WCP5325

Letter (WCP5325.5869)

[1]1

DOWN,

BECKENHAM, KENT.

Dec[ember]. 5 1880

My dear Hooker

I thank you much for being willing to propose Frank;2 I had begun to doubt whether I had not been too impudent in asking such a veteran to propose him, & was a little vexed with myself. I do not see how your proposing him can interfere in the least with the higher claims of anyone else. — If you have not thrown away the list of Frank’s papers please return them; & then I will fill up a certificate & send it [to] you [2] for signature & afterwards get other signatures. But probably I shall not be able to do this for about 10 days, as on Tuesday morning we go to "6 Queen Anne S[tree]t"3until Saturday, whence for a few days to Leith Hill Place.4 I fear that there is no chance of our seeing you in London. Again thanking you warmly my dear Hooker

Ever yours| Ch. Darwin [signature]

[3]5

I did not attend to or care about the Haughton[?] controversy;6 it seemed chiefly about the range of a single or at most two species. —

I should have hugely enjoyed talking over with you Wallace’s book.7 —

[4]8

Can you give me seeds of Commelyna coelestis?9 [sic] I have applied to Thompson of Ipswich,10 & he has not any. —

1

The page is numbered 504 in pencil in the top RH corner.

2.

2
Darwin, Francis ("Frank") (1848-1925), botanist, third son and seventh child of Charles Darwin. Francis Darwin worked with his father on experiments dealing with plant movements, specifically phototropism. They co-authored Darwin, C. & Darwin F. (1880) The power of movement in plants London, John Murray. Charles Darwin had previously approached Hooker to propose his son for a Fellowship of the Royal Society (see WCP5300). He was elected on 8 June 1882, the same year in which his father died.
3
The London residence of Darwin’s brother, Erasmus Alvey Darwin.
4

The Surrey home of the English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was a great nephew of Charles Darwin. Vaughn Williams’ father Arthur married Margaret Wedgwood, sister of Darwin’s wife Emma.

6.

5
The page is numbered 505 in pencil in the top RH corner.
6
Possibly relates to Samuel Haughton (1821-1897) an Irish scientific writer, who studied Mathematics, Geology and Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. He was an early critic of ARW and Darwin’s joint paper read to the Linnean Society in 1858. The specific instance referred to here by Darwin is not identified.
7
Around the date of the letter ARW published a sequel to The Geographic Distribution of Animals: Wallace A. R. (1880) Island Life: Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras, Including a Revision and Attempted Solution of the Problem of Geological Climates. London, Macmillan & Co. (This is the only first edition by ARW published in 1880).
8
Text written sideways, in a column in the centre of the page.
9
Commelina is the largest genus of the family of flowering plants Commelinaceae, commonly called dayflowers due to the short lives of their flowers. C. coelestis has intense blue flowers.
10
Thompson & Morgan of Ipswich are plant and seed merchants. Their first catalogue was published in 1855.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP5325.5869)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP5325,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5325