742 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1883, 



you have turned your opportunities to full account, 

 winning no end of gratitude and admiration. Now, 

 do take the relaxation and repose which you have so 

 completely earned ; and take, as you may, great sat- 

 isfaction and pride in all you have accomplished. 

 At least your many friends will do so. ... 



I did hope to have got to the end of the Compositae 

 with the end of 1882 ; bnt I shall hardly do more 

 than finish the Helenioideae. As I go on, I study all 

 Mexican border things, at least these of our North 

 American collectors. 



My health is excellent ; so I may fairly hope to get 

 the North American Compositae off my hands and in 

 print, barring accidents, and I shall be careful of my 

 bones, and other contingencies. . . . 



TO J. D. HOOKER. 



May 1, 1883. 



... I have not read Carlyle's Life, by Froude, but 

 many articles, in which of course the points are 

 mostly given. All seem to agree that Froude has 

 blackened the memory of Carlyle irrecoverably, or 

 rather with rude hand wiped off the whitewash which 

 covered the blackness. He was a rude, unkempt soul. 

 From the extracts I have seen, I fancy that Mrs. Car- 

 lyle's letters beat Carlyle's all out for raciness and 

 pith. 



I am content with the Romane correspondence as 

 R. leaves it, and pleased with Romane's tone, which 

 I will try to tell him. 



I think his first reply was a " beating of the air." 

 And for that reason I returned to the charge. His 

 second is to the purpose. And he seems to feel that 

 mine was to the purpose also. 



