From J. D. Hooker 20 June 1876
Nuneham Park, Abingdon. | Address Kew.
June 20/76.
Dear Darwin
Mrs Lyell has asked me to help her with an inscription for Lyell’s slab in Westminster Abbey.—such as Stanley may approve.— (I have fainted away twice)—
She sends me two, neither of which I like, I enclose them.1 I have asked for some days to consider, & the longer I do so the more awful the task appears
How would it do to suggest something of this sort.
“His long life was devoted to searching for Truths & to reasoning on their Teachings; & he gave to the Public the results of his labour in a memorable work of enduring scientific value”
“The Principles of Geology”2
I am on two days visit to a place I had not seen since I was here with Fanny Henslow in 1847!. I cannot tell you how depressed I feel at times. She, you, & Oxford are burnt into my memory.3
Harriet went through the honor of the R. S. Conversazione admirably, but was quite knocked up, & is tired out ever since.4 I left her at Sir G. MacLeay’s5 yesterday, & came on here for two days, I return to Kew tomorrow, but leave again soon, as I have promised to join the Cotswold field club next week.6
Vigner has separated the digestive principle from Nepenthes & proved it’s properties!.7 He finds Lawson Tait all wrong.8 I now want him to find out whether this principle is poured into the pitcher before animal matter is put into it.—
Ever aff yrs | Jos D Hooker
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Fletcher, Thomas Bainbrigge. 1946. The Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club, 1846–1946. Gloucester: J. Bellows.
Lyell, Charles. 1830–3. Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation. 3 vols. London: John Murray.
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
JDH’s suggested text for Lyell’s tablet in Westminster Abbey.
Vigner[?] separates digestive principle from Nepenthes, disproving R. L. Tait.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10540
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Abingdon
- Source of text
- DAR 104: 57–8
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10540,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10540.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24