Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   [2 March 1877]1

Kew

Friday Mg

(To be returned)

Dear old Darwin,

I cannot tell you with what pride & satisfaction I heard Frank deliver his communication last night.—2 He spoke slowly, clearly, & at ease, & was perfectly heard & understood—by all but Huxley!—3 I suppose that “Homer nodded”4 for he understood Frank to say that the filaments had no motion except under stimulus, whereas nothing could be clearer, fuller or more explicit than Frank’s description of the various spontaneous movements. I could not help wishing that Mrs Darwin had been there to see her son’s debût before the R.S.

Tell Frank that Mr Huxley had been up all the previous night, having travelled from Edinburgh by night train,—that he had sat with me at the R.S. Govt. Grant Committee5 from 3 till 612—& that I suspect he slept through a good part of the paper! It must have been rather droll for the Fellows to hear me first liken the motion to Amœba & the protoplasmic masses of the Myxomycetes;6 & then to hear Huxley get up & point out the difference between Dipsacoid & Amoeboid substance to consist in the former not having spontaneous motion!!!

Ever yr affec | J D Hooker

I hope you have received Moseleys Photographs &c which he asked me to send on to you7

1
The date is established by the reference to Francis Darwin’s reading of his teasel paper (see n. 2, below).
2
Francis read his paper ‘On the protrusion of protoplasmic filaments from the glandular hairs of the common teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris)’ (F. Darwin 1877a) at the Royal Society of London on 1 March 1877.
4
Homer nods: even the best, or cleverest, of people have lapses (Oxford dictionary of English idioms).
5
The Royal Society Government Grant Committee had been set up in 1850 to administer applications for funds given to the society by the British Government (see MacLeod 1971).
6
Myxomycetes are plasmodial slime moulds, which have a phase that displays amoeboid movement.
7
The photographs from Henry Nottidge Moseley have not been identified; they probably related to the HMS Challenger expedition or to facial expression, as Moseley had sent CD a photograph and books relating to these topics in November 1876 (see Correspondence vol. 24, letters from H. N. Moseley, 3 November 1876 and [after 17 November 1876]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10873,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10873