WCP5544

[1]¹

Cloverdale, Victoria V. I. Brit^h Columbia,

23^rd October 1870.

My dear Hooker

On the 23^rd August last year I wrote² you mentioning that by a M^r Grahame³ of the H[udson's]. B[ay]. C^o[mpany].⁴ I had sent you a prehistoric relic from Bentinck Arm N. W. A[?]. and asking you to let me have your photograph by Grahame’s return — I am not sure whether G[rahame]. notified you or not of the period of his leaving London[.] He acknowledges not having availed of your kind invitation for him to visit Kew⁵ —,

By the "Prince of Wales" one of the H[udson's]. B[ay].C^o[mpany]'s. ships which reached London, I think in July, I sent you six or seven stone implements in a small box properly addressed, and in addition, a cylindrical ^stone arrowhead broken near the point, found in a newly ploughed field at Cloverdale V[ancouver]. I[sland]. wrapped in paper and sent in the H[udson's]. B[ay].C^o[mpany]'s. packet box of accounts — I ought of course in a business like way, to have, simultaneously or soon after, written to acquaint of the shipment in order that on arrival of the packages, you might have had them seen after — I shall greatly regret their miscarriage should such have happened, as it will not be easy to obtain such another lot as were contained in the case[.] They were obtained at Masset Harbour N. W. E. end of Queen Charlotte’s Islands [Haida Gwaii] where the H[udson's]. B[ay].C^o[mpany]. having just established a small trading post, and the Massetts [sic] village having been seldom visited by⁶ [2] Whites for about forty years, a trove of such things presented — Half a century ago and earlier Masset Harbor [sic] was a great resort for the old and new England Traders who made the round of China with their furs before returning home — and in 1834 (summer) when I was Indian trader for the H[udson's]. B[ay].C^o[mpany]. at Fort Simpson, the Massets were the most cleanly and cilvilized looking of the Hydah [Haida] (or Q[ueen]. C[harlotte]. I[sland].) tribes that visited the post — Measles, small, and the other pox have since 1834 greatly reduced the numbers of the Hydahs, and all other tribes on this coast — On the 1^st June last, my active connexion with the Hudson’s Bay Co[mpany] ceased, so I have now more leisure for reading and writing — Still I am not going to inflict more on you than this half sheet will contain as I have heard lately from our ex Chief Justice⁷, now in the same position in Trinidad[,] that nothing so soon brings ^friendly correspondence to a close, as the penning of interminable epistles by either party. c’est a dire [French: that is to say], probably, unless there be some matter of great mutual interest anent which they correspondan [.]

I hope to learn from you in reply to this that your elder boy⁸ has returned from New Zealand with restored health — Tell me all you can about Hector⁹, and kindly let me have his address. I would also like to know how it has fared with Hewett Watson¹⁰ since you wrote me about him last year. Does he still live at Thames-Ditton? and what subjects does he write about? or has he written about since 1842, when he abandoned Phrenology¹¹, if note [sic] cognate subjects, after quarrelling all round with the examiners of cranial protuberances in Edin[burg]^h. and London — Watson must now be some years on the wrong? side of sixty. —

Had there been no matter of business for me to have addressed you ^about, on account of the correspondence that has already passed between us, I would have felt it incumbent on me, not withstanding your prolonged silence to have written you once more to let you know that for nearly a year past, I have been an inquirer into the truth of Modern Spiritualism[,] have read a good deal on the subject[,] conversed and corresponded with a few genuine men and women, and have heard lectures from one man having as I opine, a good dash of the quack in him. The result has been that I am a believer in the cardinal fact of intercommunion between spirits in and out of the flesh[.] I have even gone so far as to reply in a newspaper letter¹² over my own signature to a pamphlet¹³ published here against Spiritualism by an old acquaintance of yours the Rev^d Edward Cridge¹⁴ — In the course of my reading it has come to my knowledge that one who is probably a great friend of your own Alfred R[ussel]. [3] Wallace exploring naturalist on the Amazon and in the Malay Archipelago is an avowed Spritualist[.] In a book Planchette or the despair of Science, Roberts Bro[ther]^s Boston U. S. 1869¹⁵, which I strongly recommend to your perusal, is a twenty line quotation from your address¹⁶ of [18]'68, regarding Wallace as Darwin’s¹⁷ true Knight &c¹⁸. If unfamiliar with the writing of the better class of Spiritualist you will be surprised on looking into Planchette at the ability and grasp of thought pervading some of the extracts from lectures, or essays given in the work the cost of which in London may be from 6/- to 8/- ¹⁹[.] Very likely M^r Wallace who I would suppose resides in London has it in his library — The author, Epes Sargent²⁰, says in his preface "An accumulation of facts, supported by the most respectable contemporaneous testimony, is presented in this book, such as no free sincere intelligence can dismiss with contumely or flippant unconcerns"²¹. To further induce you to look at the book, now before me, know that from Pp 304 to 12 is given an abbreviation of a lecture by Selden J. Finney²² now I learn a farmer at Santa Cruz California, in which it is claimed that the partial truths contained in the idealism of Berkeley²³, the pantheism of Spinoza²⁴, the subjective idealism of Spencer²⁵, Hamilton²⁶ and Mansel²⁷ are emancipated and revives[?] in the spiritual philosophy. In the same, H[erber]^t Spencer’s speculations on the "unknowable" are also stoutly and ably combated.

I have been to séances. They are surprising phenomena.

Do any think that Prof^r Huxley²⁸ in the selection of the subject for the B[ritish]. A[ssociation]. Address for 1870²⁹ has been too discreet? On his appointment last year remember the dread expressed that he would be indiscreet —

Will you be good enough to give me some account of M^r A. R. Wallace, in whom I take a great interest. If a M^r H. L. Jones³⁰ calls at Kew for your photo[graph][?] for me please give it to him he is somewhat of a botanist — He will produce one of³¹[my] cards (M^r W. F. Tolmie).

Believe me | My dear Hooker | Very truly Yours | W. F. Tolmie [signature]

P. S. Kindly put a penny stamp on the enclosed and have posted —

The way is open now for unanimity between Science and Religion, which as represented in Sectarianism has had and has still to be disintegrated by the advance of Knowledge. Reconciliation between the two is hardly the proper term — T[olmie].