TO CHARLES DARWIN.
Cambridge, September 27, 1877.
My dear Darwin,—Returning from our ten and a half weeks of travel, which has been every way prospered and pleasant, I find your book.[104] I can now barely thank you for it, and for the great compliment of the dedication. I must not open it till Hooker leaves me, a week hence, the work we have to do before we part being so great and pressing. Then I shall turn to it, with enjoyment, and as soon as I can find time I must notice or review it.
Hooker sends his love; is very glad Cohn has taken up your son’s experiments on Dipsacus, which reminds me to send my best thanks to him for the copy addressed to me. For perusal, even for a glance, that, too, must wait till we have worked up the collections and observations we have made in our journey to the Pacific.
Let me add, being sure of your sympathy, that our poor dog Max peacefully breathed his last to-day, after a happy life of twelve or thirteen years. We are glad he lived till we returned, and greeted us with his absorbing and touching affection. In a few days came a partial paralysis, some convulsions, and then a quiet and seemingly painless ending. He is immortalized in your book on Expression, and will live in the memory of his attached master and mistress.
Max was a black and tan terrier, not remarkable in any way for beauty or intelligence, but interesting from his warm affection and the power it had in developing his intelligence. To be near and to please his beloved master was enough for him. Anything his master did was right and to be submitted to. Max had conscience, but it did not restrain him from showing his vexation when left at home, by throwing Dr. Gray’s hat and gloves, etc., on the floor; but his shame and penitence always betrayed him. It seemed as if the joy of his master’s return had killed him.
Dr. Gray’s next pet was a very small puppy; so small that for the first few months Dr. Gray would drop him into his pocket when calling on certain friends. He was said to be a Japanese terrier, and grew to be a great beauty, with long, white, curling hair (with some black markings) to the tips of his ears and toes, and a tail like a plume, curling over his back, all so fluffy he was given the name of Puff. Dr. Gray always called him a “little pagan dog,” because, he said, his conscience was so unequally developed. But though willful and obstinate, with great self-sufficiency, he was very attractive. It was a piece of his mischief as a puppy that called out the following letter from his master to Rev. G. F. Wright.
TO G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.
Cambridge, December 11, 1878.
Rev. Sir,—Will you be so good as to accept a puppy’s penitent apologies for his naughtiness, and a new pair of rubbers in place of those which I wickedly destroyed, because it was “my nature to” at the time you last visited my master. I wish you to know that I am as sorry for it as I am capable of being, that I have been punished as well as scolded, and that the cost of the rubbers has been stopped out of my allowance.