The five hundred copies which I printed in 1878 are gone. And, as I have to print new copies, I take the opportunity to correct on the stereotype plates when I can,—a great lot of wrong references to volume, page, plates,—that is, such as we have found out. What a bother they are, and how impossible to make correct in the first place, and to keep so through the printer’s hands! Then there are lots of important corrections to make, and new species and genera galore.
So,—in an evil moment, you will say—I set about a supplement to this new issue,—also of the other part. For, as I have now brought out in the two parts all the Gamopetalæ, and as I begin to doubt if I shall hold out to accomplish much more, I thought it best to leave behind at least these in good state. But it is no small job. And this, with the great amount of herbarium work that goes along with it, or beside it, just uses up the summer; for I dare guess it will keep me occupied all September....
The last news of you is a letter from your dear wife to mine,—giving such a pleasant picture of the two boys, and of your enjoyment of them. You say you are quite well, and Lady Hooker much the same,—which is comforting. But you are naturally growing older, like myself. I tire sooner than I used to do, and have not so sure a touch nor so good a memory. The daily grind we both find more wearing....
We should like to come over to you once more,—but it seems less and less practicable; unless I become actually unfit for work, and then I shall not be worth seeing....
Your affectionate old friend,
A. Gray.
Old, indeed; the president of the Naturæ Curiosorum wrote me on August 3 that I have been one of the curious for fifty years.
Dr. Gray wrote a notice of Charles Wright for the “American Journal of Science,” in which he says that “Charles Wright was born at Wethersfield, Connecticut; graduated at Yale in 1835. Had an early love for botany, which may have taken him to the South as a teacher in Mississippi, whence he went to Texas, joining the early immigration, and occupied himself botanizing and surveying, and then again in teaching. He accompanied various expeditions, and no name is more largely commemorated in the botany of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona than Charles Wright. It is an acanthaceous genus of this district, of his own discovery, that bears the name of Carlowrightia. Surely no botanist ever better earned such scientific remembrance by entire devotion, acute observation, severe exertion, and perseverance under hardship and privation.” He was engaged later for several years “in his prolific exploration of Cuba.”
“Mr. Wright was a person of low stature and well-knit frame, hardy rather than strong, scrupulously temperate, a man of simple ways, always modest and unpretending, but direct and downright in expression, most amiable, trusty, and religious. He accomplished a great amount of useful and excellent work for botany in the pure and simple love of it; and his memory is held in honorable and grateful remembrance by his surviving associates.”[135]
TO JOHN H. REDFIELD.
Cambridge, November 3, 1885.