oe 
Ree at eee ee ee es 
x7. 51.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 487 
against Richmond, is not yet clear. Anyway we have 
got to put shoulder to the wheel anew, and it may be 
done, we suppose, more easily and far more promptly 
than last-year. All we ask is that Europe shall let 
us alone. 
Enough for to-day. 
Provivence, R. 1., July 29, 1862. 
No more news in the orchids line. I am making 
two or three days of holiday, and yesterday I found a 
few specimens of Gymnadenia tridentata. But the 
flowers are too small to examine well with a hand 
lens. If they keep, I will take them back to Cam- 
bridge in a day or two and see what to make of 
them. ... 
As to the country, you will see by this time that we 
have not the least idea of abandoning the struggle. 
We have learned only that there is no use trying any 
longer to pick up our eggs gently, very careful not to 
break any. The South forces us at length to do 
what it would have been more humane to have done 
from the first, i. e., to act with vigor, not to say 
rigor. 
We shall be complained of for our savageness, no 
doubt, whereas we feel that our error has been all the 
other way. But the independence, the total indiffer- 
ence to English feeling which you recommended last 
year, has come at length; now we care nothing what 
s. Grundy says. 
CAMBRIDGE, September 22, 1862. 
Your pleasant epistles of August 21 and Septem- 
ber 4 are to be acknowledged, with thanks. But I 
have nothing in particular to communicate, except 
