662 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1876, 
TO R. W. CHURCH. 
August 5, 1876. 
It is very good of you to write to me. I was about 
to drop you a line by the next post, when yours of the 
21st came in. 
My special object was to tell you that I have just 
had addressed to you, through the New York publish- 
ers, a little book, made up of scattered papers on Dar- 
winian topics, which some of my friends thought it 
might be useful to collect. I somewhat mistrust their 
judgment, but have yielded to their request. There 
is nothing new in the volume, except a short essay on 
the hypothetical duration of species, and a rather long 
one at the end, upon teleology as affected by evolu- 
tion, which I should be glad to have you read, and 
should like to know whether you think it hits the 
mark, 
I have no idea who P. C. W. and the Westminster 
Reviewer may be, but I suspect they are one and the 
same. If you should know, please inform me. 
Yes, it has been warm enough, and it was ae 
so for twelve days. Mrs. Gray rushed to the sea- 
shore at Beverly ; but I mainly stayed at home, kept 
out of the sun all I could, and rather enjoyed the heat 
than otherwise. But at the end I broke down; came 
all at once upon the novel sensation of being an old 
man. And so we hastened up and concluded an ar- 
rangement which had been left loosely and vaguely — 
under consideration, viz., to revisit for myself, and to 
introduce Mrs. Gray to, the higher Alleghanies in Vir- 
ginia, Carolina, and Tennessee, where I used to roam 
and botanize more than thirty years ago. We expect 
to set out in two or three weeks. It is not Switzer- 
land, but it is a region of mountains, dells, and rills, 
