^T. 43.] TO CHARLES WRIGHT. 405 



English characters into Latin, is a tedious job ; then 

 to read his proofs is another. But if I did not do all 

 this, very bad work indeed would be made of it. Late 

 in October Mrs. Gray and I went to New York for a 

 week, to visit Torrey and to see the New York Exhi- 

 bition. Returning, I had to bear my part in a course 

 of lectures, which the American Academy gave to the 

 public (to replenish our publication funds) ; and to 

 prepare and deliver my two lectures, on the relations 

 of plants to the sun, cost me almost the whole of 

 November. 



Sprague is too slow, and too feeble in health, to 

 do half what I want done, let alone others. I must 

 import an additional draughtsman. If you know any 

 in Germany good enough, who would come out, let me 

 know at once. If not, I must try at Paris. . . . 



TO CHARLES WEIGHT. 



May 21, 1853. 



The Kurile Islands will be a fine field ; and I hope 

 you can do much among them. Collect some speci- 

 mens of everything you see there. ... 



Camebidgb, February 19, 1854. 

 Sinner that I am, I have four letters of yours un- 

 answered ; the last from Simon's Bay, November 4th. 

 The fact is I do not find time to write half the letters 

 I ought, and those, like yours, which are not to be 

 dispatched on some particular day, I am sure to post- 

 pone and neglect interminably. It seems so vague, 

 too, to be writing to a man, you know not where, 

 somewhere on the other side of the world, and you 

 know not when the epistle may reach him, say six 

 months hence. 



