"I also intend to study my favourite and _useless_ class, _Cryptogamia_. I think I hear thee say, Tut-tut! But no matter. To be useless, various, and abstruse, is a sufficient recommendation of a science to make it pleasing to me. I don't know how I shall ever find out the different genera of mosses. Lichens I think will be easy" (he little knew them!) "but fungi I shall not attempt; not at all from their _difficulty_, but only because they are not easily preserved. But do not say that the study of _Cryptogamia_ is useless. Remember that it was from the genus Fucus that iodine was discovered." Another letter of this period, written when he was sixteen, contains so quaint a description of himself that I am tempted to quote from it:-- "In person I am tall, and in a good degree awkward. I am silent, and when I do speak say little, particularly to people of whom I am afraid, or with whom I am not intimate. I care not for city sports, or for the diversions of the country. I am equally unknown to any healthful amusement of boys. I cannot swim nor skate. I know nothing of the delight of these, and yet I can amuse myself and be quite happy, seemingly without any one to share my happiness. My botanical knowledge extends to about thirty of the commonest plants. I am very fond of botany, but I have not much opportunity of learning anything, because I have only to show the plant to James White, who tells me all about it, which I forget the next minute. My mineralogy embraces about twelve minerals, of which I know only the names. I am totally unacquainted with foreign shells, and know only about two hundred and fifty native ones. As to ornithology, I have stuffed about thirteen birds. In chemistry I read a few books, and tried some experiments. In lithography I broke a stone and a printing press. These are my pretensions to science." The reference to lithography is interesting, in view of the fact that he became later on one of the most exquisite delineators of plants, and with his own hand drew on stone the greater part of the splendid plates which enrich his works on Phanerogams and Algae. In his confession of ignorance of sports and pastimes, we already see the result of the want of robust health which followed him through life, and brought about his premature death; and in spite of which he performed such monumental work. Already Harvey's mind was quite made up as to what line in life he would prefer. He cannot hope, he says, to achieve success in commerce, by "buying cheap and selling dear." As regards professions, he is "neither fit to be a doctor nor a lawyer, lacking courage for the one, and face for the other, and application for both.... All I have a taste for is natural history, and that might possibly lead in days to come to a genus called _Harveya_, and the letters F.L.S. after my name, and with that I shall be content.... The utmost extent of my ambition would be to get a professorship of natural history."