To J. D. Hooker   [18 July 1858]

My dear Hooker

Will you read & tear up M^rs Carmichael’s note,¹ & if you can recommend a simple book on Tropical American Botany, will you do so; but I suppose certainly there is none such. W^d. Lindleys Vegetable Kingdom do?² Will you write six words & put it in enclosed envelope & post it.—

We are settled here for 10 days & then go on for another fortnight to Norfolk House Shanklin, about 3 miles from this place & much prettier I hope to be home about the 3^d of next month.

We are too old & feeble a party for anywhere but home,—at least that is my private opinion; but I hope it may do Etty & Lenny good.

Half a dozen words on scrap of paper would suffice for answer.

My dear Hooker | Yours most sincerely | C. Darwin