BIOGRAPHY 
xxxix 
all these must be analysed under the microscope, without which 
one cannot accurately discern any of their features. 
" I like to look on plants as sentient beings, which live and 
enjoy their lives — which beautify the earth during life, and after 
death may adorn my herbarium. When they are beaten to pulp 
or powder in the apothecary's mortar they lose most of their 
interest for me. It is true that the Hepaticae have hardly as yet 
yielded any substance to man capable of stupefying him, or of 
forcing his stomach to empty its contents, nor are they good for 
food ; but if man cannot torture them to his uses or abuses, they 
are infinitely useful where God has placed them, as I hope to 
hve to show ; and they are, at the least, useful to, and beautiful 
in, themselves — surely the primary motive for every individual 
existence." 
He then goes on to show that these little plants are not 
always without sensible properties. Some possess colouring 
matters, and yield a yellow or brown dye ; others give out 
fragrant odours, and some a pungent taste comparable to that 
of camphor or pepper. But such species are as yet few in 
number. 
In a previous letter he had described how he had had to 
make up for lost time, as during his travels he had no leisure to 
study the plants which he collected in detail. " I have therefore 
had first to ' fetch up ' those who have had the start of me ; and 
now, after working constantly at Hepaticse, and thinking of little 
else for eighteen months, I begin to feel I know something 
about them. I have now worked up all the more difficult genera 
except one, and the Hon. Mrs. Howard off'ers to be at the 
expense of a few illustrative figures, so that if I am spared to 
complete the task I hope to have done something likely to be 
permanent. All this study has been carried on, accompanied by 
quite as much pain and cramping as of yore ; but to be occupied 
on sensible objects dulls the feeling of pain much more than 
, purely mental occupation. 
"Since I came to Welburn I have also reduced all my 
meteorological and hypsometrical observations, and ' done ' the 
native languages and ethnography, besides a few minor matters — 
all, however, chiefly written in pencil, and often hieroglyphically, 
and they want putting in order and writing out an net.'' 
The following passage from a succeeding letter shows 
curiously his love for all living things : — " Neither these nor any 
other Mosses or Hepatics are ever likely to become of much 
direct importance to man — at least I hope not, for if they should, 
unfortunately, then the httle birds and the beetles would be put 
