496 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1863, 
last was eighty-five days old! Indeed, you ought to 
have had it then... . 
TO CHARLES DARWIN. 
January 27, 1863. 
I have been far too busy to write letters; have 
been interrupted, too, by visitors, ete. . 
You “wish to heaven the North aia iat hate us 
so.” We equally wish the English did not hate us so. 
Perhaps we exaggerate the ill will in England against 
us. You certainly over-estimate that of the United 
States against England, which an influential part of 
your press exaggerates and incites for the worst pur- 
poses. But, after all, after the first flurry, we think 
and say very little about you, and shall live in peace 
with you, if you will let us. There should have been, 
and might have been, the most thorough good will be- 
tween us. I do not think it is all our fault that it is 
not so. 
In reply to your question : — 
If oak and beech had large, colored corolla, ete., I 
know of no reason why it would be reckoned a low 
form, but the contrary, quite. But we have no basis 
for high or low in any class, say, dicotyledons, ex- 
cept perfection of development or the contrary in 
the floral organs, and even the envelopes; and as we 
know these may be reduced to any degree in any order 
or group, we have really, that I know of, no philoso- 
phical basis for high and low. Moreover, the vege- 
table kingdom does not culminate, as the animal 
kingdom does. It is not a kingdom, but a common- 
wealth; a democracy, and therefore puzzling and un- 
accountable from the former point of view. 
I have just read De Candolle’s paper on oaks and 
