MT. 41.] TO CHARLES WRIGHT. 389 



Dr. Gray was an immense worker. After his 

 morning mail was received and looked over, that 

 lie might answer any imperative questions, he took 

 daylight for his scientific work, and, with pauses 

 for meals, and the necessary interruptions that 

 came at times, he kept steadily on all the day. He 

 wrote his letters and his elementary botanical works 

 mostly in the evening. But in his younger days his 

 eyes were unusually strong, and he would work with 

 the microscope by lamp-light as readily as by day- 

 light. 



Though a steady and unwearying worker he was 

 not rapid. He would throw aside sheet after sheet to 

 be rewritten, especially if there was anything he 

 wished to make particularly clear and strong, or 

 any reasoning to be worked out from the soundest 

 point of view. It was always a wonder to those 

 about him that he could stand as he did the unceasing 



o 



labor, but he was a sound sleeper even if the hours 

 might be short, and of a vigorous, wiry, active tempera- 

 ment, and when he did take a holiday, he took it heart- 

 ily. His rest and recreation were in journeys, longer 

 or shorter, and every two or three years some long 

 outing would be taken, to give him the needed re- 

 freshment. But he must always be busy even then, 

 somewhere to go, something to see ; rest in quiet 

 seemed impossible to him for more than a day at a 

 time. 



TO CHARLES WRIGHT. 



CAMBRIDGE, January 23, 1852. 



I am printing on " Plants Wrightianse," the first 

 part of which (as I work in so much general matter, 

 especially Tex-Mexican), to the end of Composite, will 



