Arona at
foot of Lake Maggiore, and a drive all the way up to Domo d’Ossola, and
then diligence over the Simplon pass and through the snow, and down to
Brieg, and on to Martigny to sleep, and then on to Geneva, where we passed
a delicious week, with De Candolle and other friends to enjoy, and a little
botany to attend to in the herbarium. And then in one day we went to Paris,
and stayed three weeks, while Mrs. Gray did her feminine matters, and I a
deal of botany work, and both a little sight-seeing. Thence, sending our
luggage before to London, we swung off for Soissons and the old castle of
Coucy, and Reims, and Trèves, and down the Moselle to Coblentz, and the
Rhine (that is, by rail) to Cologne, to enjoy the finished cathedral; thence to
Aix la Chapelle, to Bruxelles, and then, with a fine day and smooth water,
over to England; and here at Kew we have been settled ever since, engaging
in a deal of botanical work and a deal of society in a most agreeable way,
and a little (thus far only a little) sight-seeing. As we come towards the end,
we grow busier every day, and count the time closer. For we expect to
return in October, to reach home (Deo favente) either at the end of that
month or before the middle of November; the day and vessel not yet quite
fixed....
There are lots of things to write about, but the sheet is full, and I must
only say I am
Yours affectionately,
Asa Gray.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

Richmond House, Kew.

... It is really serious, this leaving England, and choice friends in it, when
one considers that, whatever I may fondly say, I cannot expect to see it
again,—I do not say them.
Affectionately yours,
Asa Gray.
Cambridge, Mass., November 14, 1881.
My dear Friend,—Dr. Holmes is a good soul, and has just sent me the
inclosed for the autograph which I promised H. I wish she, and especially
that M., could be here now, to enjoy our exquisite dry and stimulating air,
which, with American oysters, should set her up completely.
 I have missed Freeman. He had gout and some other engagements,
which took him from Boston the day before we landed. My critical friends
at Cambridge say that his lectures were disappointing. They say he took no
pains in preparation, or at least fell into the common habit of your
countrymen when they come here, that is, of giving lectures and water. The
Bostonians prefer, and appreciate, something more concentrated and higher
proof.
I do hope you will promise Mr. Lowell a course of lectures, few or more,
next October.
The foundation of the Lowell lectures requires that courses shall be
delivered, as often as possible, on subjects pertaining to Christianity, natural
religion, etc., which may come as near to sermons as you like. Pray do not
decline the invitation offhand. You would have a most appreciative
audience. You see we are counting upon you, with two daughters at least,
for the next summer and autumn. In haste to save the post,
Affectionately yours,
Asa Gray.

TO GEORGE ENGELMANN.

Cambridge,
December 13, 1881.
My dear old Friend,—It is shabby of me to wait so long in response to
your kindly greetings, which were dated on my birthday, November 18. But
I was very busy when it came, and hardly less so since, and so I let it get
out of sight.
Well, here we are once more, leaving dear friends on the other side, and
now among our own kith and kin.
Glad to hear of your pleasant summer, and pretty good health now.
We had a favorable voyage home, which is more than those just before
could say, and far more than any since....
Nees’s asters, of his own herbarium, I can nowhere find or hear of. But I
don’t believe his herbarium (which was sold piecemeal) would have helped
me much, considering how he has named asters for other herbaria....
Accumulated collections, of Lemmon, Parish,[121] Cusick,[122] etc.,
especially have taken all my time up to now, after getting my home in order,
a deal of trouble. And now I can think of getting at my “Flora” work again.
First of all, I am to make complete as I can my manuscript for Solidago
and Aster. Solidago I always find rather hopeful. Aster, as to the Asteres
genuini, is my utter despair! Still I can work my way through except for the
Rocky Mountain Pacific species.
I will try them once more, though I see not how to limit species, and to
describe specimens is endless and hopeless. So send on your things. But
first I am to print, pari passu with my final elaboration, an article, “Studies
in Solidago and Aster,”—taking the former first, giving an account of what
I have made out in the old herbaria, stating investigations which I can only
give the condensed result of in the “Flora,” etc. Considerable change as to
some old species.
When I have done the Solidago, then Aster in that way....

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

Cambridge, December 29, 1881.

