458 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. (1860, 
The chapter on Hybridism is not a weak, but a 
strong chapter. You have done wonders there. But 
still you have not accounted, as you may be held to 
account, for divergence up to a certain extent pro- 
ducing increased fertility of the crosses, but carried 
one short, almost imperceptible, step more, giving rise 
to sterility, or reversing the tendency. Very likely 
you are on the right track; but you have something 
to do yet in that department. 
Enough for the present. 
I am not insensible to your compliments, the very 
high compliment which you pay me in valuing my 
opinion. You evidently think more of it than I do, 
though from the way I write to you, and especially to 
Hooker, this might not be inferred from the reading 
of my letters. 
I am free to say that I never learnt so much from 
one book as I have from yours. There remain a thou- 
sand things I long to say about it. 
Ever yours, Asa GRAY. 
TO CHARLES L. BRACE. 
1861 (?) 
Dear Brace,—I should criticise various things in 
your last “Times” article, if you were here to talk it 
over with me. 
If you expected Huxley to do what you criticise him 
for not doing, you would naturally be disappointed. 
His merit, and his way as a lecturer, is to select some 
good topic or point of view and make a clear exposi- 
tion of it, the clearness of which very much depends 
upon his not scattering himself over too much ground. 
He naturally kept himself to matters he could handle 
well, and let alone those upon which, as we very well 
know, he had nothing in particular to say. 
