To J. D. Hooker   30 March [1875]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

March 30th

My dear Hooker

I write solely for the sake of congratulating myself, for I have at last finished correcting M.S. of Insectivorous Plants & recorrecting Climbing Plants.2 This has taken me exactly 3 months! Mere correction! It has been an awful grind, & has almost done me up. It is lucky for authors in general that they do not require such dreadful work, in merely licking what they write into shape. Ill-luck to it my M.S. makes a very big bundle, which I take up tomorrow to Murray & then for the tiresome job of correcting the press.3 I have, also, to congratulate myself that Mr. Ouliss finished my picture yesterday & means to send it to the Academy.4 I look a very venerable, acute melancholy old dog,— whether I really look so I do not know.— We go to 6. Queen Anne St. tomorrow & shall be there for about 6 days, & then perhaps shall go for few days to Henrietta at 2 Bryanston St.—5 I fear there is no chance of your being in London, & wanting Luncheon; but if the fates are propitious do come. I see by your last note that you will be off on the 15th & I am very very glad of it.6 Now do not travel too quickly or exert yourself in any way too much; try & get some rest. I shd. think the private note from Disraeli must make Dyer’s appointment certain.—7 I hope that “Primer” makes some progress.—8

Farewell | dear old friend | Yours affect. | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to Insectivorous plants (see n. 2, below).
2
CD recorded that he finished working on the manuscript of Insectivorous plants and recorrecting Climbing plants on 29 March 1875 (see ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
3
CD went to London on 31 March 1875; he received proof-sheets of Insectivorous plants on 18 April 1875 (letter to J. V. Carus, 19 April [1875]).
4
Walter William Ouless exhibited his portrait of CD at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1875. The portrait remained in the family until the mid twentieth century; it is now in Darwin College, Cambridge (J. Browne 2009, pp. 552–3; see frontispiece).
5
CD and Emma Darwin stayed at the home of Erasmus Alvey Darwin from 31 March to 6 April 1875, and then at the home of their daughter Henrietta Emma Litchfield; they returned to Down on 12 April 1875 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR242)).
6
See letter from J. D. Hooker, 17 March 1875 and n. 2. Hooker was planning to join two of his children in Algiers.
7
Hooker had received a letter from the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, asking whether William Turner Thiselton-Dyer was the person Hooker would recommend for the post of assistant at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 17 March 1875 and n. 7).
8
Hooker was writing Botany (Hooker 1876) for Macmillan and Co.’s ‘Science primers’ series.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Kent.] before del ‘Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’
1.4 authors] after del ‘the’
 1.10 for] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9905,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9905