566 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1868, 
TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 
Down, Bromuey, Kent, October 29, 1868. 
In all these busy days I have neglected your kind 
letter of October 6, partly in the expectation that I 
might be able to announce to you definitely the time 
we should reach Paris. I can even now only say that 
we expect to be there between the 15th and the 20th 
of November, and I think we shall have just about 
those days (15-20) in Paris. If we can meet, very 
pleasant it will be; but I dare hardly expect it. My 
own and Mrs. Gray’s parcels for you shall be left at 
Masson’s in case we do not see you. I am making, 
with Mrs. Gray, a pleasant week of holiday, most of 
it here with Mr. Darwin, whose health just now is, 
for him, remarkably good. 
I mean to keep you apprised of our movements ; 
and we may, by some nice adjustments, meet in Ger- 
many. At least, and best of all, in Switzerland, which 
we shall be likely to reach at midsummer. But I 
have matured no plans for anything beyond the winter. 
I should like to visit Montpellier and to see 
Planchon, but we shall, when we reach the Mediter- 
ranean, be attached to a party, time will be short, and 
our movements no longer free, 
Bentham is working at Kew with his accustomed 
regularity and diligence. Hooker’s time is much 
occupied with matters of administration. .. . 
It must be a great satisfaction to you, that your 
son not only takes to botany, but shows so great talent. 
I hope the line may not fail, but that De Candolle 
botanists may flourish in the next century as they have 
in the nineteenth. .. . 
The death of Horace Mann, mentioned in the next 
