Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   29 July 1868

Royal Gardens Kew

July 29/68

Dear Old Darwin:

A thousand thanks for your letter   it is exactly, what I wanted, & more too.1

Baby had a terrible time of it, we quite gave it up after I wrote to you but it rallied & though now far from well, is I hope out of danger.2

It did indeed make the Address repulsive, but on the other hand it drove me to it & made me work,—you know the horrid way a man who has his work at home, loafs about the house when a child is ill—3

I have just concluded the rough sketch of what I shall say (if not hissed down)—for by George I would hiss any body who would eruct such stuff as I have written under any other circumstances than a Presidential martyrdom.

You say infants do not suffer much, & I quite believe it—& I suppose our sorrow is the loss of pets—that look so pretty, are so helpless, & promise us so much future happyness (& do not perform it.?) My wife is fonder by far of this child than any previous one, as she has been progressively of each.4

I have got Richards (Hydrog) to take Geog. § at Norwich,5 a quiet man & I was so anxious to get such for that section   I have lots more to say but will keep it till we meet on 8th.?

Ever Yr affec | J D Hooker

2
Hooker wrote of Grace Ellen Hooker’s illness in his letter of 25 July 1868.
3
Hooker was preparing his presidential address for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in August (Hooker 1868).
4
Grace was Frances Harriet Hooker’s seventh child (Allan 1967, Hooker pedigree).
5
The president of the geographical and ethnological sciences sections at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich in 1868 was George Henry Richards, the hydrographer to the Royal Navy (Report of the 38th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, p. xxxii).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6296,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6296