182 KETURN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PARIS 
other things are quite wilhng to send the first set to your 
Herbarium. 
I spent a whole day with Decaisne [the third aide] over 
his drawings, &c. ; they are most beautiful, masterly, and 
truly botanical ; he is too a most amiable and excellent 
fellow, is modest and well informed, by far the best Botanist 
here on. all points. He sent to Normandy on purpose for 
Seaweed to show me his marvellous discovery of the animal- 
cules in the organs of Fuci ; I suppose it is the most curious 
of recent discoveries and opens the widest field for discovery. 
I am quite astonished with what he has shown me. He has 
arranged the Fuci of the Herbarium most beautifully. . . . 
His whole pay is £62 per annum, and yet he takes my book ; 
but every one here considers him a model of generosity. 
The question of buying Lenormand's collection of Algae 
when so small a proportion were new, prompts the reluctant 
advice to his father to ' give up purchasing for the present 
wholly. We have far more plants than we know how to keep 
in order, far more expenses, which are annually increasing, 
than we have the means to cover,' not to mention the growing 
expense of books, for * plants without books are useless.' His 
fortune was not, as the Paris botanists fondly imagined, equal 
to that of Delessert, his only rival in purchasing in Europe, 
and ' I do feel quite sure that you cannot on your own means 
support a Herbarium which is, as you wish, to keep pace with 
the progress of Botany.' 
The following passages from a long letter to Harvey towards 
the end of his stay in Paris deserve quotation as illustrating 
not only the kindness of his hosts and their respect for his 
father, but his own readiness to readjust his personal pre- 
conceptions. 
February 25th, or thereabouts. 
I ought to have written to you before, from this great 
mother of Babylons, but have been too busy enjoying 
myself selfishly, to think much of my neighbours. This is 
indeed a wonderful place, and the natives are most uncommon 
polite, not only in word but in deed, for they pour upon 
me such loads of pamphlets and little presents as obliges 
