From Asa Gray   29 July 1875

My Dear Darwin

I have been digging away, very hard, at Californian Botany, and shall have no respite all summer.—¹ nor do I particularly feel the need of it yet.

I write to beg you will not set me down for an ungrateful fellow, because—thanks to your thoughtful kindness—I have had “Insectivorous Plants” for a fortnight, and have made no sign.² I meant to have gone through it, and then have written, making some remarks—usually of admiration sometimes, perhaps a suggestion of criticism—which you at once turn the point of.

But the fact is, I have been, and am, so driven with work upon necessary, but far duller matters, that I have not yet read 30 pages!! Only to think of it.

But next Sunday I mean to go through it. I shall not only “be delighted when I have read it”, but shall have a treat in the reading.

You have a wonderful knack.

I hope you are very well, and we should be glad to know it.

Yours affectionately | A. Gray