A SUBJECT FOR NORWICH 115 



I get more and more unhappy about the Address as the 

 time draws on. Nothing on earth would induce me to do a 

 thing so damned indelicate as to force such a position on an 

 unwilling soul. Science might go to the Devil before I would 

 do so by an enemy even. You see I am working up myself 

 to the starting point. 



I have often thought of a History of great steps in Botany, 

 but it would take a deal of reading, and I have no time for 

 any, and then when we came down to later years I should 

 offend everybody. And after all, should a President's 

 Address be a * scientific thesis ' ? I think not. Who ever 

 consulted such addresses, or regarded such as authorities ? 



Finally, as the pressure of admini strati ve work at Kew 

 orbade any more recondite study, he fell back on the Dar- 

 winian interests that engaged him as his main theme, with 

 >thers that were specially topical. 



To Charles Darwin 



July 12, 1868. 



If I cannot get to Down before you go to the Isle of Wight, 

 do you think that I might see you there for a day in August ? 

 I shudder at the thoughts of bringing you my Address and 

 at the same time cannot bear the cowardice of not doing so. 



I have utterly broken down in every attempt to compose 

 a solemn scientific harangue, or a philosophical resume of 

 the progress of Botany, or a dilatation on the correlation 

 of Botany with other sciences. I cannot possibly give the 

 three clear weeks of continuous application that such subjects 

 demand, and I am going to say so. I have sketched out a 

 sort of see-saw discourse on several subjects that are germane 

 to the Association and the Norwich Meeting par excellence : 

 some of them are practical (as Museums), others theoretical, 

 as the influence of your labors on Botany — and Pangenesis 

 (God help it) — others touch ' Tom Tiddler's Ground,' as 

 the early history of mankind apropos of religious teaching 

 and the International Prehistoric Congress, which part I 

 feel convinced you will advise me to burn if I read it to you, 

 which is hence doubtful, as I shan't burn it, but will read it 

 if I burn for it. I do not intend to show any part of the 

 Address to my wife, from the conviction that she would burn 



