From J. D. Hooker 22 December 1881
Royal Gardens Kew
Dec 22/81.
My dear Darwin
I have instructed Mr Daydon Jackson accordingly; & can only again on the part of Botanists present & future, thank you heartily for your munificent contribution to the Science.1
We go to Pendock for 10 days tomorrow.2
I hunted up Kirke White’s poems, for the gruesome ballad of which I spoke;— there it is, sure enough, called Gondoline; it haunted me as a child, & I have not read it since. I think still it is the most ghastly thing in the language.3
Ever aff yrs | Jos. D. Hooker.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Index Kewensis: Index Kewensis: plantarum phanerogamarum, nomina et synonyma omnium generum et specierum … nomine recepto auctore patria unicuique plantae subjectis. 4 vols., and 20 supplements. Compiled by Benjamin Daydon Jackson, et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 1893–1996.
Southey, Robert, ed. 1807. The remains of Henry Kirke White. 2 vols. London: Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe. Cambridge: J. Dighton, T. Barret, and J. Nicholson.
Summary
Thanks CD for his endowment of new Steudel’s Nomenclator [later to become Index Kewensis].
K. White’s gruesome ballad "Gondoline" frightened JDH as a child.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13577
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 104: 172
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13577,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13577.xml