378 SECOND JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1850, 
able to walk without difficulty ; and to-day, just four 
weeks after the accident, | have begun to work at 
plants again, in Sir William Hooker’s herbarium. 
But my side is still tender, and my strength is not 
great. 
Having said thus much of my bodily condition, let 
me no longer delay to thank you heartily for the very 
unexpected compliment that you have caused to be 
paid me, and to ask you to convey, in fitting terms, my 
grateful acknowledgments to the Société de Physique 
et d’Histoire Naturelle, for the honor they have con- 
ferred upon me in choosing me as one of their cor- 
responding members. I was not aware that I had 
rendered any particular services to your society, but I 
shall be very glad to do so if any opportunity offers. 
Although, generally, I am far from coveting compli- 
ments of this kind, I assure you I am much pleased 
to be thus associated with several valued personal 
friends, my contemporaries, and with such highly 
honored names of the past generation. . 
We had eight weeks of most pleasant aid profitable 
labor at Pontrilas, and Mr. Bentham has rendered me 
invaluable assistance. 
Mrs. Gray joins me in the expression of kind re- 
membrances and regard to Madame De Candolle and 
yourself. 
Believe me to remain, ever most sincerely yours, 
Asa GRay. 
Since Dr. Gray was so near Sir William, and work- 
ing in the herbarium almost every day, there was much 
meeting of old friends, and of many of the men distin- 
guished in botany. Robert Brown, with his keen ob- 
servation and dry wit, he saw constantly at the British 
