WCP5330

Letter (WCP5330.5874)

[[1]]

Down Bromley Kent

March 14th/[18]62

My dear Hooker

Thanks for your letter:1 I agree with much of what you say about the amiable reciprocal feelings of nations; but Emma2 agrees with your last sentence that you wrote in a Mephistophelean spirit.3 I think you are a bit too hard on Asa Gray;4 but he evidently tried to be as severe as he civilly could. I knew he was quite wrong about your indifference.5 —

Thanks, also, for Photograph,6 who about a fortnight ago we were wishing for; but it does not give your expression & so by no means does you justice. —

What a capital letter7 of Bates':8 he is [2] evidently a true thinker; it has made me very curious to see your letter;9 if it contains nothing personal relating to Bates or yourself, might I see it? If so, & you are writing, would you ask him to send it; or I would write; but I thought he might feel scruples without your permission in sending it.

The point which you have been discussing is most difficult: I always come, after doubt, to your side. There is one pretty clear line of distinction; — when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate &c. — but when a single [3] point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may that have arisen. I have found the study of orchids eminently useful in showing me how nearly all parts of the flower are coadapted for fertilisation by insects, & therefore the result of n[atural]. selection, — even most trifling details of structure. I have just, by the way, been studying Mormodes ignea10 —; it is a prodigy of adaptation; but I had to examine 12 flowers in all sorts of ways, before I made out its mechanism.

I should like to read Oliver's11 paper,12 but I am so hard-worked with proofs &c., that I must give it up, till it appears in print. —

[4] It is real good news that you will try & come here in Easter; Emma desires to join me in hoping that Mrs. Hooker13 will come also; I fear we cannot take in your children,14 as all our Boys,15 & perhaps others, will be at home.

I am pleased to hear that you like Lubbock16 & Mrs. L.;17 he is a real good fellow & she is a charmer. —

Farewell, my dear old fellow | Yours afffect[ional]ly. — | C. Darwin [signature]

Wallace will be home in a month or two.18 —

Do not forget Lythrum, Saxifrages &c. Avoid Saxifrages with flexuous or woolly hair; but choose a plant with longest straight hairs.

1
Hooker to Darwin, [10 March 1862], in Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1997. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 104-109].
2
Darwin, Emma (née Wedgwood) (1808-1896). Wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin.
3
Relating to or resembling Mephistopheles; demonic in appearance or nature; fiendish (OED).
4
In a letter to Darwin dated 18 February 1862, Gray shared thoughts regarding relations between the North of the United States (then in Civil War) and England (in Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1997. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 86-88].
5
Gray, Asa (1810-1888). American botanist.
6
According to the Darwin Correspondence Project, Hooker had enclosed a photograph of himself in a previous letter to Darwin, and Hooker would reply to this letter: 'As regards my photograph, I believe I have very little expression I have often remarked that I am not recognized except by those who know me tolerably well; that I have often to introduce myself-added to which all my photographs & portraits make me look either silly or stupid or affected- artists find nothing salient, nothing to idealize upon- Poor Richmond who generally knocks off his chalk heads in 2 sittings gave me 8 I think & grumbled all the time, & has turned me out a very lackadaisaical young gentleman' (see letters from Hooker to Darwin, [10 March 1862] and 17 March 1862 in Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1997. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 104-109 and 119-122].
7
A letter from Henry Walter Bates to Hooker dated 5 March [1862] was enclosed with Hooker’s letter (see n. 1).
8
Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892). British naturalist, explorer and close friend of ARW.
9
Hooker enclosed his letter to Bates dated 2 February [1862] with his letter to Darwin dated [23 March 1862], in Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1997. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 126-131].
10
A species of orchid.
11
Oliver, Daniel (1830-1916). British botanist, Librarian of the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1860-90 and Professor of Botany at University College London, 1861-88
12
Oliver, D. 1862. The Atlantis Hypothesis in its botanical aspect. Natural History Review, 2(6): 149-170.
13
Hooker (née Henslow), Frances Harriet (1825-1874). British botanist, translator and first wife of J. D. Hooker.
14
By this time Joseph and Frances Hooker had five children: William Henslow Hooker (1853-1942), Harriet Anne Hooker (1854-1945), Charles Paget Hooker (1855-1933), Maria Elizabeth Hooker (1857-1863), and Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker (1860-1932).
15
Charles and Emma Darwin’s sons were: William Erasmus Darwin (1839-1914), George Howard Darwin (1845-1912), Francis Darwin (1848-1925), Leonard Darwin (1850-1943), and Horace Darwin (1851-1928).
16
Lubbock, John (1834-1913). British banker and polymath.
17
Lubbock (nee Horden), Ellen Francis (1835-1879). Daughter of a clergyman and first wife of John Lubbock (1856-1879).
18
Wallace would return to England from eight years of travelling and collecting in the Malay Archipelago in March 1862.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP5330.5874)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Darwin Correspondence Project [2015-06-11] Transcription checked by Barton, Michael [2019-12-20]

Please cite as “WCP5330,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5330