To J. D. Hooker 10 August [1855]
Down Farnborough Kent
Aug. 10th
My dear Hooker
Many thanks for your note with Dr. Lindleys1 invitation. I had so strong a wish to accept it, in order to get to know him, that I accepted it, but the next morning I felt so unwell, together with a note from home made me give it up with great reluctance & I wrote a second note to Lindley. I almost wish I had thrown all the circumstances to the dogs & staid; but it is now too late.
My morning with H. C. W.2 passed off very prosperously & I had much very interesting talk; but he is rather too sarcastic to my taste. He strikes me as a very clever man. Will you sometime look in your Library & see whether you have the Memoires of the Academy of Nancy 1848–1849. for Godron3 It is not in Linnean or Royal Socy.—
I forget exactly when you start, but I shall hear nothing of you now for a long time.4 Adios.—
Watson told me some capital stories of the caution requisite about inferring that seeds have lain long buried from their suddenly springing up: nevertheless I found that he does go a long way in believing that they do sometimes lie buried from cases which he had himself seen.—
Farewell | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Godron, Dominique Alexandre. 1848–9. De l’espèce et des races dans les êtres organisés du monde actuel. Mémoires de la Société Royale des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy (1848): 182–288; De l’espèce considérée dans les êtres organisés, appartenant aux périodes géologiques qui ont précédé celle où nous vivons. Mémoires de la Société des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy (1849): 381-420. Reprinted separately. 2 vols. Nancy. 1848–9.
Summary
Morning with H. C. Watson; discussed problems of inferences from buried seeds.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1737
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 114: 144
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1737,” accessed on 6 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1737.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5