I have no wish to assume a stoical indifference to public opinion, for I am well alive to it, and the critics might have irritated me sorely, but they could never have caused me the regret that the association of your name with a bad book of mine would have.
You will laugh when I tell you that, my book out, I feel past the meridian of life! But you do not know how from my earliest childhood I nourished and cherished the desire to make a creditable journey in a new country, and write such a respectable account of its natural features as should give me a niche amongst the scientific explorers of the globe I inhabit, and hand my name down as a useful contributor of original matter.

A combination of most rare advantages has enabled me to gain as much of my object as contents me, for I never wished to be greatest amongst you, nor did rivalry ever enter my thoughts.

No ulterior object has ever been present to me in this pursuit.

My ambition is fully gratified by the satisfactory completion of my task, and I am now happy to go on jog-trot at Botany till the end of my days--downhill, in one sense, all the way.

I shall never have such another object to work for, nor shall I feel the want of it...As it is, the craving of thirty years is satisfied, and I now look back on life in a way I never could previously.