178 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



written a notice for it, which will appear next week. Prof. 

 Gibbs has promised me a notice in Silliman's Journal and 

 Mr. Quincy in the Atlantic Monthly. I am making interest 

 also in several other quarters, so you see things are slowly 

 moving along. 



As for myself, I am not at all well. I had a week or two 

 ago an attack of neuralgia of the chest, accompanied with 

 high fever and other distressing symptoms, and since that 

 time have been troubled with dizziness and loss of ordinary 

 strength. As my work in town is nearly done, I shall 

 leave for Saratoga in a few days, hoping to recover my 

 wonted tone by exercise in the bracing country air. The 

 prospect of getting to England soon is not very encourag- 

 ing, as the rate of exchange is frightfully high. 



The last number of Biology delights me, as did all its 

 predecessors. We must issue it as soon as our volume is 

 completed, and you had better keep duplicate plates of the 

 remainder. . . . 



As regards the obstacles in the way of our going to 

 England, I am rather glad of it, for though I should like 

 greatly to avail myself of the intellectual advantages of the 

 London season, yet I am well content to forego them if I 

 can accomplish the important work with which I am occu- 

 pied. I am certain that I can in no way so effectively pro- 

 mote the true interests of the American people as by bring- 

 ing these works before them and urging public opinion to 

 them at the present time. The effects of the war are far 

 more profound than is generally realized. Whatever be the 

 political results, there is a mental emancipation to which 

 this generation has been a stranger. The great slave sys- 

 tem, intrenched in conservatism, and the natural ally of 

 everything old, superstitious, arbitrary, and barbarous the 

 sworn foe of all liberty of thought and expression, all re- 

 form and progress, and ruling us first through the Govern- 

 ment, and then, by a thousand pressures, commercially, for 



