.GT. 51.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 487 



against Richmond, is not yet clear. Anyway we have 

 got to put shoulder to the wheel anew, and it may be 

 done, we suppose, more easily and far more promptly 

 than last year. All we ask is that Europe shall let 

 us alone. 



Enough for to-day. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I., July 29, 1862. 



No more news in the orchids line. I am making 

 two or three days of holiday, and yesterday I found a 

 few specimens of Gymnadenia tridentata. But the 

 flowers are too small to examine well with a hand 

 lens. If they keep, I will take them back to Cam- 

 bridge in a day or two and see what to make of 

 them. . . . 



As to the country, you will see by this time that we 

 have not the least idea of abandoning the struggle. 

 We have learned only that there is no use trying any 

 longer to pick up our eggs gently, very careful not to 

 break any. The South forces us at length to do 

 what it would have, been more humane to have done 

 from the first, i. e., to act with vigor, not to say 

 rigor. 



We shall be complained of for our savageness, no 

 doubt, whereas we feel that our error has been all the 

 other way. But the independence, the total indiffer- 

 ence to English feeling which you recommended last 

 year, has come at length ; now we care nothing what 

 Mrs. Grundy says. 



CAMBRIDGE, September 22, 1862. 



Your pleasant epistles of August 21 and Septem- 

 ber 4 are to be acknowledged, with thanks. But I 

 have nothing in particular to communicate, except 



