Ferdinand von Mueller

22/7/94

Your spright letter should have been answered already several days ago, dear Mr Shillinglaw, but it is only in the quietude of Sunday, that I could collect my thought for subjects personal

Moreover I wished to write to you in the same genial spirit, in which you conveyed your felicitation to me But, my honored friend, I cannot find words adequate for writing to a man of genius like yourself. Accept however my most grateful appreciation of your congratulatory feeling, expressed in unsurpassable words. To rank in the Institute with the worthies who had since 1625 seats in so extremely exclusive a union as the Institute

1

It would seem that M had been misled by a letter he had received from the French botanist G.-A. Chatin into thinking he had been elected a Corresponding Member of the Académie des Sciences of the Institut de France; see M to L. Dejardin, 5 August 1895 (in this edition as 95-08-05a). He was not elected to the Academy until 1 July 1895. M is equivocating a little over the date of establishment of the institution. The Académie des Sciences was founded in 1666. It was suppressed in 1793 but re-established in 1795 as one of constituent units of the Institut de France, together with, among others, the Académie Française, established informally about 1629 and officially in 1637.

is an honor only comparable to that of being the Recipient of a Medal from the R.S., distinctions which I now share with your illustrious Patron, the late Admiral Beaufort.

2

M had been awarded a Royal Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1888. Francis Beaufort was, as M was to be, a Corresponding Member of the Académie des Sciences. However, he was never awarded a Royal Medal, or any other medal, by the Royal Society.

I am proud above all measures of the new science-dignity particularly for the sake of our colony and bright friends like yourself.