To J. D. Hooker   [22 January 1860]1

Down. Bromley Kent

Sunday

My dear Hooker

What a splendid, magnificent letter from Asa Gray!2 I should out of pure vanity rather like to keep first sheet, so do not throw it away.—3 It is rich about Agassiz.

I mean to come to London on Tuesday evening for the vain purpose of consulting a new Doctor for my stomach;4 & for the Club on Thursday, where, if I can possibly, attend, I very much hope to see you.5 What a time it is since I have seen you my dear old friend, & such kind & generous sympathy you have shown me.—

God Bless you | Yours affect | C. Darwin

I tried to come up last Thursday to dine at Athenæum with you Naturalists, but failed.

I hope Lady Hooker goes on favourably.—6

Is there a cool-greenhouse Goodenia, so that I could get a plant & examine the process of impregnation?7

A capital clear article in todays Gardener Ch. I suppose by you.—8

Endorsement: ‘Jany 60’

1
Dated by the reference to CD’s intention to attend a meeting of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society (see n. 5, below) and to the review of Origin in the Gardeners’ Chronicle (see n. 8, below).
3
The first sheet of the letter is in DAR 98 (ser. 2): 20–1.
4
There is an entry dated 24 January 1860 in CD’s Account book (Down House MS) that records a payment to ‘Mr Headland & Physic’. Edward Headland was the leading general physician in London; his address in Portland Place is recorded in CD’s Address book (Down House MS).
5
CD refers to a meeting of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society held on 26 January 1860, at which he was present (Philosophical Club minutes, Royal Society).
7
CD feared that Goodenia presented a strong case against his doctrine that all organic beings occasionally cross. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire maintained that in Goodenia the pollen is ‘enclosed in a cup surrounding the stigma & is then hermetically sealed; so that here a cross would appear physically impossible.’ (Natural selection, pp. 63–4, 72).
8
‘Natural selection’, the continuation of Hooker’s anonymous review of Origin, appeared in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 21 January 1860, pp. 45–6.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 sheet] above del ‘note’
7.1 A capital … you.—-] pencil

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2672,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2672