566 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1868, 



TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 

 DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT, October 29, 1868. 



In all these busy days I have neglected your kind 

 letter of October 6, partly in the expectation that I 

 might be able to announce to you definitely the time 

 we should reach Paris. I can even now only say that 

 we expect to be there between the 15th and the 20th 

 of November, and I think we shall have just about 

 those days (1520) in Paris. If we can meet, very 

 pleasant it will be ; but I dare hardly expect it. My 

 own and Mrs. Gray's parcels for you shall be left at 

 Masson's in case we do not see you. I am making, 

 with Mrs. Gray, a pleasant week of holiday, most of 

 it here with Mr. Darwin, whose health just now is, 

 for him, remarkably good. 



I mean to keep you apprised of our movements ; 

 and we may, by some nice adjustments, meet in Ger- 

 many. At least, and best of all, in Switzerland, which 

 we shall be likely to reach at midsummer. But I 

 have matured no plans for anything beyond the winter. 



... I should like to visit Montpellier and to see 

 Planchon, but we shall, when we reach the Mediter- 

 ranean, be attached to a party, time will be short, and 

 our movements no longer free. 



Bentham is working at Kew with his accustomed 

 regularity and diligence. Hooker's time is much 

 occupied with matters of administration. . . . 



It must be a great satisfaction to you, that your 

 son not only takes to botany, but shows so great talent. 

 I hope the line may not fail, but that De Candolle 

 botanists may flourish in the next century as they have 

 in the nineteenth. . . . 



The death of Horace Mann, mentioned in the next 



