Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   4 July 1876

Heathfield

July 4/76

We return to Kew today

Dear Darwin

You are good to offer to send a few lines to Lady Jardine— it will gratify her & me very much indeed; she is at her fathers, Pendock Rectory Tewksbury.1

Mrs Lyell who knows her better than any one & my sister in law Mrs Barnard write as kindly & speak as highly of her as is possible.2 We shall marry at end of August & go to Glasgow Association, taking Harriet with us.3

I should have congratulated you on Franks investigation of Dipsacus; I hear that he has seen Dyer about it—,4 I hope the latter will not discourage him as he is a sad croak. though a thoroughly good fellow.

I am pressed for a new Edition of Students Flora, & of Primer, of which upwards of 16000 are off— the Teachers all like the latter.5 If by any chance Frank has notes & errors on anything in either I hope he will send them to me.

Harriet & I have been two days with the Claud Hamiltons. They seem remarkably nice kind people quite unaffected & genuine. Tyndall is in the 7th. Heaven amongst them.6

Pray thank Mrs Darwin warmly for her letter.7 I feel my responsibility so deeply that such letters are most comforting.

Ever yrs aff | J D Hooker

1
No letter has been found in which CD offered to write to Hyacinth Jardine. Jardine’s father was William Samuel Symonds.
3
Hooker and Jardine were married on 22 August 1876 (ODNB); the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its annual meeting at Glasgow from 6 to 13 September 1876. Harriet Anne Hooker was Hooker’s daughter.
4
See letter to J. D. Hooker, 21 June [1876]. Francis Darwin had been studying the glands lining the cups of Dipsacus sylvestris (a synonym of D. fullonum, common teasel) and noted that they emitted protoplasmic filaments that appeared to catch solid particles of decaying insects. William Turner Thiselton-Dyer.
5
The second edition of The student’s flora of the British Islands was published in June 1878 (Hooker 1878; Publishers’ circular, 2 July 1878, p. 462). Botany (Hooker 1876a), which was in the ‘Science primers’ series of Macmillan and Co., had been published in March 1876 (Publishers’ circular, 16 March 1876, p. 218); two further editions appeared in 1876, after which it was reprinted several times.
6
John Tyndall had recently married Louisa Charlotte, the daughter of Claude and Elizabeth Emma Hamilton.
7
Emma Darwin’s letter to Hooker has not been found.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10556,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10556