^T. 66.] TO R. W. CHURCH. 665 



isfaction, his article on the Reality of Duty. That 

 naturally brought you to mind, and I vowed I would 

 no longer be so negligent, but would acknowledge and 

 thank you for your letter of August last, and for 

 Professor Mozley's sermons. They are excellent in- 

 deed, and it is saddening to have a man of such 

 insight laid aside by illness, of a sort which probably 

 does not diminish his desire, but destroys his power, 

 to work. . . . 



I think Mrs. Gray has given some account of our 

 summer vacation. I long to revisit those moimtains 

 when the Rhododendrons and Kahnias are in bloom, 

 and to have your company. 



We are just home, Mrs. Gray and I, from a fort- 

 night with our friends at Washington, — a pleasant 

 holiday, which of late I have always had at this season, 

 the time of the annual meeting of the regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, of which I am one of the lay 

 (i. e., non-congressional) members. It makes a break 

 in the monotony of our winter, which is far milder 

 there than in New England, and the society at Wash- 

 ington is very pleasant. More and more men of mark, 

 and intelligence, and cultivation reside there, at least 

 for the winter months. We left on the day when the 

 contested electoral count began, under the arrange- 

 ment so happily and hopefully adopted. There is 

 no excitement, and, outside of partisanship, little care 

 which way it is determined, but much that it shall be 

 legitimately determined by evidence, argument, and 

 a decisive judgment. 



I am deep in routine botanical work, and with a 

 printer not far behind me, I can think of little else. 



