... The war near you was sharp and quick. Switzerland is as fortunately placed as any small nation can be, when surrounded by strong ones; but you see that in this world only strength can be relied on. See what indignity small and weak nations have to suffer. I trust present peace may last to consolidate a new Germany. But if not, you may have to dread a more general upturning on the Continent. October 21, 1867. ... Your analysis of the whole subject of rules in nomenclature I think is sound and lawyer-like, or rather _judicial_, as well as judicious. There are dangers and inconveniences on every side, and good sense and discretion are needed in the application of these as of all rules.... Very faithfully yours, ASA GRAY. TO GEORGE BENTHAM. January 21, 1867. MY DEAR BENTHAM,--Many thanks for your kind remembrance of us in your letter at the end of the year, which reached me only three or four days ago. I avail myself of the first foreign post since to return, with Mrs. Gray’s love, our heartiest good wishes to Mrs. Bentham and yourself, and I trust you will be able to keep up yet, for a good many precious years, the steady botanical work which you make so telling.... I have no doubt of the full and entire correctness of the principles you work on; and the Kew Floras and the “Genera Plantarum” will more than anything else determine the public botanical opinion and mode of working for the next generation. But I suspect that there will remain after all a great many monotypic genera (consider how many of the most distinct genera are so, or nearly so); and I imagine it is best to work without prejudice for or against them. I dare promise I shall be satisfied with all you have done in Compositæ. As to Umbelliferæ, I wish you joy of the job, and do hope you will reduce the genera twenty per cent at least. I never could take the least satisfaction in them. I never could collate our Umbelliferæ with European genera, and I have no clear conception of more than half a dozen of our genera.... Ever, dear Bentham, yours most cordially, A. GRAY. TO CHARLES DARWIN. CAMBRIDGE, March 26, 1867. This is to acknowledge yours of February 28. You see I have printed your queries[67] privately (fifty copies), as the best way of putting them where useful answers may be expected. Most of them will go into the hands of agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau, etc. Others to persons I or Wyman may know and rely on. I wish I had had them sooner. My crony Wyman has been two months in Florida, but will be home again before I could send to him. I did not write the article in the “Nation” on Popular Lecturing, though it contains so many things I have said over and over that it startled me. Then it hits so many nails square on the head that I should think it could be written only in Cambridge or hereabouts. It is generally supposed to be written by a person in New York, but I suspect a person near by here,--only suspect....