From J. D. Hooker 28 June 1862
Royal Gardens Kew
June 28/62
My dear Darwin
I am distressed indeed to hear of your suffering. & can only hope it may be transient, & long of returning.1
Berkeley was author of the London Review article, I thought it very well done indeed.2 I have read a good deal of the Orchid book & echoe all he says: you are out of sight the best Physiological observer & experimenter that Botany ever saw. & I do sometimes feel most confoundedly humiliated when I think how much I missed when doing the Listera— But for your loving praise of that paper I should wish it withdrawn—3 you do warm the cockles of one’s heart.
I am still in perplexity— We have found no cook yet at all to suit us & I have determined to send the children to Worthing with the Governess, who seems a capital person,4 & if possible take my wife to Switzerland for a fortnight— She seems to go down hill steadily, & complains of shortness of breathing & palpitation of heart— Whether it is all weakness (as the Doctors say) or symptoms of the affliction her father died of, God only knows, & I dare not ask myself—5 I must get her away but my Father is again laid up with Eczema on the legs,6 & I do not see how I am to go.
Switzerland is the only place she has the smallest fancy for, I talk of going next Friday or Saturday & joining Lubbock,7 but I never felt less disposed or able to go anywhere than now, when Gen. Plant. Part. I—is all but, but not quite, through the press & I must leave it at the last sheets—8 I wish I knew of any one with whom I could send my wife.
More plants from Fernando Po & more Europæans!9 Sibthorpia Europæa, Bromus giganteus, & Myosotis arvensis, or one of its vars (stricta of authors)
My Jury work is over, & I am comparatively free.10
Ever yours affec | Jos D Hooker
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
[Berkeley, Miles Joseph.] 1862. Fertilization of orchids. London Review and Weekly Journal of Politics, Arts and Sciences 4: 553–4.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Hutchinson, Horace Gordon. 1914. Life of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Reports by the juries: International Exhibition, 1862. Reports by the juries on the subjects in the thirty-six classes into which the exhibition was divided. London. 1863.
Stearn, William T. 1956. Bentham and Hooker’s Genera plantarum: its history and dates of publication. Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 3 (1953–60): 127–32.
Summary
M. J. Berkeley wrote London Review & Wkly J. Polit. article.
CD is "out of sight the best physiological observer and experimenter that Botany ever saw".
Laments how much he [JDH] missed when doing the Listera ["Functions and structure of the rostellum of Listera ovata", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 144 (1854): 259–64].
Illness of wife and father.
"More plants from Fernando Po and more European".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3624
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 101: 42–3
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3624,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3624.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10