I am doubtful if I have written to you since our return, and my New Year
greetings will reach you somewhat late, but are very hearty. I could hardly
have neglected to send you word of the satisfaction with which we look
upon the fine bust of your father, which stands at one end of our herbarium;
Robert Brown and William J. Hooker at the other, and your lithographic
portrait overhead is replaced by the more striking photograph you gave us.
At length we are settled in our home; have had for the twenty-fifth time
the annual Christmas family gathering, for which my study, being the
largest room in the house, is always upturned and emptied, and I should be
quietly at work upon the Compositæ, were it not for an attack of lumbago,
that uncomfortable attendant of old age, which just now interferes with my
activity, without actually laying me up.... We, Mr. Watson and I, are still
much occupied with the distribution, and therefore in good part the study, of
the recent collections which have accumulated here and are still coming in.
Much valuable time do they consume. The most interesting are from
Arizona, etc., near the Mexican frontier, among which those we have most
to do with are by Lemmon and by Pringle.[123] The former, I know,—and I
shall soon know as to the latter,—has sets to dispose of, and I think you
would like to have them. We formerly have taken a deal of trouble in
assisting such collectors in the disposal of their plants offered for sale, but
we are obliged now to leave aside such affairs, as they consume too much
time.
I have no other botanical news for you. Dr. Engelmann, who of late has
roamed a good deal, is now at home, and busy with botanical work, of
various sorts, Isoetes, Cupressus, etc. It is quite probable that he will cross
the ocean again next spring, in which case you will probably see him.
Professor Sargent is busy with his forest reports in connection with the
United States Census of 1880. Mr. Watson in this service made a long
journey through our northwest region, while I was in Europe, at too late a
season for much ordinary botany; and he has been otherwise too busy since
his return even to look over his collections.
My colleague, Professor Goodale, giving over to Professor Farlow the
university lectures, etc., is now abroad with his whole family, to recruit
health and acquire information. You will see him at Geneva in spring or
summer, and I commend him to you as a dear friend and a very valuable
man. My wife joins me in kind remembrances and best New Year wishes to
Madame De Candolle and yourself, and I am always your devoted
Asa Gray.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge, December 25, 1881.

... I am kept indoors this pleasant Christmas Sunday, which is here as
fine and bright a day as was the Christmas of last year, which we passed
with you, and which comes up fresh to our memories....
I have just cleared off the portion of accessions to herbarium which had
accumulated here and which I had myself to see to, and am settling down to
my Compositous work. And now I am taking an oath that when I do get
about them I will hold on to the bitter end, that is, I suppose till I reach the
Wormwoods. And now I must go to Washington on the 18th prox. for
meeting of Smithsonian regents....
Sargent has got his arboretum at length on to the hands of the city of
Boston to make the roads for, to repair and to light and police. He seems to
have made a mark in his Census forestry work. He has developed not only a
power of doing work, but of getting work done for him by other people, and
so can accomplish something.
January 27, 1882.
... My whole soul is in the “Flora of North America,” but the new things
that come in, owing to opening of Arizona and other railways, and which
have to be seen to, keep Watson and myself so busy. So our movement is
like marking time four days to going ahead one....
Engelmann promises to make us a visit in the spring. How I shall make
him work! No other news just now.

TO SIR EDWARD FRY.

Cambridge, February 26, 1882.

