348 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



whole after book is a most charming " Komance of Purgatory," 

 such as one would wish to be true. How like a real story it does 

 seem, at least to me ! . . . After all we are probably going to 

 Switzerland instead of Jersey. I am still with a throat, which 

 I can't get Enid to believe is to be a fixture for the future ; 

 she will think differently ; hence the cause of our proposed 

 travelling southward. And now farewell, which means "get 

 better," and don't overdo your little strength as it returns. 



To Mrs. Gray. 



September 2nd, 1863. 

 .... Nothing you said in your letter in the least nettled 

 me. I think it all natural, but having burned my fingers 

 before in writing about what I cannot understand, I think it best 

 to let matters be, trusting to the end being good. When at 

 Killarney I stepped on what I thought was a beautiful green 

 patch of moss, and in a moment I sank in black mud up 

 beyond the knees, and only for a friendly tree I might have 

 gone over ears and all. She that readeth, let her understand ! 



To a Cousin. 



4 Winton Road, October 22nd, 1863. 

 We came home yesterday from our summer tour, which we 

 greatly enjoyed, and I hope we are all the better for it. We were 

 just a month out of England, going through France to Switzer- 

 land, and returning by Belgium. Weather mostly very 

 pleasant, and when it failed us we fled. We spent some days 

 at Kew with our friends there, and also at Clapham with 

 Mr. Ward, and with Dr. and Mrs. Gray at the British Museum. 

 I thought Sir William Hooker much better than when I had 

 last seen him, though a year older (in his seventy-ninth year), 

 and he was as busy working at his ferns as ever. He is just 

 finishing off the last volume of his " Sp. Filicum," and I think 

 already beginning to nibble at another book, which he thinks 

 it is a pity not to do as a coping stone. So we go on ; but how 

 few carry out untiring energies to the last of a long life ! Here 

 am I, having finished my Austral Algae, congratulating myself 

 that it is done, and having no desire whatever to enter on a 

 new book of similar kind. Happy to close accounts ! I admire, 



