From J. D. Hooker [7 February 1875]1
Kew
Sunday.
My dear Darwin
You have no doubt heard of Col. Lyells death Harriet & I have just called on Mrs Lyell—who tells me that he died of inflammation of the lungs, which seems to be a not uncommon result of Paralysis.2 he was ill only 2 days & did not suffer. Sir Charles has borne the shock with great composure, as old men happily do— Miss Lyell was there & said her brother was decidedly better—3 I saw him a week ago, very feeble, in bed, with speech very indistinct:—but mind as active as ever, & as clear.
I suppose we shall see the Drosera paper soon— we are all impatience4
Nothing is yet settled at my office, but I have Mr W. H. Smiths assurance that if my Lord does not send up my application with the Estimates, the T. will send to him for it5
I dined at Huxley’s two days ago, only to meet Nares, who appears to be a fine intelligent fellow, full of life & has very evidently profited much by the Science of the Challenger:6 he speaks most warmly of Thomson, Sulivan & Murray:7 Huxley is full of Globigerina & is quite at a loss to explain the red clay of the deep sea bottom—8 His lecture at the R. S is said to have been excellent, I hear that he utilized my long forgotten observations on the diatom sea-bottom of the Antarctic—& paid me the compliment of calling it a philosophical treatise!9 No small honor from him.— he is beginning to look over-worked & I fear smokes too much.
We are all well, but Harriet is doing too much. & I am in doubt what to do— I have long ago promised to take her to Algeria on a visit to Col & Mrs Playfair10 this spring, & I need not say she has set her heart on going—but I find I can only get away from 16 April (day after Soirée)11 till 24th. May. & I shall not be able to travel fast with her, so I am thinking of accepting an offer of Lady Jardine12 (a great friend of her’s) to take her to Cannes next month, & I would then pick her up at Marseilles—in April.
We both of us want a holiday very badly, but I can’t get away, with my arrears of work pressing, & Bentham craving for Gen. Plant.!13
I met two Ladies in the Garden yesterday who accosted me from having met me at Down— one is a Mrs or Miss Forster,14 (a Lady with a very long nose)— pray is she Mrs or Miss— please send Post Card as Harriet has to write to her, she is staying with Lady Leven at Roehampton—15
Ever yr affec | J D Hooker
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1875. On some of the results of the expedition of H.M.S. ‘Challenger’. Contemporary Review 25 (1874–5): 639–60.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Summary
Has met Capt. George Strong Nares of the Challenger expedition at Huxley’s.
Huxley much at a loss to explain red clay at deep sea-bottom.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9843
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 104: 11–13
- Physical description
- ALS 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9843,” accessed on 6 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9843.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23