WCP5335

Letter (WCP5335.5880)

[[1]]

Down Bromley Kent

121

My dear Hooker

I have enjoyed your note2 full of news. — Will you tell me name of Legum[inosae]. plant which has set pods. — I presume it never did so before? — I wish the flowers had only been moved. — At request of a Gardener I am drawing up an account of apparent crossing of Kidney Beans & intended giving all the results of covering up Leguminosae: so I sh[oul]d. particularly like, [2] to give your case, in Gardeners Chronicle as showing some practical good of result.3

I have sent 8 copies4 by post to Wallace, & will keep the others for him, for I could not think of anyone to send any too. —

I pray you not to prenounce too strongly against Nat[ural]. Selection, till you have read my abstract, for though I [3] daresay you will strike out many difficulties, which have never occurred to me; yet you cannot have thought so fully on subject, as I have. — I expect my abstract will run into a small volume, which will have to be published separately.5

Your statement about F. Palgrave6 will be deeply interesting to some of [4] Ladies, who are gone fairly crazy about the P. Pilgrim.7 —

What a splendid lot of work you have in hand. —

Ever yours | C. Darwin [signature]

Pray give our kindest remembrances to Mrs Hooker8

1
Written in an unidentified hand is "Oct[ober]/[18]58".
2
In his previous letter to Hooker from 6 October [1858], Darwin had asked: 'If you have or can make leisure, I sh[oul]d very much like to hear news of Mrs Hooker, yourself & children. Where did you go & what did you do & are doing?' (Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1992. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 164-166]). Hooker’s reply is missing.
3
Darwin, C. 1858. On the agency of bees in the fertilisation of papilionaceous flowers, and on the crossing of kidney beans. Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette. 13 November 1858: 828-828. This also appears as a letter in Burkhardt, F., et al. (Eds). 1992. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [pp. 189-196]). Darwin did not end up referring to Hooker's work in this letter.
4
Offprints of Darwin, C. & Wallace, A. 1858. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural means of Selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Zoology). 3(9): 45-62.
5
This would become On the Origin of Species (1859).
6
Palgrave, Francis Turner (1824-1897). British critic and poet.
7
Palgrave, F. T. 1858. The Passionate Pilgrim, or Eros and Anteros. London: Chapman and Hall.
8

Hooker (née Henslow), Frances Harriet (1825-1874). British botanist, translator and first wife of J. D. Hooker.

This transcript is based on that produced by The Darwin Correspondence Project (http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/): see

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2339

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP5335.5880)]

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 “WCP5335,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5335