
          I do anticipate pleasure & profit
from this labor of love. But, I bethink
me, alas! that I am old.
I require spoon-meat. Where is
my spoon, my good instructor?
You'd better lay aside your
domestic & collegiate duties, be 
deaf to the cares of office, daff 
aside the botany of the world, & 
eschew College, Wall Street, all
things and places, & make that 
spoon! You'll have, I assure
you, not a moment's quiet, until
you have made it.

I am now anxious to become
acquainted with our Southern
botanists. I have written to
Dr. Chapman. (Does C.F. [Coe Finch] Austin
go to him, in [William Wallace] Denslow's place?)
I want to get all their plants
from them. Can you, or
rather, will you, help me?

Our society is about despatching
        