To Asa Gray   21 February 1880

21/2/80

Private

The February-mail from North-America, dear Dr Gray, brought me your kind sending of the biography of Prof Joseph Henry,¹ which I read with all the more interest, as (through the Smithsonian Institute) I came myself into communication with that illustrious man for many years.² It is a beautiful piece of writing again, this of yours, — though — may I venture to say so — Ritchie, Cannstadt,³ Faraday and Wheatstone might claim a place in the series of those, who brought electric telegraphy about. Thinking of the Smithsonian Institute, may I ask, whether any desirable volumes are missing in the series of my own poor publications, kept there. At antipodal distance and under great adversities of later years, I may not have managed, to get volume after volume regularly across to you, and some may have been lost on the way. — But now to an other subject.

Some years ago,⁴ when you alluded to the fallacious remarks of Governor Bowen, propounded in conversation with you, regarding my miserably changed position, you made in your usual generosity the remark to me: "rest assured, if I cannot help you, I shall at all events not harm you". When now I read your kind review of my work on the Eucalypts,⁵ you allude feelingly to the difficulties, which beset my path of research even in a work of this kind, but you — my honored friend — neutralize completely any good effect, which a word from you might have done me by the phrase "let him consider, how much valuable time he saves for true botanical work by his riddance from the multifarious cares, which garden-superintendence involves". I hope earnestly that this review by you will not fall into the hands of my adversaries here, as it would smash the strenous⁶ efforts of myself and a few scientific friends, to resuscitate at least to a small extent my formerly illustrious & so highly useful department.⁷ How far a general principle, such as you lay down in the above sentence, may apply to the Garden-administration of any University, I should not venture to pronounce. Even in such, local circumstances must greatly affect such a general proposition, and I should be loath to give on it a public opinion regarding any institution, which I had never visited & on which I could not judge fairly at a distance, lest I might inflict — however unwillingly & however unprovoked — an injury. To the position of mine or any Gov. Botanist, the proposition or principle, which you lay down, — my generous Sir, — is utterly inapplicable, as I practically find out in the daily execution of my work! — Though J. Hooker once, in disgust of Ayrton's conduct,⁸ actually wanted to relinquish the Kew Garden, I feel sure he is glad to have thought better of it, and I certainly, when he told me of his intention, advised Sir Joseph, to remain Generalissimus.⁹ But, however that may be, Melbourne should not be judged even by Kew, as Sir Joseph would at all events probably have no actual hostile intrusion on his position, had he merely kept the Museum, though I cannot see, how his Museum work can be severed from the horticultural work & vice versa, without causing impediments, intrusion, misunderstandings &c. in all directions. Here my being driven out of house & home, away from my thousand of kinds of living plants, from the staff trained by me, from my laboratory & seed magazine and indeed all I had, except the small Govern. bot. Library and the only herbarium room, here this senseless and cruel measure, dictated by envey & nepotism, has had a most disastrous effect! It took away from me even the means of keeping a collector in the field for the continuation of the fragmenta; it stopped my introduction of plants for forests & fields & pastures, it led to the pulling down of my Laboratory & the withdrawal of my apparatus, it tied my hands so that I could not do a single thing for the Philadelphia Exhibition¹⁰ nor any other Exhibition since, though as far back as 1855 I brought out the Eucalyptus-oil for the first French Exhibition,¹¹ an article, the export of which up to this time (and steadily increasing, represents about £15000 in the Export-trade of Melbourne already!) the same may be said of the export of ferntrees, Eucalyptus seeds etc started by me. Not even as much as an office-room was left me, my library had to be stored away for years and I have only lately got it set up again, having bought a small cottage through a Building Society. Doubtless you (& perhaps Hooker & others) will say, that I enjoyed a splendid Salary, & there ought to be no difficulty to provide for all my work out of that. Now it is nominally, not actually so. — Melbourne is an excessively costly place to live in; my income moreover is consumed to keep the wreck of my once illustrious Department afloat, though I never touch a card or billard-ball, give no parties, live the simplest of life (forlorn life too!), never visit races, but do not like to be left quite behind in the race with my compeers. Imagine Hooker out of Kew!! Though I have a high feeling for professional honor, what I say is not sentimental, but stern reality, and if you, Professor Gray, only for one hour visited my place here, you would deeply sympathize with me, and would do for me, what Paget, Holland, Carpenter, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin & Bentham did for Hooker! — Let me give you an instance only two days ago I placed here as a member of the local branch of the British Medical Association Dr Kings new Calcutta febrifuge before the members as a cheap, but highly efficient therapeutic remedy in hospital practice & for indigents, — not crystalline nor quite purified, but a mixture a¹² Quinine, Cinchonin, Cinchonidine & Quinidine & perhaps also the amorphous alkaloid, the Quinine however prevailing.¹³ Why do I mention this? — If I had not been ejected without any fault of mine out of my institution, I would have had certainly Quinine from my own trees in the Melbourne Exhibition this year,¹⁴ whereas I shall have there nothing of any kind, because my hands are kept tied, and all working material, to give vitality to my research, is taken from me. Ignorance destroyed my Cinchonas and ever so much else, that we could grow in one or the other region of our colony to advantage, just as you could grow in the South of California in warm sheltered forest glens the Peru-Bark trees. I feel sure, you will not argue with me from so far a distance on what my position here ought to be, but perhaps you may say, let others grow the Cinchonae! But, my dear Sir, I am to be the leader here of vegetable new industries, and I must observe, and that daily & hourly, to help the colonists practically, and if I cannot do that and make annually a good show, (look only to Hookers Kew Reports!) then I am bound to go finally to ruin. The daily question in this community is already: What is he doing? What is the good of him? &c. What do the colonists care about my "Flora" as a whole? For that they would never for any period maintain my position, and as I sunk all I had in my researches (the printing of Wittstein¹⁵ cost me — exampli gratia — £220 out of my private purse and only about one tenth of the copies were sold), I should be sent adrift as Gov. Botanist without a pension, should be forced to give up the Library & Herbarium also & spend the last days of my life in obscurity & poverty, getting only once for ever under the Civil Service law here a compensation for loss of Office. Count de Castelnau (with whom Dr. Weddell was out) wanted me also always according to his unfortunate talk here to "be relieved of drudgery", but when one morning he saw it suddenly announced, that I had to leave my creation & even the House, which I built in 17 years, he wrote at once a doleful lament,¹⁶ though he helped unwittingly to undermind my position. However, he also numbers now with the death, & I was one of the pallbearers of his Coffin this month.¹⁷

