It has happened that I have visited Europe every eleven years. According to that you should see me next year! I cannot promise; but I am always affectionately yours,
Asa Gray.
TO R. W. CHURCH.
November 11, 1879.
I forgot to ask if you, or your friend Lord Blachford, knew Arthur James Balfour, M. P., author of “A Defense of Philosophic Doubt,” published recently by Macmillan?
It is the most masterly essay I have seen of late years, and I should like to know who the man is, and what you think of his book.
I have been drawn into promising, in an unguarded moment, to give two lectures to the theological class of Yale College (our oldest university after Harvard) some time in the course of the winter, on Science and Religion; a topic which calls for wise speaking. I am not very hopeful, but still I have an idea I may do some good. I wish you were in reach, that we might talk over the subject....
TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
Cambridge, January 1, 1880.
My dear De Candolle,—Though I have entered on the seventieth year of my age, I hold out well, and when other cares do not interrupt, I go on with the “Compositæ,” yet all too slowly. Before I print them I shall hope to have another inspection of some of the species of the “Prodromus” in your herbarium; perhaps before this year 1880 is out, yet it is rather doubtful. I get on slowly, and then Mr. Watson, who will have the “Flora of California” off his hands as soon as he can get the manuscript of the “Gramineæ” out of Professor Thurber’s hands, must have a vacation ramble, probably to Oregon. If he leaves here in the spring, I must wait his return here in the autumn, or at most cannot leave home until after midsummer; too late to render myself at Geneva, I suppose.