. 62.] TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 643 



Your announcement leads me to expect soon the 

 new (and alas, last !) volume of the " Prodromus." 

 Well, it must give you a huge sense of relief to have 

 it off your hands ; something like the relief I now 

 feel at the termination, at the close of thirty-one years, 

 of my professorial duties, upon which you felicitate 

 me. On account of a summer course of instruction, 

 which I felt bound to initiate for my successor, I did not 

 really close my labors until the end of July. Since then 

 I have been able to work at systematic botany very 

 steadily. We took, my wife and I, a holiday of a 

 fortnight, in which we visited friends on the Hudson 

 River and its tributaries, at the close of September, 

 just as the foliage was beginning to display the bright 

 autumnal tints, which this year have been unusually 

 gorgeous, and have not yet disappeared, although the 

 leaves are now falling fast. The sight is most enjoy- 

 able to me in the earlier autumn, when the verdure 

 still prevails and makes a setting for the red, yellow, 

 and russet. 



I am now deep in the Composite for the " Califor- 

 nia Flora " of my friend Brewer, and so am trying 

 Bentham's work. It generally holds good, wonder- 

 fully so, considering its extent, and the comparatively 

 short time he took for it. 



Your agreeable volume of " Miscellanies ' is now 

 in the hands of your old friend and my neighbor, 

 Jules Marcou ; who asked to borrow it, having been 

 unable to purchase a copy. It is reported out of print. 

 I think I sent you a light article I wrote for the 

 " Nation " last summer, I believe in June, in which 

 I gave an abstract of your essay on the Dominant 

 Language of the Twentieth Century. It has attracted 

 considerable attention. I see that those who have 



