Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   18 June 1881

Royal Gardens Kew

June 18/81.

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

1
Oxalis corniculata is creeping wood sorrel; Hooker had asked CD to send plants of this species in his letter of 12 June 1881.
2
See letter to J. D. Hooker, 15 June 1881. The Darwins were on holiday in the Lake District from 2 June to 5 July 1881 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
3
George Bentham had been a lawyer but gave it up to devote himself to botany in 1833 (ODNB).
4
Hooker was the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew; after the death in 1874 of his first wife, Frances Harriet Hooker, Hooker married Hyacinth Jardine, a widow, in 1876 and had a son with her in 1877, Joseph Symonds Hooker. Hooker had seven children with his first wife.
5
William Rathbone Greg died on 15 November 1881 (ODNB).
6
Hyacinth Hooker’s parents were Catharine Hyacinth and William Samuel Symonds. Hooker’s wife considered taking the younger Hooker children to Knockholt, Kent, for a holiday, but CD had advised against it (letter to J. D. Hooker, 15 June 1881).
7
George Rolleston was 51 when he died of kidney failure on 16 June 1881 (ODNB). His wife was Grace Rolleston; their eldest child was Humphry Davy Rolleston, who was nearly 19.
8
Hooker was president of the geography section of the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at York, 31 August to 7 September 1881 (for his address, see Hooker 1881).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13209,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13209