July 3.
... So there is war on the Continent; really a war “for empire,” as Lord Russell said our war was. Now our war was a simple necessity; this Continental one a crime, in which all parties participate. I wish, but do not expect, Prussia to be crushed as one result. I wish all her coast could be annexed to Denmark! However, it is no affair of ours, being on the other side of the Atlantic. And when a nation can get strength and power by robbery, it will be likely to rob.
August 7.
... You should study Wyman’s observations in his own papers. He is always careful to keep his inferences close to his facts, and is as good an experimenter, I judge, as he is an observer. He has a new series of observations to publish. I think that he has not at all pronounced in favor of spontaneous generation, but I will bet on his experiments against Pasteur, any day.
TO CHARLES WRIGHT.
November 23.
You may well complain that I neglect you. But—
1. I had, till now, nothing special to write.
2. I have been daily expecting to hear from Grisebach, and have sheets to send you, or the copies via Westermann. But not a bit of it yet. The conquest of Hanover by the Prussians seems to have annihilated Grisebach.
3. I have been, am so—busy is not the word for it. I can’t think of any to express it. I suppose that I have now lying by me more than fifty unanswered letters, though I keep answering the most pressing as fast nearly as they come in. But the rest get neglected, inevitably. I read your letters and follow your work in Cuba with interest. I want you to get all the plants you can (but I see not that you can exhaust Cuba), and then come and settle down here, and work up, as you only can, a nice Flora Cubana. That you are bound to do, just as I am to do the Flora of North America. I see some faint prospect that I may yet, and before very long, be able to sit down to it. But you and I are bound to do these two things yet!...