Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   29 August 1881

Royal Gardens Kew

Aug 29/81.

My dear Darwin

I have just seen the announcement of your brother’s death & must send you a few words of heartfelt sympathy.1 I have somehow come to think those the happiest, who, like myself, lost an only brother when very young—2 it seems now as if they could then be best spared,—a blunder no doubt—but we know better what we lose after we having lived so long together, as you & your brother have.

It was in your brother’s house, near Park Lane, that I first became acquainted with you—& shall never forget his kind face & kinder welcome. That was nearly 40 years ago!— I well remember thinking him then quite an elderly man, & yet I see he was then under 40.3

Ever my dear Darwin | Affly yrs | Jos D Hooker

1
Erasmus Alvey Darwin died on 26 August 1881 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). A notice appeared in The Times, 29 August 1881, p. 1.
2
Hooker’s only brother, William Dawson Hooker, had died at the age of 24.
3
The meeting was probably in 1844; Erasmus would have been 39. Erasmus had lived at 7 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, London (see Correspondence vol. 5, letter to E. A. Darwin, 19 April 1851 and n. 1), but the exact dates of his residence there are unclear. CD mentioned meeting Hooker at Park Street in his letter to Hooker of [29 July 1865] (Correspondence vol. 13).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13302,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13302