My dear old Darwin

It is long since I have written to you, but I heard of you from your brother the other night, at the Athenæum.¹ My Father² has been laid up for nearly 3 weeks, which has kept me unusually busy. he is better & about the house now.

You ask about H Spencers works, I cannot appreciate them so highly as Huxley,³ they are too purely speculative for me. I wonder at & worship the man’s astonishing power of assimilation & incomparable fluidity of diction: he seems to have the whole English language in his inkstand; added to which, he is a sort of imaginative Carpenter—⁴ What I dislike most is the assumption of finality he claims, for all his speculations: or rather his treating all his speculative conclusions as realized facts. I cannot think him deep, but very ingenious, & very voluble. He sends me sundry chapters to revise & I have cut up some,—⁵ (The Botany in Number 10, this moment arrived, is all new to me however)—⁶ His chapters on variation interest me a good deal—⁷ I totally dispute his reasoning regarding induced modifications being transmitted, & think them weak & inconclusive—without however denying the fact of such heredity.—⁸ The man is I think often out of his depth. I believe he is very poor & makes his bread by these books.⁹

Of Mrs Bootts family I know nothing beyond that her name was Hardcastle of Derby—¹⁰ I think I have heard her talk as if there was a connection between her family & yours—certainly an intimacy.¹¹

I am busy at N.Z. Handbook¹²   Hector sent me a fine Otago Mountain collection, still wanting the most conspicuous Auckland & Campbells Island plants, a strange fact.¹³

Can you at all account for Westcoasts in both N. & S. temp zones being so Archipelagic or cut into very deep bays. I suppose action of waves had much to do with it, & perhaps wind blowing particles to leeward through all time!

I have not seen Lubbock¹⁴ for months. I shall go to Phil: Club this coming week.¹⁵ I saw Falconer¹⁶ looking very happy. Horner is laid up with influenza I hear: they talk of Florence in Spring,¹⁷ & I of Algeria, if I can, in April, but the Lord only knows.¹⁸

I want very much to run down one forenoon & see you, but I dread putting you out, as any visitor must: it seems so very long since I have seen you.¹⁹ I have your D^r. Darwin to return—²⁰

Huxley grows fat!. & is awfully well— he dines out never:—won’t even come here—the savage.

I took the children to Franconi’s the other day—²¹ the clowns were marvellous— one fellow could be as rigid as a board, & be knocked about like a stone statue one minute, & the next double himself like I don’t know what, with his feet over his shoulders & head in his crotch— I should like to know the physical history of their people, & see one dissected— they can have no, or very short, processes to the vertebræ— the odd thing is their combined prodigious strength & elasticity²²

What are we to do about Denmark; they say the subject is taboo at the Palace²³   I hope it may get the Italians the opportunity of striking for Venetia.²⁴

My Jesuit cousin Gifford²⁵ has returned from Arabia, which he has traversed—travelling as a Hakeem—of Damascus.— he returns first to upper Egypt & then takes up his abode in the interior of Oman. I think he has a notion of being a prophet.— He says the Arabs of Arabia are not Mahomedans but sun & fire worshippers.— he has made no observations of the smallest scientific value. Napoleon²⁶ pays his expences, which are small, & he is going to publish in Belgium.²⁷

Have you read Speke, I have not   I assume it is bad.²⁸ I am very anxious to get Woolner down to take a clay model of your bust,²⁹ for myself, as you kindly promised I might; & look to Mrs Darwin to let me know when— he shall cut it in marble at his leisure for me.— such heaps of people want to know what you are like—& the photographs are not pleasing—

When you write tell me how your children are & what doing.

Ever yours affec | J D Hooker