508 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1863, 



and so believing, I tliink your gradual way more likely 

 than Heer's jumps. 



Apropos to Heer, you ask me if it is not impossible 

 to imagine so many and nice coadaptations as we see 

 in orchids being formed all by a chance blow. 



I reply, Yes, perfectly impossible to imagine (and 

 much the same by any number of chance blows). 



So I turn the question back upon you. Is not the 

 fact that the coadaptations are so nice next to a 

 demonstration against their having been formed by 

 chance blows at all, one or many ? 



Here lies, I suppose, the difference between us. 

 When you bring me up to this point, I feel the cold 

 chiU. 



I have been doing nothing but attend to my daily 

 work, and had got so fagged that I really thought I 

 was about to have softening of the brain, or some other 

 breakdown. But a week of respite, caused by the 

 death of an aged relative of my wife's, — a dear old 

 soul, — taking us away from here perforce, has set me 

 up very nearly, and now after a week more comes my 

 vacation, and we are off into the quiet country for 

 three weeks. 



A little legacy of about ^2,000 to my wife comes 

 in opportunely to relieve us of anxiety for the future. 

 We have no children (which I regret only that I have 

 no son to send to the war), and this with a little in- 

 come, rather precarious, of about £200 a year would 

 support us in our very simple way, if I were to throw 

 up my place here. But I cannot do that yet. . . . 



Look at Impatiens flowers ; see if the most fertile 

 " precociously fertilized " ones ever get crossed ! 



I have asked in three directions for seeds of the 

 Specularia perfoliata. Inclosed are depauperate 

 specimens. 



