To J. D. Hooker 30 September [1857]1
Down Bromley Kent
Sept. 30th
My dear Hooker
In looking over my scraps I find one from you with some cases of Hybridism from Mr Glover of Manchester:2 Who is he? is he alive & do you know his address, as I I shd. like to write & ask him some questions on one of his crosses of Cereus?3 Is he a man to be trusted?—
I hope you are not getting impatient for your Books back;4 for I have done only a few of those which I shd. like to do; for it is very slow work, & our Schoolmaster has only his evenings to spare.— I have chosen Koch5 Webb. & B.6 Visiani7 Grisebach8 & Ledebour.9 This last will be a tough job; more especially as he gives splendid materials for working out range of big and small genera. As I have done Britain & France & U. States, I shall have worked round the N. Hemisphere.—
Hereafter I think I shall borrow 2 or 3 vols. of Decandolle’s Prodromus,10 as you suggested; & if possible a Flora of Holland;11 & then I think I shall have taken ample materials: as yet the results go as I like; & my tables will show some additional results,—as variability & commonness going together, often stated to be the case, but very strongly demonstrated by some of my tables.12
We have been lately taking a very extravagant step & are building a new dining room & bedroom over; & so are in the midst of brick & rubbish.—
My health has been very indifferent of late; & I have given up on compulsion going out anywhere.—
It is a strange thing, & I am sure you will sympathise with us, that for the last ten days our darling little fellow Lenny’s health has failed, exactly as three of our children’s have before, namely with extremely irregular & feeble pulse; but he is so much better today that I cannot help having hopes that, unlike the former cases, it may be something temporary. But it makes life very bitter.—13
I hope you enjoyed Manchester & are all the stronger for your trip.— You never or seldom tell me what you are working at, which I always very much like to hear; but I daresay the reason is that I ask such lots of questions & you have so little time to spare.— How I wish you were as idle or rather as busy a man with free will to do what you like, as I am.—
Farewell my dear Hooker | Ever yours | C. Darwin
Though I work every day, my last two Chapters of rough M.S. have taken me exactly six months!14 Pleasant prospect!
Footnotes
Bibliography
Browne, Janet. 1980. Darwin’s botanical arithmetic and the ‘principle of divergence’, 1854–1858. Journal of the History of Biology 13: 53–89.
Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de and Candolle, Alphonse de. 1824–73. Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis, sive enumeratio contracta ordinum generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarum, juxta methodi naturalis normas digesta. 19 vols. Paris: Treuttel & Würtz [and others].
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Grisebach, August Heinrich Rudolph. 1843–4. Spicilegium florae Rumelicae et Bithynicae exhibens synopsin plantarum quas aest. 1839 legit. 2 vols. Brunswick: F. Vieweg.
Koch, Wilhelm Daniel Joseph. 1843–4. Synopsis florae Germanicae et Helveticae, exhibens stirpes phanerogamas rite cognitas, praemissa generum dispositione secundum classes et ordines systematis Linnaeani conscripta. 2d edition. 2 vols. Frankfurt: Fridericus Wilmans. Leipzig: Gebhardt & Reisland.
Ledebour, Karl Friedrich von. 1842–53. Flora Rossica sive enumeratio plantarum in totius imperii Rossici provinciis Europaeis, Asiaticis et Americanis hucusque observatarum. 4 vols. Stuttgart. [Vols. 6,7]
Miquel, Frederich Anton Wilhelm. 1837. Disquisitio geographicobotanica de plantarum Regni Batavi distributione. Leiden. [Vols. 6,7]
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Visiani, Roberto de. 1842–52. Flora Dalmatica, sive enumeratio stirpium vascularium quas hactenus in Dalmatia lectas et sibi observatas descripsit digessit rariorumque iconibus illustravit. 3 vols. Leipzig.
Summary
C. F. Ledebour [Flora rossica (1842–53)] particularly useful for variety tabulation. Results generally favourable.
Additions to Down House.
Last two chapters of MS took six months to write.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2148
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 114: 210
- Physical description
- ALS 8pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2148,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2148.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6
