xxxii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
sow by the ear." A few months later he writes that he finds 
even Bruch and Schimper to be "not infalUble!" And again, 
that Sir W. Hooker had been " exceedingly indignant that I 
should have presumed to demur against Mr. Wilson's judgment." 
But it is pleasant to know that he remained on terms of friendship 
with both for the rest of their lives. 
In the first letter to Mr. Borrer from the Pyrenees, Spruce 
tells him how wonderfully his health had been improved by the 
continual outdoor work and mountain air. When he first 
arrived a walk of three miles fatigued him dreadfully, but after 
two or three months he was able to walk 25 or 30 miles over 
rough mountain roads without any discomfort, and he also 
appears to have gone through the winter at Bagneres de Bigorre, 
always collecting mosses on fine days, without any serious attacks 
of his usual ailments. 
When he had got back to his home in Yorkshire and settled 
to work at his mosses, he naturally became very anxious as to 
his future, and more than ever disinclined to go back to teaching 
or to any kind of work that involved confinement to the house, 
which he felt sure would be fatal to him in a few years. On 
June 4, 1846, he writes to Mr. Borrer: "I yearn to be 
independent, and I hope the next time I go out it will be to 
settle in some comfortable office ; but I must be contented to 
wait until an opening occurs, and in the meantime what my 
hand has found to do I will do with all my heart, for my heart 
is in it." 
The correspondence with Mr. Borrer came to an end in 1848. 
It consists of five letters written during this year, mostly about 
mosses and private affairs. His father was very ill in the early 
part, and Spruce had for two months to do his school work. 
Then, in June, Spruce himself had a severe liver-attack, with 
gall-stones (already mentioned), from which he did not com- 
pletely recover till August. In a letter written in July he says : 
" I have engaged to go up to London in the early part of 
September, to superintend the sale of Dr. Taylor's herbarium 
and books, which his son is going to send thither." And in the 
last letter (dated August 5), which is mainly about the deter- 
mination of difficult mosses, he says : " When I come up to 
London to superintend the sale of Dr. Taylor's herbarium I will 
endeavour to bring with me all the books I still have of yours. 
Perhaps I may have the pleasure of seeing you then." 
From this time letters to his botanical correspondents are 
wanting, but this is easily explained. When in London in 
September he must have had ample opportunities of consulting 
