In fact, the fund raised for the support of the herbarium (nearly $11,000) has been till very lately retained in the hands of the gentleman who took charge of raising it, in the form of a good investment, and is now at length made over to the corporation of the university in trust. Your £5 I turned in at the time when exchange was at the highest (i. e., our currency most depreciated), so it figures as fifty dollars,—quite a sum,—and for it, as for the rest of the capital, we get, up to 1881, six per cent per annum in gold, if the United States government lasts. And we now feel confident enough of that.
Your letters are always very pleasant to us, and that of to-day is very gratifying.
Yes, we, too, should not have said this was the way in which we would have had slavery destroyed,—by no means. We wished it by a slow process which would have cost no life, injured no property, but benefited all as it went on. But our misguided Southern brethren would have it otherwise, and so it was. And it is something to be glad of, after all, that it was done in our day, and we think thoroughly. I take a weekly newspaper, the “Nation,” which is on the plan of the “Spectator” and the “Saturday Review,” etc., but we have few good paragraph-writers, and our best writers will not write. But this paper may interest you, at least in the letters of its correspondent traveling in the South. I post some numbers to your address, and I will send some more if you care to see them. Otherwise the numbers are thrown aside, for I do not keep them.
Even here we have the same sort of liking for Palmerston which the mass of English have, and no better reason to give for it; and we look with a sort of fascinated interest upon Gladstone, and expect to see him premier before long, in a year or two, and we wonder how he will get on in so critical a position as he will be in. Goldwin Smith I met, but saw not very much of. He was in very delicate health. Fraser I did not see, though he was my father-in-law’s guest, and was very much liked by all. Both had troops of friends. Mrs. Gray and I were in the country when Fraser was at Mr. Loring’s house on the shore.
The short space left on my sheet must be all devoted to an earnest exhortation for you to follow your two friends’ example. Come over and see us, and make our quiet house your home, from which you can travel as much as you like and see the country in this interesting phase. Pray think of it seriously. The expense need not be great.
Mrs. Gray, with kindest remembrances, seconds my request, and wishes it extended to Mrs. Church.
Cordially yours,
Asa Gray.
TO CHARLES DARWIN.
May 15, 1865.
Your kind letter of the 19th ult. crossed a brief note from me. I am too much distracted with work at this season to write letters on our affairs, and if I once begin, I should not know where to stop. You have always been sympathizing and just, and I appreciate your hearty congratulations on the success of our just endeavors. You have since had much more to rejoice over, as well as to sorrow with us. But the noble manner in which our country has borne itself should give you real satisfaction. We appreciate, too, the good feeling of England in its hearty grief at the murder of Lincoln.