512 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1863, 
for miles and miles, i. e., no hardship, except any that 
a drunken laborer might bring on his family; and I 
longed to take you out with us in our drives, that you 
might see a happy and comfortable country, more and 
more so every year, and perhaps a larger ratio of the 
population refined to a reasonable degree in feeling and 
life than I know of in any other part of the world. 
I will consider about fantastic variation of pigeons. 
I see afar trouble enough ahead quoad design in na- 
ture, but have managed to keep off the chilliness by 
giving the knotty questions a rather wide berth. If 
I rather avoid, I cannot ignore the difficulties ahead. 
But if I adopt your view bodily, can you promise me 
any less difficulties ? 
If your Lythrum paper shall be at all equal in in- 
terest to that on Linun, it will be a gem. 
As to tendrils, what are Hooker and Oliver (the 
latter a professor, too) about, and where have they 
lived not to know anything of them? Everybody 
must have seen, in Cucurbitaceze and Passiflora, ten- 
drils reaching out straight for a certain time, and 
then, if they reach — coiling up from the end. 
Also the sweeping of stem 
P.S. [To the above ?] “Thies numbers of Boston 
newspapers recently sent you, two by this mail (in 
which my good beau-pére is again “ spiking the Eng- 
lish”), please to forward to Reuben Harvey, Esq., 
Limerick, Ireland. 
You are quite out in supposing that hatred of Eng- 
land is increasing, or that there is the least desire to 
meddle with you, except in self-defense. 
My own feelings were very sensitive at first, because 
I expected better things, and I then deferred much 
to British opinion. I now do neither, and nothing 
