SIRE,

I am honoured with your Imperial Majesty’s autograph letter of October 22 informing me that, on considering the attention which the Royal Society of London had been able to offer to your Majesty, as well as the explanation of the various parts of the establishment of this Observatory which I had the honor and the high gratification to communicate, You had been pleased to place my name in the Imperial Order of the Rose, and to present to me the Decorations of Grand Cross of that Order.

With pride I receive this proof of Your Majesty’s recollection of your visit to the scientific institutions of Great Britain.

The Diploma of the appointment to the Order of the Rose, under the Imperial Sign Manual, together with the Decorations of the Order, have been transmitted to me by his Excellency Don Pereira de Andrada, Your Majesty’s Representative at the British Court.

Your Majesty has been pleased to advert to the approaching Transit of Venus, on the preparations for which you found me engaged.  It is unfortunate that the Transit of 1874 will not be visible at Rio de Janeiro.  For that of 1882, Rio will be a favourable position, and we reckon on the observations to be made there.  Your Majesty may be assured that I shall loyally bear in mind your desire to be informed of any remarkable enterprise of this Observatory, or of any principal step in the preparations for the Transit of Venus and of its results.

I have the honor to be
Sire,
Your Imperial Majesty’s very faithful servant,
G.B.  AIRY.

To His Majesty
  The Emperor of Brazil.

* * * * *

Airy’s old friend, Adam Sedgwick, was now very aged and infirm, but his spirit was still vigorous, and he was warm-hearted as ever.  The following letter from him (probably the last of their long correspondence) was written in this year, and appears characteristic: 

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
May 10, 1872.

MY DEAR AIRY,

I have received your card of invitation for the 1st of June, and with great joy should I count upon that day if I thought that I should be able to accept your invitation:  but alas I have no hope of the kind, for that humiliating malady which now has fastened upon me for a full year and a half has not let go its hold, nor is it likely to do so.  A man who is journeying in the 88th year of his pilgrimage is not likely to throw off such a chronic malady.  Indeed were I well enough to come I am deaf as a post and half blind, and if I were with you I should only be able to play dummy.  Several years have passed away since I was last at your Visitation and I had great joy in seeing Mrs Airy and some lady friends at the Observatory, but I could not then attend the dinner.  At that Meeting were many faces that I knew, but strangely altered by the rude handling of old Time, and there were many new faces which I had never seen before at a Royal Society Meeting; but worse than all, all the old faces were away.  In vain I looked round for Wollaston, Davy, Davies Gilbert, Barrow, Troughton, &c. &c.; and the merry companion Admiral Smyth was also away, so that my last visit had its sorrowful side.  But why should I bother you with these old man’s mopings.