You must pardon, dear Dr Gray, when I inflict this long letter of sadness on you. I fancy, it is my last! I have a presentiment that I do not live till the end of the year! I am since a long time under constant insomnia, and if I ever sleep a little, I am in dreams again in my little paradise, in my house, among my plants, among my gardeners, who only wanted one hours daily attention of mine as a rule, and did the drudgery for me, as they are now doing for the Sydney Nurseryman,¹⁸ who is now the Directorial Colleage of Hooker, Regel, Eichler &c &c. If I spent a few additional hours daily in the garden, it refreshed my mind, invigorated by a thorough oxygenation of my blood my physical strenght, originated daily new observations, not only phytographical (for which the money grubbing Australian Communities do not care), but industrial tests also &c. I am forced to leave Melbourne at the time of the Exhibition, — for as a discarded Director and as a head of a Department without a Department, I cannot present myself to the illustrious strangers, while an unscrupulous intruder praises himself up daily with my treasures, on which the sweat of my brow adheres since the last quarter of a century. I have said as much to the excellent representative of your states in a letter to him in Sydney, Dr. Cox.¹⁹ But I fear I may not live so long, and then you may have still after all that even misled you a few kind words for me in any little necrolog, you may possibly deem me worthy of. My God! what could I have done to advance science in Australia and give it a practical and useful bearing in new colonies, had I been left only with slender means in my creation, or had only half the sums, mostly squandered away, since I left (and largely increased) been at my command.

And now, good bye, dear Dr. Gray, and may providence watch over you also in future, as it protected you on the brink of an abyss lately, and let no clouds disturb your bright career, such as obscured mine.

Ferd. von Mueller.

I did double as much phytographic work in the bot Garden with all the facilities there, than since I am out of it.