My dear Sir Edward,—It is high time that I thanked you for a very
pleasant letter which at the beginning of the year you kindly wrote me from
Failand House, a place which is very green in our memories. It reached us
at Washington, where, with Mrs. Gray as my inseparable companion, I went
to attend the annual meeting of the regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
We were away from home little more than a week, and even in that time we
managed to bring in a little visit to friends in Philadelphia.
This miserable trial of Guiteau, of which you already knew unpleasant
particulars, was still in progress; but I did not go near the court-room, and
could not readily have been induced to do so. The day after I received your
letter I met an acquaintance, one of the judges of the Court of Claims (a
court for trying claims against the United States government preferred by
citizens or others, and much is it to be wished that a mass of claims
presented to Congress and cumbering its committees could be passed over
to this court), and I drew him into conversation upon the scandal which the
trial was causing. He spoke of Judge Cox as a man of ability and high
character, referred to the impossibility of shutting the prisoner’s mouth, the
expectation that the man’s prolonged revelation of himself before the jury
would throw more light upon the case than any amount of expert testimony,
which I think was expected to be more contradictory than it actually was,
and of the determination to leave no ground for the ordering of a new trial.
My friend told me he had been twice in the courtroom, thought the judge
might and should have exercised more control, yet that what he saw and
heard did not appear to him at the time so indecorous and offensive as it
appeared when presented in the newspapers. Indeed, this sensational
newspaper reporting is a huge nuisance, and in respect to these matters our
highest-class daily papers are little better than the lowest. I suppose the
telegraph reporting for the press is all done by one set of men, and the more
sensational the reports the more welcome to the papers, which, with few
exceptions, print without any selection or discrimination.
I have settled down to my work with enjoyment, but with a growing
sense of discouragement growing out of an embarras de richesses. It was
natural to find here a great accumulation of collections of North American
plants, all needing examination; but unfortunately, they continue to come in
faster than I can study and dispose of them. This comes from the increasing
number of botanical explorers, and the new facilities offered to them by
new railroads along our southwestern frontiers and other out-of-the-way
regions. The consequence is, that while new and interesting things are
pouring in, which one must attend to, and which are very enjoyable, I do
not get ahead with the steady and formidable work of the “North American
Flora.” I begin to think it were a happier lot to have the comparatively
completed botany of an old country to study, in which your work “were
done when ’twere done,” and in which, even if it were not done quickly,
you were not called on to do it over and over, to bring the new into shape
and symmetry with the old.
By the way, I finally wrote out an article on a question which you once
treated, and upon which we more than once conversed, taking for my text a
paragraph in Lubbock’s address at York last summer. I had partly promised
Mr. Walter Browne to write it, so I sent it to him; and as a proof from the
“Contemporary Review” has come back to me, I suppose it may be printed
before long.[124] I shall be curious to know what you think of it.
I sent you a portion of a New York religious newspaper containing a sort
of review of two books with which I beguiled the voyage last October or
November. It is of no great consequence. But I sometimes write such
reviews or articles to papers of this kind, which are endeavoring to do their
best in bridging over the gap between the thoughts of a former generation,
or of our younger days, and of the present day. I believe such articles are
now and then helpful.
 You supposed that I had seen the “Lyell’s Life and Letters” sooner than I
had. To my surprise the volumes are not reprinted in America; and I have
only just succeeded in procuring a copy from England.
I have read a good deal of it, and with much interest. The allusion to me,
which you referred to, was of course very pleasant. The last chapter of the
“Antiquity of Man” had apprised me (for I never had any direct
correspondence with Lyell) that we thought much alike on such matters;
and we are apt to approve views which agree with our own. I always
thought Lyell a very level-headed man,—one with a very judicial turn of
mind; and his letters and journal bring this out well, as they do the whole
life and the charming character of the man. It is interesting to see how early
he took the line which he followed in his whole life’s work, and which has
changed the face of geology and philosophical natural history. For, indeed,
Lyell is as much the father of the new mode of thought which now prevails
as is Darwin. I have said a word about this, which I will try to send you.
That is a noble letter to Mr. Spedding, about the American war. We knew
that was in him. During the time of trouble, our then minister in London,
Mr. Adams, and Mrs. Adams used to say that Sir Charles and Lady Lyell
were almost their only, and their very stanch and efficient supporters.
If you happen to know who the author of “The New Analogy,” by
Cellarius, is, I beg you will let me know. Although as a whole it may not
amount to much, there are some capital hits in it.
I have been writing you a monstrously long letter. I have only space to
ask you to give my kind remembrances to Lady Fry and the young people,
of all whom we have such happy memories.

TO A. DE CANDOLLE.

March 16, 1882.

... Your letter of the 25th of February tells me of the will of dear
Decaisne, whom we shall miss greatly. The main disadvantage of our years
is in these losses, which to us are never made up. He was a very true
friend....
I am glad you will make a supplement to the “Lois.” When you have it in
hand I wish you would communicate to me, in letter, your main points on
the critical questions. You, Bentham, and I are most in accord; and we ought
to agree, essentially. Upon any critical points, I had much rather make my
comments, for whatever they may be worth, before you print than
afterwards. I have kept phænogamous botany essentially orthodox in the
United States....
May 15.
... It is now all but a year since Mrs. Gray and I had that charming week
at Geneva!
Much has happened since then. We have lost dear old Decaisne; and now
Darwin! We hardly should have thought, twenty-five years ago, that he
would have made such an impression upon the great world, as well as on
the scientific world!
I do not know if you ever saw much of him. He was a very charming
man.
Here we have lost, at a good age, both Longfellow and Emerson.
I have been anxious about Bentham, from whom there were
discouraging accounts; but his last letters are hopeful, and he is steadily at
work. Let me hope, and let me know, that you are quite well; also Madame
De Candolle.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge, September 17, 1882.

... At Montreal we were guests of Dawson, who wanted to return some
hospitality we had afforded him and his daughter.... Dawson has toiled for a
lifetime at Montreal, under many discouragements, has accomplished a
deal, and deserves great credit.
... We had a pleasant time, and this fortnight in Canada was my only
vacation. I went to visit the grave of Pursh, who died at forty-six. They have
put his bones in their pretty cemetery, and put a neat stone over them....
Glad you are to send me scraps of one or more species of Dyer. It should
have been a tinctorial genus....

TO R. W. CHURCH.

