Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence; Gray, Asa, 1810-1888 -- Correspondence
Saturday Morning, February 7, 1835.
I do not know when I shall see you. I shall be up sometime during the
spring or summer if I live so long, but perhaps not until July or
August. It is very probable that I shall stay in the city the whole
time. I wish very much to spend a few weeks in Georgia, early in the
spring, but I see that I shall not be able to do so. My time is spent
here very profitably, and I am advancing in knowledge as fast as I ought
to wish, but I make no money, or scarcely enough to live upon. Just at
present I am rather behindhand, but think that by next fall I shall,
with ordinary success, be in better circumstances. It is unpleasant to
be embarrassed in such matters, for I should like much to be
independent, and this with my moderate wishes would require no very
large sum, and I have no great desire to be rich.
Tell father I am very glad he has brought home the remainder of those
boxes from Utica. The burning down of one of the buildings of the
gymnasium has broken up that school entirely, and it probably will not
be revived. I knew Mr. Bartlett would fail soon, and that accident has
only hastened the time a little. He has been insolvent for some time.
There was a very severe fire within a few rods of us last week; five or
six dwelling-houses and other buildings were burned to the ground.
Although it was so near us we were sitting at tea entirely unconcerned.
Everything is done by the fire companies, and people who crowd about
fires are only in the way, without doing any good.
Let me hear from you soon, and you will hear from me again in due
season. The lectures in the Medical College will be finished in about
three weeks, and then I shall be a little more at leisure.
I am very affectionately yours,
A. GRAY.
TO HIS FATHER.
NEW YORK, April 6, 1835.
DEAR FATHER,--I have been waiting for some time to see what my plans for
the season would be, expecting as soon as that point was determined to
write to you. All my arrangements were upset last fall, and the
prospects for daily bread have been rather dark all winter--that is for
the present; for the future they look as well as I could expect. It is
probable now that I shall remain here during the summer; prosecuting the
same studies and pursuits in which I am now engaged, unless something
else turns up in the mean time....
Tell mother I have for her a copy of Barnes’s “Notes of the Gospels,”
but I want to read it myself before I send it up. Perhaps I can’t spare
it until I come up. I think you will all be very much pleased with it. I
wish I could also send you his “Notes on the Acts and Romans.” Please
ask Mr. Rogers, or any of your merchants when they come to New York this
spring, to drop a line in the post-office for me, that I may take the
opportunity of sending home by them. I wish I could come up this spring,
but I see that I shall not be able. Do you take a religious newspaper?
Please write to me soon. May the Lord prosper you and keep you all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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