662 TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. [1876, 



TO B. W. CHUKCH. 



August 3, 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 teU 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 imceasingly 

 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 coidd, 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, 