October 8, 1882.
 It is probable that I have not responded by a line to your letter of April
13, yet I think my wife has written more than once to the Deanery, and we
have had good accounts of the visit to Italy, which appears to have been a
great enjoyment to all of you. And now we have the news of H.’s
engagement, which must give you a novel sensation. How time flies and
events develop! It seems but a little while since she and her sisters were
little girls at Whatley. And now, when this reaches you, a year will have
gone round since we said goodby in London.
I have not much to say nor to show for this year. Though I have never
worked more steadily, and never with so much concentration, there seems
to be little to show for it. At times I am disheartened, but a hope as
irrepressible as I suppose it is unreasonable and extravagant bears me up
and on. There is, indeed, a good pile of manuscript to show, but I will not
begin printing until I have gone through with the vast order of Compositæ.
That may be at Christmas,—I may say I expect it,—but I never yet came up
to any such expectation. To give you some idea of what my task is, I hope
to send you soon a copy of an exhortation which I read to the botanists at
the recent meeting of our American Association for Advancement of
Science at Montreal (in the Queen’s dominions!) This journey to Canada
was my only holiday this past summer; though Mrs. Gray got as much
more, with her brothers and sisters at Beverly, on the coast; a bit of country
and of country life we are longing to have you see.
The gathering at Montreal was most pleasant, and we were happily
placed as the guests of the president of the year, Dr. Dawson, principal of
McGill College, at which the sessions were held. Among the foreign
savants, we had ... Rev. and also M. D. Professor Haughton, of Trinity
College, Dublin, a man of very varied knowledge, ... a somewhat rollicking
companion, which, however, did not hinder his preaching a goodly and
serious sermon in the Cathedral on Sunday; I believe rather eminent in
mathematics, and who has done a good piece of physico-physiological work
on muscular power. But what took me by surprise was his intense, truly
Irish hatred of England, and of Gladstone in particular. Probably he did not
like the disestablishment of the Irish church.
And as to Ireland,—what a year you have had, and only dim hopes that
the next will be better; I do hope Gladstone will hold on and hold out. The
Egyptian affair, as it turns out, must strengthen his administration not a
little. Ever since we were in Egypt, I have been longing to have England
take the control of that country, as the only hope of the fellahs and Copts,—
the only people there for whom one has any sympathy.
I was to write you about the great brimming St. Lawrence, and of our
trip down it to the Saguenay. But Mrs. Gray will be writing all that, and also
giving my hearty good wishes to H., dear soul. But I have not left room
even to say how sincerely I remain,
Yours affectionately and truly,
Asa Gray.
December 11.
 You ought to have heard from me before this, but you have probably got
information indirectly of my little mishap, which may account for not
writing with my own hand. Not a quite sufficient excuse; for at much
inconvenience I managed very soon to do some writing, in awkward
fashion, as well as to turn over specimens; otherwise I should have been
unhappy.
Well, hard upon six weeks ago, I managed to break the top of my right
shoulder-blade. It was done by a bit of carelessness, not to say
foolhardiness, by continuing to do at seventy-two what I have done in
former years, relying too much on my quickness and sureness of foot in
stepping off a horse-car (anglice, tram) when in motion. In the darkness I
supposed it had slowed up, which in fact it had not, and so a bad fall. Well,
the bone is thought to be well mended, and I use the arm for certain
purposes almost as well as ever, but cannot yet get my clothes on and off
without assistance. My wife, as you will believe, has been a capital nurse,
and she credits me with a most unexpected amount of patience....
But if you don’t come soon I shall despair of you. And Gladstone, I
know, will be tempting you; but I doubt if you will budge, except he would
place you in more sunny quarters than the Deanery,—a place which
corporeally I know is not at all good for you, nor for Mrs. Church.
I read that you have preached a sermon in commemoration of Dr. Pusey,
at Oxford, which I hope you will print, and I count on receiving a copy. I
prize very much a copy of a discourse by Dr. Pusey, given me through
Acland when we were there a year and a quarter ago, addressed to me in a
very flattering way.
By the telegraph we learn you are having a very severe snowstorm,
attended with suffering. We are now having our sixth of this winter; but we
do not mind it.
I rejoice with you at Gladstone’s success. He and Dufferin have earned
laurels. Let us hope he will hold out several years yet, and continue at the
helm. But how cordially he is hated!
Here we get on, prosper, indeed, quite without wisdom, or with very
little of it. One of these days we shall need it. There are things I should like
to write about. But my arm is not up to continued use.
Mrs. Gray will send messages propria manu. So, with my kindest
regards to Mrs. Church and all your happy family, I am affectionately,
 Yours,
Asa Gray.

TO SIR EDWARD FRY.

Beverly Farms, December 1, 1882.

