Drysdale, near Port Phillip-Head,
Newyears eve, 1883.
Your kind but mournful letter,
dear Mr Bentham, reached me here on the coast, where I am since a few week to try,
whether the pure sea air and the rural tranquillity will free me of a protracted bronchial
inflammation; as both my parents died of Phthsis, I must look on my present severe
illness with serious apprehension. — This I mention, that you see, how many months
now I have been suffering, and thus had neither strength nor courage to write beyond
what urgent official duties demanded from me. To give however a sign of life, I sen[t]
you a paperknife of
, thinking that the trifle might interest you, it being from a tree named by yourself.
From the remnants of the Calcutta-Exhibition
I also sent a paper-knife to Prof. Owen, the article being from one of the
s, and in writing back,
he kindly said (though I also sent no letter to that illustrious man), that he used
it daily for cutting up new books, and that each time it came to him like a handshaking
from me! —
I am deeply concerned to hear of your failing strength! — We all have been for these
many years so accustomed to see you make uninterrupted and gigantic strides for the
elaboration of the systema of plants of the world that I at the far distance can least
of all realize that you have discontinued to advance the knowledge of the vegetable
empire; and altho' you seem to have such gloomy forebodings, I still hope, that you
after your overexertions of late years will rally, and will give the world some further
litterary treasures. Prof Chevreul in Paris is now, I think, 96 years of age; and
if he does perhaps no longer deliver a course of lecture at the University, he certainly
did so still 2 or 3 years ago. Humboldt worked also on til 90. So I hope you will
be cheered again!
What you say of your long and illustrious career reminds me, that your name first
became very familiar to me, when I cultivated in my widow-mothers garden a little
plot, on which I raised some of the beautiful Polemoniaceous annuals named and described
by you,
plants which will ever hold their own in the horticulture of ordinary people and
among them for all times commemorate your name!
Your attention was so absorbed in the "genera plantarum"
for the last few years, that I did not even wish to disturb you by sending the trifling
prints, on additions to the Australian Flora. In 1883 the additional species from
all parts of Australia obtained as the aggregate from numerous correspondents amounts
to only 40 species. So the flora of Australia may be regarded as specifically almost
completed. altho' many observations on the plants established, and so exhaustively
detailed by you, will have to be made for centuries to come. Even this day I had to
correspond
on your
as the most important tan-yielding tree in one part of New England.
This is the last letter I write in the byegone year! May the new one to you be one
of serenity and joyous contemplation of what you have done for all times to benefit
the world, should providence even not allow you to resume actively your great labors.
Ferd. von Mueller
