
          [note in pencil: [1851]]


 Friday Morning - W. 21 St. NYk [New York]


 The "jink" [joint?] letter of my dear friends reached
 me yesterday, & I find it kind-- more than kind--
 funny & rather saucy, in places-- but how to reply?
 & to whom? A point to be considered, & not easily
 to be determined. The dear old professor first--


 You want me to work, do you? very likely, indeed,
 in such a coterie as you have around you! & [Charles Christopher] Parry
 is with you-- poor dear man! I hope if he wants
 to work he eschews pianos & young women
 better than some other Botanists, I have known,
 else his visit will be very profitable, in a 
 scientific point of view. Mind you get
 the Carex from him, which you promised me.
 This is all I have to say, at the moment,
 respecting Mr. Parry-- "Work off the Californians
 at a [heat?]" quotha? What read I 
 next? in the unmistakeable, barely readable (!)
 characters of saucy Jeannie [possibly Jane Robertson Torrey] "remember
 I shall not permit any botany" & which
 would have their way, think you? we grave
 naturalists, or the little good-for-nothing
 in question-- "Corner by the window" forsooth,
 I think I see myself there, under the circumstances.
 "Dear plants" & dear girls (I mean naughty girls)
 can't be studied & arranged-- got into order!!!
 at the same time. Not by me, at least. I like
 the notion of "nice stealings" from the specimens,
 but work, indeed-- Bah! Poor old [?] was driven

        