We were very sorry to read in the telegraphic news a few days ago of the
destruction of Clevedon Court by fire, a most sad and unexpected thing, but
we hope not so bad as the brief announcement portends. It brought back to
our memory the delightful afternoon which Mrs. Gray and I passed there a
year and some months ago. A modern house can be replaced, but not an old
hall like this. It makes us sad to think of it. Perhaps you can tell us that the
loss was exaggerated in the telegraphic account.
I am writing from the house of Mrs. Gray’s brother, on the seashore,
where we are passing the “Thanksgiving” holiday. “Thanksgiving Day” is a
Puritan institution, was formerly confined to New England and the districts
settled by New Englanders, and has been kept from the time of the landing
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and is annually appointed by the governors of
these States by proclamation. But within the last fifteen or twenty years it
has become national, and the day, the fourth or the last Thursday in
November, is announced by a proclamation by the President. In New
England it long took the place of Christmas, for which you know the
Puritans had no liking, and was the chief family gathering-day as well as a
day of religious service, or at least of political sermonizing. But Christmas
is completely restored even in New England, though the other holiday is not
dropped.
The north shore of Massachusetts Bay is very pretty, the shore backed
with woods and rocks, and sheltered against the northeast bleak winds; and
the situation where we are is one of the choicest. It is near the mouth of
Salem Bay, Salem at the head, three or four miles above, and the hills
beyond close the view at the west; the peninsula of Marblehead lies
opposite on the south, dividing this water from that of Boston Bay;
southeast the sea-line is broken only by three or four low islands. When my
good father-in-law bought the land here, then waste wood and sheep-
pasture, forty years and more ago, it was two or three hours from Boston.
Now a railway brings it within an hour, and now the whole coast down to
Cape Ann is occupied with what you would call villa residences, the
grounds of all the most desirable ones reaching to the water, partly with
rocky shores wooded with pine-trees and junipers, partly with sandy
beaches, good for bathing-grounds. This place combines the two, and is
well wooded at the back, and commands the most beautiful views. Most of
the houses are used only for summer residences; but this is occupied the
year round. I have never been here in the winter before. Winter we are here
in the midst of already, unusually early, and the ground is white with snow,
of which there is usually little before Christmas. But our winter differs from
yours in its sunshine, the brilliancy and cheer of which is a good offset for
the colder weather, or at least the lower thermometer.
A good number of our English acquaintances have been over this
autumn. Dr. and Mrs. Carpenter are among the last to return. He has just
closed a popular course of Lowell lectures, and they go back a week or two
hence. One hardly knows what brought Herbert Spencer. He seems most to
have enjoyed Niagara, where he stayed a week. I do not think the dinner
demonstration for him at New York amounted to very much; nor do I take
stock in the statement, the truth of which he took for granted, that the hair
turns gray in the United States ten years earlier than in England. I should
say the only difference is, that there is more hair remaining here to turn gray
at middle age or later. Spencer also told us of a discovery he had made, that
all Americans had the outer corners of their eyes lower than the inner, the
opposite of our antipodes, the Mongols.
I have just returned from a “sleigh ride.” Snow, though a nuisance in
towns, is a convenience in the country, greatly facilitating travel, and a
drive upon runners instead of wheels, well wrapped in furs and with buffalo
robes, is much enjoyed.
At the end of August, Mrs. Gray and I went to Montreal, to the meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where we
were guests of the president, Dr. Dawson. We made an excursion to Ottawa,
the new seat of government, and another down the noble St. Lawrence and
up its picturesque tributary, the Saguenay. Otherwise we have been at home
all the summer and autumn. And so we expect to be all winter, save perhaps
a week in Washington.
... I think I have long owed your son Portsmouth a letter, but, though I
should be glad to hear from him, and to know how he is getting on at
Oxford, I cannot pay my debt to him to-day. And some twinges tell me that
it is time to spare you.
I will just add that what we hear prepares us to expect that before this
reaches you, or even leaves this country, we may hear that the good and
wise Archbishop of Canterbury will have gone to his rest; and Gladstone
will have a most responsible as well as the most dignified position to fill.

TO GEORGE BENTHAM.

Cambridge, December 17, 1882.

I must not let the New Year come to you without repairing my delay in
the way of letter-writing, and sending you greeting and good wishes for the
season. Especially I may congratulate you and felicitate ourselves, that is,
we botanists, that you have, or will have, brought your opus magnum to a
completion!—proof-reading excepted. A great thing to have done. I did not
make reply to your last of October 14, because I really could say nothing
about the Eriocauloneæ....
Yes, I have De Candolle on Cultivated Plants, and am well pleased with
it, so far as I have looked it over.
Thanks for your complimentary mention of my notice of Darwin. I have
since sent you another brochure, an exhortation to my botanical compatriots
to have more consideration for my time, considering how little is left, and
what a deal of use I have for it. I can hope only to palliate the evil a little.
Your life has been a most enviable one, in being able so to arrange and
control your time, and with your indomitable industry, perseverance, and
judgment, you have turned your opportunities to full account, winning no
end of gratitude and admiration. Now, do take the relaxation and repose
which you have so completely earned; and take, as you may, great
satisfaction and pride in all you have accomplished. At least your many
friends will do so....
I did hope to have got to the end of the Compositæ with the end of 1882;
but I shall hardly do more than finish the Helenioideæ. As I go on, I study
all Mexican border things, at least these of our North American collectors.
My health is excellent; so I may fairly hope to get the North American
Compositæ off my hands and in print, barring accidents, and I shall be
careful of my bones, and other contingencies....
 TO J. D. HOOKER.

