April 28, 1863.
Your kind letter of the 6th inst. and the photograph were received with more gratification than I can well express. Both your handwriting and your carte de visite show you to be well and strong, and, please God, long may you so continue.
Your face looks fuller than a dozen years ago, and a bit older, it may be, but it recalls your friendly and kindly expression, and is the best substitute I can have for not seeing you again.
What I wrote of our Nestor, Dr. Darlington, as about to be removed from us, has come to pass. The good old man died, after much suffering from a paralysis, on Wednesday last, the 22d, as a newspaper slip has apprised me. He had reached the age of eighty-one. Unless we continue to rank Dr. Bigelow among the botanists, Dr. Torrey, and even myself, now count among the most advanced in age.
I am most happy to tell you that Dr. Torrey, whom I lately saw in New York, and who last week looked in upon us here for a day, is quite well.
Mrs. Greene is cheerful and busy in carrying out her husband’s bequest and desires, in favor of the Boston Natural History Society, to whom he left his herbarium and botanical library.
By Professor George Bond, a colleague and neighbor of mine, our distinguished astronomer, and a most worthy, amiable, and modest person, whom I hope you may see, I sent out to you a photograph of F. A. Michaux and of Adrien de Jussieu, which I thought you might like, and which I have just had made from daguerreotypes which I induced them to sit for in Paris in 1851. Bond will be delighted to see Kew again with its vast improvements.
Ever, dear Sir William, yours affectionately,
Asa Gray.
TO MRS. THOMAS P. JAMES.