364 THE RETUEN FROM INDIA 



and out I feel the great climacteric passed, and look back 

 upon life after the fashion that people are described as doing 

 after marriage, or the birth of their first child at latest,but as I 

 do not after either of these occasions. I am greatly pleased 

 for my wife's sake too, who took infinite pains with it, and 

 but for whom it would have been a very differently rated 

 book I fear. ^ 



Nevertheless, working out results in so many other directions 

 proved a heavy distraction from his prime task in Botany, 

 and he exclaims to Bentham : 



Catch me at Quizzical Geography, Geology, and Meteorology 

 again if you can ; they have afforded me much amusement 

 and instruction and wonderful pleasure ; for I have always 

 felt a keen pleasure in practical philosophy, tools and tables 

 of logarithms, and now that I have said my say and added 

 my quota to the heap, I think the wisest thing I can do is 

 to leave it for work that is more expected of me.^ 



The one fly in the ointment was the extreme parsimony 

 of the East India Company : 



I have had a fight with them [he tells Bentham in August 

 1855] about discount upon the Himalayan book ; which 

 would have left me out of pocket £30 by the copies they did 

 me the honour of subscribing for, and I pitched them a letter 

 that they could not say no to, telling them that they did not 

 behave so in another case to which they were subscribing 

 (Gould), and they were the only subscribers I had, public 

 or private, who asked for 15 per cent, discount on their 

 subscription. So much for my growls. 



A variety of other occupations helped to fill up these years. 

 Preparations for the Great Exhibition of 1851 were well afoot 

 by the time of his return to England. His services were 

 immediately secured as a Juror in the Botanical section and 



^ For this practical turn compare his description (to Berkeley the micro- 

 scopist, 1854) of the Microscopical Society Soiree, ' where nothing short of a 

 double-barrelled, revolving, etc., etc., instrument is thought worth notice. 

 I saw some astonishingly pretty things, but the whole view is too kaleidoscopic 

 for me. I never feel satisfied as to what I see if I have not poked at it pre- 

 viously with my own fingers.' 