May 1, 1883.
... I have not read Carlyle’s Life, by Froude, but many articles, in which
of course the points are mostly given. All seem to agree that Froude has
blackened the memory of Carlyle irrecoverably, or rather with rude hand
wiped off the whitewash which covered the blackness. He was a rude,
unkempt soul. From the extracts I have seen, I fancy that Mrs. Carlyle’s
letters beat Carlyle’s all out for raciness and pith.
I am content with the Romane correspondence as R. leaves it, and
pleased with Romane’s tone, which I will try to tell him.
I think his first reply was a “beating of the air.” And for that reason I
returned to the charge. His second is to the purpose. And he seems to feel
that mine was to the purpose also.
... As to dear Bentham, his life is the very ideal of a naturalist’s life, and I
have always regarded it one of the happiest possible and one of the most
successful.... His administration of the Linnæan, his series of addresses,
etc., will be looked back to as an oasis in the desert.
Our spring is late; the winter, or rather the drought of the previous
autumn, has been deadly on perennials, herbs and shrubs....

TO R. W. CHURCH.

May 22, 1883.

... I wish to condole with you over a hardship which you write of, that of
having to write a book on Lord Bacon. I quite understand that you should
bemoan your fate at being drawn into that undertaking. I cannot think it at
all to your liking. Bacon, of all people, if the best is to be made of him, I
fancy, should be written of by a worldly-wise, if not a worldly-minded man.
Moreover, I must confess to a heretical opinion as to another side of Bacon,
that in which English, and all English-speaking, people glory. To blab it out:
I have an ugly notion that he was rather a sciologist than a man of science,
and that he really did nothing of real consequence for the furtherance of
science; nothing to be compared with Galileo, a real father of “inductive
philosophy” and scientific investigation—and Pascal. By the way, taking
the two men all round, do you not think a taking parallel could be run with
Bacon and Pascal?
Now, to change the subject,—what a noble old man Gladstone is, and
what a great name he is going to leave as a high-minded statesman! I could
envy you, if it were in my way, the privilege of his friendship.
H. was so good as to write me a charming letter from her new home, for
which please give her my thanks.
By the way, if you see our observatory director, Pickering, you will find
him an unaffected man, wise in science above his years.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge, September 3, 1883.

My dear Hooker,—A letter of yours of July 24 has been on my table a
good while, and now to-day comes yours of August 22. So I am to write
you at once, urged thereto mainly by your quandary about subspecies,
varieties, and how to manage them in a popular flora like the British, in
which forms need to be distinguished more than in outlandish floras.
I have a decided opinion as to the form of treatment, and from your
letter, as well as I can gather, I coincide with Ball. At least, I would not have
subspecies. They are, as the saying goes, “neither flesh, fowl, nor good red
herring.”
Some you would accept as species; make of the rest varieties, with
names.
In characterizing species having marked varieties, should the specific
character comprehend the forms or varieties, and then there be a “var. a” or
type, or “typical form?”
I thought over this when I began my “Synoptical Flora,” and concluded
that it was best to characterize the species on its genuine representatives
only. Of course as far as practicable, and indeed for all but some special
points, the characters will, and should, cover the whole. And at the end of
the character, you have only to add, the type of the species has so and so;
then the variety or varieties with the special differentia.
From pretty large practice I find this works best, and probably your
experience will have brought you to the same conclusion....
 “Liberavi animum meum,” and it may go for what you find it worth.... I
did not know that “Americans,” i. e., good Americans, did say, “so and so
intermarried with so and so.” I see Ravenel, a Carolinian, says so.

TO GEORGE BENTHAM.

Cambridge, September 25, 1883.

My dear Bentham,—I am so glad to receive a letter giving so comfortable
an account of yourself; glad also that you would like to hear from me; glad
to announce that, though there are still some genera to revise, I can tell you
that I am about to begin the printing of the “Synoptical Flora,” containing
Caprifoliaceæ-Compositæ,—which when done, I shall feel something of the
relief you must have had when the “Genera” was off your hands. That done,
I look, with only that mitigated confidence that becomes an old man, for a
bit of holiday, such as is always reinvigorating to Mrs. Gray and myself. I
am so sorry you had to take up with a sick-room instead. But as you are
now picking up finely, could you not be made comfortable and get rid of an
English November and December by revisiting the scenes of your youth in
the south of France?...
I think I sent you Trumbull’s[125] (mostly) and my annotations on De
Candolle’s “L’Origine des Plantes Cultivées.” If not, let me know, for you
have leisure to read now.
I am busy with an article on De Candolle’s “Nouvelles Remarques sur la
Nomenclature.” As it may be my last say on the subject, I am going to make
a rather elaborate article on nomenclatural and phytographical points,
mostly small points, some of which I should have liked to confer with you
about. I would have done so, but I feared, in the reported state of your
health, to trouble you.
There are two or three small points, about name-citation and name-
making, upon which I shall venture to criticise the “Genera Plantarum.” But
in almost everything we are in full accord, as you know, and I wish to
impress the accordance upon the younger botanists of the United States.
Nowadays, more than formerly, they get hold of many books, German and
other—books, many of them, better for substance than for form; and so our
botanists need guidance and some show of authority.
 Engelmann has come home, looking far better than we expected, or than
he thought to be; is visiting Sargent, and will soon come to us....

