Dear Darwin.

Common as you may regard Oxalis corniculata, it was not that I intended to ask for, but a commoner, the wood-sorrel!—O. Acetosella.¹ I had no idea you were away from home— I fear I have bothered you in vain by stupidly asking for the wrong plant (it has not come yet)— however I cannot regret having got so long a letter from you, & with something of yourself in it too.²

I quite understand your misery at finding yourself where you have “all play” offered you, & no work to fall back upon!— I should be as bad; but then I know not the condition.— When I go away I have work that I can always take with me, official & other: & my misery is the lots accumulating at home. I cannot tell you how I long to throw off the trammels of official life & do like Bentham:³ it is horrid at 63 after 42 years of Public Service too, to have to work on a pot-boiler over & above official hours.— but then it is my own fault.— a man who marries & has a family late in life must pay for it.⁴

I hear that, Greg is dying.⁵ Mr & Mrs Symonds (my wifes parents) are here, & insist on the children going to them in the holidays so that we shall not want a summer quarters at Knockholt or elsewhere⁶

So poor Rolleston is dead!. His wife is I hear suffering from acute mania, but some at any rate of her medical attendants regard it as temporary— they have 7 children, & the eldest only 17.⁷ We have lost no end of friends this year, & it is difficult to resist the pessimistic view of creation— when I look back however, & especially my beloved friend to the days I have spent in intercourse with you & your’s, that view takes wings to itself & flies away: it is a horrid world to be sure, but it could have been worse.

I am sore exercised about my address for York:—of which I fear you will hear more than you will care for during incubation.⁸

Ever aff yrs | J D Hooker