My dear Hooker.

M^r S. Parrell is applying for place of assistant at Linn. Soc^y.— When he was assistant at Brit: Mus:, I always found him particularly obliging & handy in getting Books &c for me.— He has earnestly begged me to speak in his favour.— He lost his place at B. Mus: from Insolvency, which showed reckless extravagance.¹ But he tells me, & he says D^r. Gray² & others know, that the chief loss was from his becoming surety for another. He says that if no penitence for extravagance can ever redeem the fault there is no hope for a man, who has thus erred ever to arise again; & this seems true; so I have thought I would tell you what I know in his favour.— He is, I am told, nephew of Prof. Clark of Cambridge.—³

If you have or can make leisure, I sh^d very much like to hear news of M^rs Hooker, yourself & children. Where did you go & what did you do & are doing? there is a comprehensive text.—

You cannot tell how I enjoyed your little visit here. It did me much good. If Harvey is still with you, pray remember me very kindly to him.⁴ We are an unfortunate family; since you were here, Lizzie has failed with irregular pulse like no less than four of our children previously. But I trust her case is by no means bad, & Lenny has I think nearly got over it, only having had one attack these two months.⁵ What a strange form of inherited constitution this is; my accursed constitution showing itself under a new form.—

I am working most steadily at my Abstract; but it grows to an inordinate length; yet fully to make my view clear, (& never giving briefly more than a fact or two & slurring over difficulties) I cannot make it shorter. It will yet take me three or four months; so slow do I work, though never idle. You cannot imagine what a service you have done me in making me make this abstract; for though I thought I had got all clear, it has clarified my brains much, by making me weigh relative importance of the several elements.—

I have been reading with much interest your (as I believe it to be) capital memoir of R. Brown in G. Chronicle.⁶

Ever my dear Hooker | Yours most truly | C. Darwin

Do not some time forget about Australian species & genera ranging N. through Malay archipelago.—⁷ I got Borrows answer about Pointers in Spain, for which many thanks.—⁸

I had a note from Falconer not long ago: he seems to have established a grand point, viz than man existed in England before the Rein-Deer & therefore before, I presume, the close of glacial Epoch.—⁹