21/11/88
Much do I feel touched, dear Madam, with your generous felicitation, which also you are offering at the glorious event in my science-career; but I am conscious, that this grand award should rather be regarded as a bestowal on science in general of Australia, than as a tribute for what I may have accomplished by my own researches here; and I think, that this great distinction, which even through two centuries fell to the share of but few mortals, came to me merely, because I am the senior of science-workers in Australia.1
It is with much sympathy, that I hear of your accident, which has so long kept you from moving about. How easily and how sadly we may meet mishaps! My foot is not yet quite restored for long walks;2 so I have been only as yet once in the Exhibition.3 I was not even aware, that you were in Melbourne, otherwise I would have endeavoured to call notwithstanding my sufferings.
1887 & 1888 have been trough4 all the litterary extra-work and that for the Exhibition very busy years to me, and as the Austral Assoc. will hold its meeting in our metropolis in 1889,5 that year will also again tax all my time and energies to the utmost, while as a Sexagenarian I have not the mental elasticity of younger years left.
With best remembrance of all of you
Ferd. von Mueller
M was awarded one of the two Royal Medals of the Royal Society of London in 1888. The award was solicited by M; see Lucas (2013a), p. 24.
On 31 July 1888, M fell while alighting from a tram and injured his face and left knee-cap (Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (Victorian Branch), part II, vol. 6, p. 13). See also M to A. Beal, 14 August 1888.
Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888-9.
through?
M was President of the second Congress of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Melbourne in January 1890.
MS is accompanied by an envelope addressed: 'Mrs Beal &c &c "Varno" Lorne' [Vic].
Please cite as “FVM-88-11-21a,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on