From J. V. Carus   20 January 1877

My dear Sir,

I sent the letter from Smith, Elder & Co at once to M^r Koch, to answer it directly. As far as I am aware, he will not want any copies, as the map of Ascension as well as the Geological Sections have been engraved already in Stuttgart. But in order to be sure, please wait for Koch’s answer¹

Here is a short list of some further misprints in the Crossing.

What means “to prise up”? On p 155. l. 11 from bottom, you say “finding the stamen prised up.” Is it = slit up, or erected?

As a new edition of the Expression is now printing, I have made some notices about some points, which perhaps will interest you. Regarding the want of respiration during mental activity and affections I refer you to a paper of the older Fr. Nasse in Meckel’s Deutsches Archiv für Physiologie, Bd. II. 1816. p. 1. which contains some remarks, I think worth your attention.⁹

On p 326 of your Expression-book you mention cases of cerebral irritation, where the skin becomes suffused by merely being touched by the fingers   I noticed this very same with a lady and her daughter, who must take care, whenever they have taken not more even than half a glass of wine, not to touch the face or neck. Where they touch the skin, it becomes red, and so distinctly, that they are able to draw figures, crosses and circles and so on. They fade away very slowly, not before half an hour is elapsed. With regard to the pulse (p 340) I may mention, that, while engaged with a friend to work out a prize question, put by our Medical faculty 1843, we had to determine the average rate of our pulse; very soon we found out, that we were not able to get a correct number, when we counted it ourselves, as the attention rose the number within the space of half a minute from about 60 to 85.

Yes and no. I staid a winter in Messina and never saw a Sicilian express the “No” by shaking the head, but always by throwing it up a little with a little cluck of the tongue¹⁰

p 356. Imitation. How powerful imitation is, I noticed very often with children. I remember especially the little daughter of a colleague, who used to amuse us by taking the child of about 5 years on his knees and telling her a tale, not at all an exciting one. And as he made the most exaggerated expressions and grimaces, the child, quite forlorn in attention, imitated them all as exactly as possible, a most ludicrous sight, as the force of the expression of the little shining face did not correspond in the very least with the contents of the simple story.

But there is another instance of imitation by means of the sense of hearing, which annoys me very often   Whenever I walk in the streets, especially when there are only a few other persons walking besides me,—unless I am quite lost in thought or meditation—, I caught myself more than a hundred times in the unvoluntary keeping time with the steps of the next person I heard walking before or behind me, and I have always to force myself back in my own time of stepping, which depends, as it is known, chiefly on the length of the legs, swinging like pendulums

I beg your pardon for intruding upon your time with such minutiae. However I thought they would perhaps interest you.

Many thanks for the Orchid-book   I have to delay its new edition in German, as I leave Leipzig in about ten days to spend the next three months in Naples, partly to work in the Zoological Station, partly to avoid the February and March of our climate.¹¹ Should you wish to send me a notice (I read of course the proof sheets there also), letters will find me at the “Stazione Zoologica”. As I am always happy to get a line from you, even if it is only business matter, I hope to hear even at Naples that you are well.

I am | My dear Sir, | Ever yours sincerely | J. Victor Carus