Pray give me, now and then, an inside view of what is going on, or better, what is thought.
Why, here is my sheet filled and nothing said. I have nothing to tell you from here--nothing worth sending you. I don’t think much of Lowell’s “Cathedral.” The grotesque bits are not in half as good keeping as the gargoyles and other queer pieces of ornament on the old cathedrals.
I have for a long while been wishing and endeavoring to write to you, but it is not so easy, so many other letters have to be written, to answer letters from persons that I don’t particularly care for, as to leave little time for those that I do.
I owe you for two very interesting letters; for it was a hurried note of mine that we need not count, which crossed yours of February 4, and then there is your later one of March 1, along with Mrs. Church’s to my wife. I leave it for her to tell you about the novelists. And I have not much to say of myself. I have pottered all winter over the herbarium and upon an article for our “American Academy’s Proceedings,” of a wholly technical nature, which is just in the printer’s hands. I am about to begin another,--a study of another group of North American plants; but the professional work absorbs so much of my time and energy that it will, I know, make no great progress until July brings a long vacation. And then I may have my hands full, somewhat as yours will be, superintending building. I have _my_ church to enlarge. I need a lecture-room here on the spot, and a students’ laboratory in connection with it; and I have a plan for this, to form a wing to the herbarium building, and a fair prospect that I may get it done. We shall see before long; and if the means are forthcoming, I will soon let you know, with all the details....
The last “Spectator” received gives an abstract of Gladstone’s and Forster’s Irish Land and Education bills, and of the general favor they were received with upon their introduction. To have almost satisfied all parties and interests is really a wonderful and a most unexpected achievement. You ought to be proud of Gladstone, and well satisfied at having inevitable and great changes wrought out under so strong a ministry, and so high-minded a leader. Courage, earnestness, and high principle here are seen to command success, in Parliament at least. How anything will work in Ireland remains to be seen. But don’t think as some of my English friends do, that the Irish are incapable of good things. The race over here, as a general thing, develop at once what they seem to lack at home, thrift, and with thrift come order and respect for law.