TO SIR EDWARD FRY.

November 10, 1883.

In a line which I remember adding to Mrs. Gray’s last letter to Lady Fry
I expressed a hope and confident expectation that we should have done with
General Butler as governor of Massachusetts. The election occurred last
Tuesday; an extraordinarily large vote was cast: Butler was defeated by
10,000, and an excellent man, a member of Congress from the central part
of the State, a lawyer, who makes considerable sacrifice in taking the
governorship, is chosen in his place, and there is a majority of two thirds in
both branches of the legislature to support him. We hope that this makes an
end of Butler’s power for harm, or at least cripples it. He is a desperate
demagogue....
I doubt if either of the friends you mentioned came to Cambridge at all.
My friend Agassiz had the pleasure of meeting them at Newport, and was
greatly taken with them....
I am beginning to print the Compositæ for my “Flora of North America;”
and am revising for the last time some of the more difficult and more
unsatisfactory portions. My wife now excuses me to her friends for
outbreaks of ill-humor, the excuse being that I am at present “in the valley
of the shadow of the Asters.” This is “sic itur ad astra,” with a vengeance. If
only I can have done with the printer by the close of the winter months,
with any life left in me, then we will go in for a holiday.
I am very well, and Mrs. Gray passably so. We have seen just a little of
Matthew Arnold, with wife and daughter; shall probably see more of them.

TO R. W. CHURCH.

November 12, 1883.

... I have just seen the first proof of the portion of “Flora of North
America” that I have been moiling over for so long; and over them and the
ever-renewed touches to the ever-growing Compositæ, I may expect a
toilsome winter. That done, I hope about the time that the clear and biting,
but rather enjoyable, winter subsides into the inclemencies of our early
spring, we hope, if we live and thrive, to take a holiday. Just how and where
is not yet clear, but I hope to have something to say of it before I am done
with this letter. Meanwhile I am curious to know if you have disposed of
Bacon. If your essay pleases me as much as your remarks in your letter to
me, I shall enjoy it. I recant all I wrote you long ago, begging you would
drop him and take up a more congenial subject....
I am just back this evening from hearing Matthew Arnold read some of
his poems to a great hallful of undergraduates and others, in place of a
lecture which he was to give, but, poor man! was prevented by his agent,
who seems to be rather his master. He was well received; but one cannot
say that he is a very graceful or a good reader to an audience of eight
hundred or a thousand people.
He tells me you offered him an introduction to me, which he thought he
hardly needed, as we had met him and Mrs. Arnold at a lunch given by Miss
North. We are sorry to hear of the determining reason of his visit and
lecturing tour.... He will succeed in this, no doubt; but it is a sort of dog’s
life, this lecturing all over the country, four times a week, at the beck of an
agent, who controls all his movements, often to audiences that will not
appreciate him, the more as what he tells me is true, that he has no gift as a
speaker. But he is pleasant, and will be most kindly received.
Your Lord Chief Justice was most kindly cared for and made a most
pleasant impression. But in Boston, besides coming when every one was
away who should have attended to him, he fell, unwisely, into the hands of
... Governor Butler, and saw a side of American life and manners which
may be well enough for him to see, though we should desire the contrary,
and will add to his rich repertory of stories, which they say he can tell so
well. The day he was shown over our university he called here, and took a
cup of tea with us. He had recently been visiting our good friend Lord
Justice Fry at Failand, and spoke of Lord Blachford as his friend and
neighbor....
March 31, 1884.
... I have, moreover, another reason for sending you this line, to thank
you for the proof-sheets of the “Bacon.” I read it at a sitting, one day when I
was too ill for my daily task. I enjoyed the book greatly, all the more,
probably, from my freshness, not having read anything upon the subject that
I now recall since Macaulay’s essay, ages ago. It is like reading a tragedy.
What a great failure Bacon was, whenever he was tried! Poor Essex,
hunted to death merely for “getting up a row,” and Bacon sacrificing him
without compunction, and without seeing that he was probably made a tool
of, merely to serve his personal advantage! Then the poetical justice, as they
call it,—very prosaic justice,—of his own destruction, by a bolt out of a
clear sky, which an enemy was adroit enough to direct to his ruin. And poor
Bacon with conscience enough to feel that he deserved it, but not spirit
enough to make a fight. No, if Pope’s fling was undeserved, as you say, it
was because of the mean and ignoble set around him.
Almost as pitiable and tragic in its way, pitiable in its true sense, was the
upshot of Bacon’s higher and nobler life, conceiving vaguely and laboring
all his days over that which he was unable and incompetent to bring to the
birth. His memory reaping a great reward of fame for a century or so, and
then the conclusion reluctantly reached that nothing tangible in the
advancement of Natural Science can be attributed to him. Altogether, what a
solemn sermon! It might be preached from the pulpit of St. Paul’s.
Well, I seem to have attempted sermonizing myself, and it is time I
stopped.
We join in the thanksgivings you are devoutly rendering,[126] and I am
always,
Yours affectionately,
Asa Gray.
As this is the last letter from Dr. Gray to Dean Church, to be printed, the
occasion is taken to introduce a letter written by Dean Church to Mrs. Gray
some time after the death of his friend, when acknowledging the receipt of a
copy of the “Scientific Papers.”

