To-day when I go down town I shall subscribe for the “New York Observer” for you, and pay for a year. The “Observer” and the “Evangelist” are both excellent papers, and I hardly know which to choose. I would send the “Evangelist,” did not Mr. Leavitt fill it up too much with anti-slavery. One should if possible read both.
I am now boarding at 286 Bleeker Street, but when you write to me you may direct as before, as I am at Dr. Torrey’s a part of almost every day. I have a very comfortable and quiet place, for which I pay $4 per week, and keep a fire besides, which I suppose will startle you a little. I hope to obtain the situation of curator to the Lyceum of Natural History in the spring, when their new building is finished. The duties of the situation will take up only a part of my time. I shall have under my charge the best scientific library and cabinet in the city, a couple of fine rooms to live in, and a salary of about $300. But although I can secure pretty strong influence, the best members of the society offering me the place and wishing me to take it, yet it is not certain that we shall bring it about, so I say nothing about it. I shall let you know whenever any changes offer in my situation.
TO JOHN TORREY.
New York, July 11, 1836.
Dear Doctor,—Since your departure several memoranda of more or less consequence have accumulated around me, and (having not yet heard from you) I will now communicate them, together with whatever intelligence I think will interest you. To begin with the most important. I have now (5 P.M.) just returned from your house, where I found a parcel for you (received by mail from Philadelphia, postage the mere trifle of $1.14-1/2), with the Hamburg seal, and the handwriting of our old correspondent, Professor Lehmann. Suspecting it to contain advice of packages of plants or books, I took the liberty to open it. I found two diplomas in high Dutch. Shade of Leopoldino-Carolineæ Cæsar. academiæ naturæ curiosorum! Hide your diminished head, and give way to the Königliche Botanische Gesellschaft in Regensburg!—which being interpreted means, I imagine, the Royal Botanical Society of Regensburg. Now I know as little of Regensburg and the Regensburg people who have done us such honor as a certain old lady did of the famous King of Prussia; but I ratherly think it means Ratisbon....
Box of plants and box of bones are here; the plants certainly look the more antediluvian of the two. The specimens are wretched and mostly devoid of interest. The bones will be served up at the Lyceum this evening.... On the same day last week I received a letter from Dewey,[32] and another from Carey, and according to both their accounts they must have been in raptures with each other. Dewey sends love to friend Torrey, and Carey kind regards to Dr. and Mrs. T. Dewey says Carey is rather savage upon species, and where Carey has not given him a favorable opinion upon any, it would amuse you to see how Dewey has detailed them to me, in order if possible to save the poor creatures’ lives. Dewey has a good spirit and is altogether a most estimable man, and I am sorry that we have to pull down any of his work. I must write him a few things, that it may not come upon him all at once....
Yours truly,
A. Gray.
TO W. J. HOOKER.
New York, April 7, 1836.
Dear Sir,—I take the opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your two kind letters, which reached me a few weeks since nearly at the same time, one by the Liverpool packet and the other by the Lady Hannah Ellice. Allow me also to thank you for the trouble you have taken in naming the set of mosses, and especially for the beautiful parcel of British mosses you were so good as to send me, which were truly welcome. All British plants are so, as I have next to none in my herbarium; but nothing could be more acceptable than such a complete and authentic suit of the mosses of your country.