458 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1860, 



The chapter on Hybridism is not a weak, but a 

 strong chapter. You have done wonders there. But 

 still you have not accounted, as you may be held to 

 account, for divergence up to a certain extent pro- 

 ducing increased fertility of the crosses, but carried 

 one short, almost imperceptible, step more, giving rise 

 to sterility, or reversing the tendency. Very likely 

 you are on the right track 5 but you have something 

 to do yet in that department. 



Enough for the present. 



I am not insensible to your compliments, the very 

 high compliment which you pay me in valuing my 

 opinion. You evidently think more of it than I do, 

 though from the way I write to you, and especially to 

 Hooker, this might not be inferred from the reading 

 of my letters. 



I am free to say that I never learnt so much from 

 one book as I have from yours. There remain a thou- 

 sand things I long to say about it. 



Ever yours, ASA GRAY. 



TO CHARLES L. BRACE. 



1861 (?) 



DEAR BRACE, I should criticise various things in 

 your last " Times " article, if you were here to talk it 

 over with me. 



If you expected Huxley to do what you criticise him 

 for not doing, you would naturally be disappointed. 

 His merit, and his way as a lecturer, is to select some 

 good topic or point of view and make a clear exposi- 

 tion of it, the clearness of which very much depends 

 upon his not scattering himself over too much ground. 

 He naturally kept himself to matters he could handle 

 well, and let alone those upon which, as we very well 

 know, he had nothing in particular to say. 