DEAN CHURCH TO MRS. GRAY.

I have to thank you for two volumes of most interesting reading. Besides
the interest of the subject discussed, there is a special cachet in all Dr.
Gray’s papers, great and small, which is his own, and which seems to me to
distinguish him from even his more famous contemporaries. There is the
scientific spirit in it, but firm, imaginative, fearless, cautious, with large
horizons, and very attentive and careful to objections and qualifications;
and there is besides, what is so often wanting in scientific writing, the
human spirit, always remembering that, besides facts and laws, however
wonderful or minute, there are souls and characters over against them, of as
great account as they, in whose mirrors they are reflected, whom they excite
and delight, and without whose interest they would be blanks. This
combination comes out in his great generalizations, in the bold and yet
considerate way in which he deals with Darwin’s ideas, and in the notices
of so many of his scientific friends, whom we feel that he was interested in
as men, and not only as scientific inquirers. The sweetness and charity,
which we remember so well in living converse, is always on the lookout for
some pleasant feature in the people of whom he writes, and to give
kindliness and equity to his judgment.
And what a life of labors it was! I am perfectly aghast at the amount of
grinding work of which these papers are the indirect evidence....
For they [his religious views] were a most characteristic part of the man,
and the seriousness and earnest conviction with which he let them be
known had, I am convinced, a most wholesome effect on the development
of the great scientific theory in which he was so much interested. It took off
a great deal of the theological edge, which was its danger, both to those who
upheld and those who opposed it. I am sure things would have gone more
crossly and unreasonably, if his combination of fearless religion and
clearness of mind, and wise love of truth, had not told on the controversy.

TO J. D. HOOKER.

Cambridge,
June 9, 1884.
Your last is of May 24th from the Camp, and gives us on the whole
better accounts of your invalids. Bentham at Boultibrooke! I wonder if he
would care to have letters from me, or from Mrs. Gray, to whom he wrote a
treasure of a note on the New Year. We had an idea it might only worry
him....
I wish we could see you at the Camp and among the heather, and I wish I
could form a clear conception of just how you are placed, taking the
Rotherys’ house as a point of departure.
 We give you up as to America this year. I would not have you and Lady
Hooker just run over here for a call; it would be too provoking. Well, let us
plan for January or February next, and Mexico, Arizona, and southern
California.
“Man never is, but always to be blest.”
The Joad herbarium was a real bonanza....
I must tell of our two weeks’ run, Mrs. Gray and I. We left the too tardy
spring here, one evening; were the next noon in Washington, where the
spring was in full force and beauty. After two days, left Washington one
morning, followed up the Potomac River to its very rise in the Alleghanies,
and down on to Mississippi waters before dark; woke near Cincinnati, had a
pleasant day’s journey to St. Louis, which we reached before sunset. There
had five days, rather busy ones; thence a journey of thirty-six hours, over
prairies of Illinois and Indiana to Buffalo, and to New York city; there two
days, and then home.[127] Mrs. Gray, thus away from household cares and a
rough air, dropped her cough altogether; and what you would think a
tiresome piece of journeying brought us both home much refreshed....
You remember Henry Shaw, his park and Missouri botanic garden. The
old fellow is now eighty-four. Something induced him to ask my advice,
and to let me know the very ample fortune with which he is to endow the
garden, when he dies. I was in doubt whether all this was likely to be quite
wasted, or was in condition to be turned to good account for botany and
horticulture when Mr. Shaw leaves it and his trust comes to be executed. I
wished also to see that dear old Engelmann’s herbarium should be properly
and permanently preserved. So I went on to St. Louis. Mr. Shaw took me
into his counsel and, without going here into details, without seeing a
chance for doing much while Mr. Shaw lives, which cannot be very long, I
see there is a grand opportunity coming, and I think that none of the
provisions he has made will hinder the right development of the
Mississippian Kew, which will hardly be “Kew in a corner.” And if he
follows my advice and mends some matters, there will be a grand
foundation laid.
We are expecting Ball toward the end of the month. He will have time to
travel and botanize before the Montreal meeting. But I can’t go with him,
nor, perhaps, could I much help him....
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